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Exactly two years ago, in August 2022, Sri Lanka’s President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa and 2 security guards fled the country hours before he was slated to resign. His first stop was the Maldives. The Rajapaksa family left behind waves of street protestsand a gutted President’s residence.
The same parallels have played out in Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina, who ran what we all thought was a stable regime, has fallen to weeks of intense student protests, and has fled to India. What’s shocked political observers is the suddenness and the intensity of the uprising. What started as an anti-reservation agitation against quotas in government jobs for so-called freedom fighters, snowballed into an ‘Oust Hasina’ campaign.
For India, there is genuine concern as the country’s large 8% Hindu minority faces a backlash. The contours of the new interim government – with Begum Khalida of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and Jamaat-e-Islami elements – has a decidedly anti-India ring. ‘India Out’, a popular slogan of the agitators, has a Maldives echo, where the pro-China President Mohamed Muizzu has asked India’s small army contingent to leave. What does long-time ally Sheikh Hasina’s ouster spell for India? In recent months, there have been a series of regime changes among our neighbours not favourable to India. Ourcredibility as a reliable ally is being questioned. What has gone wrong?
Anti-India ring
Sheikh Hasina started her third term in office in January this year after an election that was seen to be neither free nor fair. While many Western countries questioned her re-election and called for restoration of democracy, India chose to remain silent. This created considerable resentment against India.
In the recent months and weeks, Hasina has come to be hated for her repressive measures and for the over 300 students killed; and India is seen as a collaborator. Besides the anti-India slogans, there has been months of a social media campaign to boycott Indian goods.
The significance of Bangladesh can’t be overstated. India has a 4,000 km boundary with her eastern neighbour and a significant trade of nearly $13 billion a year in two wheelers, medical services and tourism. Trade figures don’t reflect it, but Bangladesh is India’s largest manpower provider.India’s bottom-of-the-pyramid jobs are performed by immigrants, many of whom cross over illegally.
In turn, India’s security establishment has been heavily reliant on Sheikh Hasina’s government to keep radical Islamist groups in Bangladesh in check, and crackdown on armed rebels operating from Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts.
India has now provided asylum to Hasina, a move not likely to go down well with the new Interim Government in Dhaka. In the coming days, she will be charged with corruption, and for repression; and there will be calls for her extradition, a potential source for further friction.
Instead of reading the writing on the wall, our media is full of speculation blaming the ouster of Sheikh Hasina on everything from Pakistan’s ISI to China’s machinations. Whatever may be the truth, we cannot deny she was ousted by a popular revolt; and the sooner the Indian government realizes it, the better.
Big Brother
In the case of Nepal, one would have thought its symbiotic relationship with India based on a 1,800-km open border, and a common culture would have stumped detractors. However, over the years, India’s influence in Kathmandu has been declining.
Political commentors mince no words at pointing to India’s Big Brother attitude. The enforcement of trade blockades in 1975, 1989 and as recent as 2015, has stoked strong anti-India resentment. In 2015, the blockade was imposed soon after a devastating earthquake, which forced Nepal into a trade and transit pact with China.
In more recent months, India’s traditional Nepali allies – the Monarchist party and the Nepali Congress – have faced dwindling support; while the left wing, which prefers stronger ties with China, has gained ascendance. Nepal’s Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda”, recently broke his alliance with the Nepali Congress in early March, and has opted to partner with the more extreme pro-China leader, Krishna Prasad Sharma Oli.
There has been a similar playout in respect of Sri Lanka. Just before the Lok Sabha polls in April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked the Congress for giving away a small uninhabited island in the Palk Straits, Katchatheevu, to Sri Lanka in 1974. Though there is a history of disputed ownership, India had ceded the island to improve relations with Sri Lanka.
It was an election ploy, but when the issue was raked up by the BJP government 5 decades later, Sri Lankans are asking if India could be trusted to adhere to agreements signed with earlier governments.
The lack of vision is obvious. China has made considerable headway over the last 15-20 years with Sri Lanka, building and financing infra projects like the Hambantota port and the Colombo-Galle expressway. Following the ouster of the Rajapaksa brothers in 2022, India bridged the gap with grants and medical aid. But then came Katchatheevu!
Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives. And now Bangladesh. It’s a long list of diplomatic failures. Because of her sheer size and clout, India generates a natural fear among her smaller neighbours. India thus has to tread cautiously. Trust and mutual benefit is the bedrock of nations allying with one another, something which India’s regional diplomacy seems to have missed out on.