Almost every time India faces any uncomfortable situation in Bangladesh, New Delhi’s present and former foreign policy practitioners come up with statements that alarm Bangladeshis conscious of their independence, sovereignty, and national interests.
The latest case in point is the comment made by India’s ex-foreign secretary and high commissioner to Bangladesh Harsh Vardhan Shrinhla recently.
Now a member of the upper house of Indian parliament Rajya Sabha, he said: “When it comes to countries with whom we share borders there is no such thing as purely internal affairs.” He expressed his views speaking at a discussion on “Are we Prepared for the Bangladesh Elections?” at the India International Centre on September 11.
A pertinent question arises as to whether Mr Shringla forgets or disregards diplomatic norms and principles of international laws or reflects on wholesale insensitivity towards the domestic affairs of another country.
Election in Bangladesh is an internal affair to be dealt with by Bangladeshis, isn’t it?
In fact, a journalistic question as to why the Indians’ preparedness for the Bangladesh ballot should be discussed offers the insights of how India’s unreadiness about free and fair elections in the neighbouring country may matter, unlike the culture of rigging polls during the one and a half decades of reign of Sheikh Hasina.
He is not alone to make aggressive comments or act aggressively when it comes to “Bangladesh affairs” in their eyes.
In December 2013, the month before the scheduled parliamentary polls in Bangladesh, India’s then external affairs secretary Sujatha Singh had “pressured” General Ershad, the head of Jatiya Party, an ally of prime minister Hasina’s Awami League, to join the ballot, which all other opposition parties decided to boycott, suspecting unfair play in the absence of an election-time caretaker government.
There is reason to believe that New Delhi continued to have some involvement with Hasina’s regime -- one accused of sacrificing national interests, violating public rights, and embezzling and siphoning off billions during its rule. The Indian authorities have also been blamed for acting as conspirators in prolonging undemocratic rule and repression of Bangladeshis. In return for Delhi's support to her government, Hasina remained subservient to India -- she herself said that the Indians would never forget what she had given them.
The Indian leaders also reciprocated - she was given shelter in Delhi following the fall of her regime in the face of a popular uprising on August 5, 2024. Though initially thought to be a stopover for her to go to a third country, Hasina has since then been living there.
Hasina’s “permanent sojourn” on Indian soil has created not only new irritants in her bilateral relations with Bangladesh but also opened a flashpoint for legal, diplomatic, and political disputes if she is convicted in the cases relating to mass murder and atrocities committed during July-August 2024.
However, since Hasina’s departure from power in Dhaka, New Delhi has preferred a somewhat disengagement with Dhaka’s interim administration -- apparently out of frustration at the widespread hatred for Hasina and the consequential criticism of Indian hegemony during her tenure.
Anger against a leader who suppressed public rights but appeased her own friends in another country has made many in Bangladesh hostile towards that country. In such a context, New Delhi too has imposed certain restrictions in trade and travel -- moves that do not help portray Bangladeshis as loving brothers and sisters in the immediate vicinity. Failing to take initiative to heal the injuries caused to the Bangladeshi minds, Delhi has rather neglected the matter. Generosity, which could have won Bangladeshi hearts, has not been found to be an option.
Instead, a large section of the Indian media have been propagating misinformation, disinformation, rumours, and baseless assumptions in an apparent attempt to malign the political changeover and subsequent reform initiatives that may leave long-lasting impacts on Bangladesh’s future political course.
Mr Shringla’s statement exposes a deeper concern of the Indian establishment since he has been a part of it and no one has so far contradicted his views of neighbouring countries like Bangladesh. Devoid of the perspective of the adversary, his conviction that the countries sharing borders with India have no “internal affairs” may open a floodgate of criticisms from across the borders. This includes Delhi’s own human rights records in Kashmir and the numerous insurgencies in many places in the union.
It is also positive if people of Bangladesh and India -- and also other South Asian nations for that matter -- agree to discuss one another’s internal affairs in bilateral public forums and even in multilateral platforms such as SAARC. But which countries around the world accept that their neighbour shall interfere into her internal affairs on the plea that such affairs are irrelevant for the countries sharing a common border?
By advocating ‘no internal affairs’ theory, Mr Shringla might have insinuated that Bangladesh’s internal affairs are also India’s, not the other way around. To which we must say: Let’s first hold public debates on pending bilateral issues such as barriers to trade, visa restrictions, water-sharing, border killing, push-ins, drug and human trafficking and smuggling to bring solutions, not to create more problems.
Showing arrogance while dealing with the neighbour helps resolve issues nowhere in the world. If it is still the mindset of India’s ruling elites to demean Bangladesh and Bangladeshis, our next generations will be burdened with the compulsion to address many issues that current leaders could have addressed by this time.
It is time for open dialogue to create an atmosphere towards acceptable solutions to bilateral issues, transcending the bureaucratic way of looking at foreign affairs policy in the 21st century.
Khawaza Main Uddin is a journalist. He can be contacted at [email protected].
