Imagine, a group of men, women, and children are somehow captured and forced to cross a hard-to-reach-and-monitor border zone at the dead of night. The civilized world would call this act "human trafficking," right?
Such a scene is often being replayed on the porous Indo-Bangladesh border. This is staged not by any non-state criminal syndicate. For journalistic accuracy, should it not be termed state-operated human trafficking?
Sadly, these people are compelled to act like trespassers. As they try but fail to enter into the Bangladesh territory, India's Border Security Force (BSF) then stops them from going back home. Thus they are left stranded at zero line under the open sky, without supply of food and water.
Obviously, by coercively attempting to push out some Indian nationals, or any human beings for that matter, BSF violates international border management protocols and bilateral framework.
The 'push-in' has been a deliberate choice of the Indian authorities. Their actions have similitude with the cruelty and barbarism shown to the Palestinian people by the state of Israel.
Any analyst outside India may have reasons to wonder why elected representatives and public servants of a post-colonial republic do so when such acts bring notoriety and hatred for the wrongdoers, not any morally correct physical or material gains.
In a democracy, how could you round up people from different states and hand them over for collective expulsion? And you justify it by using their linguistic and religious identity or blaming their failure to hold old papers?
This exposes India's own domestic political weakness, extending ramifications across the border -- souring its relations with its geographically closest neighbour.
Despite India’s allegations, the victims of the push-in are unlikely to be undocumented Bangladeshis. India is still no Europe, America, or the Middle East. It is no dreamland for aspiring migrants.
Of course, as a political benefit from this heartless game of making human pawns, New Delhi maintains the policy of 'kicking out' people as part of their diplomacy.
With this policy being executed at home, India's ruling camp has simultaneously aimed to change the demography in some provinces to gain political (electoral) advantage.
Furthermore, Delhi's objective of pushing helpless and stateless people into Bangladesh is to create pressure on Dhaka, particularly the regime, for realizing its demands. This is to simultaneously weaken the bargaining capacity of the Bangladesh officials during pending negotiations.
This is an old tactic Delhi had followed while dealing even with previous regimes in Bangladesh. However, during Sheikh Hasina's Awami League regime, Delhi had kept push-ins broadly suspended so as not to embarrass her. It is widely reported and stated that she used to make all concessions to Delhi for staying in power.
Still, according to some responsible office bearers of the past, the Indian officials, at the very outset of talks on, say, trade or water-sharing, would express their concern about security of minorities, an issue which immediately put the Bangladesh side into a defensive mode.
Killing of Bangladeshis along the border and “official” human trafficking reportedly increased during non-Awami rule and at critical moments prior to certain negotiations.
We are witnessing fresh troubles along the border at a time when Delhi is expected to make a fresh engagement with the BNP government of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman to reset the Indo-Bangladesh relations.
However, the mindset to pursue policy towards Bangladesh remains the same. The old habit of using means like 'push-ins' to serve Delhi's purposes are not helping matters.
While patronizing continuity of the Hasina regime through questionable elections in 2014, 2018, and 2024, Delhi had been insensitive to the will, dignity, and sentiment of the Bangladeshis. Now that Hasina has been ousted from power through the July 2024 uprising, the renewed push-in diplomacy is causing more damage to bilateral relations. Delhi looks to have stuck to the old policy of exerting pressure on Bangladesh.
What the Indian foreign policy practitioners may have failed to appreciate is that we are living in a new world where the concept of ignoring a real or perceived small power is being challenged.
Iran's defiance with dignified survival in the asymmetrical war on it waged by Israel and the United States has shattered the old idea of appeasing the so-called big powers.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned into a sheer observer in the Indian ocean region when China's Xi Jinping hosted President Donald Trump in Beijing, during a seesaw state of the Iran war and ceasefire, to attain constructive stability and avoid hostilities in Asia and elsewhere.
Now the Indian leaders would hear the voice of a new generation in Bangladesh that wants fair and equitable relations with the physically “big” neighbour.
Khawaza Main Uddin is a journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]. Views expressed are the writer’s own.
