Bangladesh-India row: Clash between hyperbole and long-held grievances

For the past several weeks, Dhaka has witnessed endless demonstrations, and although the intensity of such gatherings has decreased, the anger against India has been palpable.

Tensions in Dhaka are being exacerbated by two major issues – first, India’s decision to grant asylum to ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina; and second, a deluge of disinformation emanating from India, endorsed by its top politicians, and aimed at undermining Bangladesh’s interim government led by Nobel prize laureate Muhammad Yunus.

Bilateral ties worsened on December 2 when a group of Indian protesters stormed into the Bangladeshi diplomatic mission in the northeast Indian city of Agartala.

The Indian protest was triggered by Dhaka’s arrest of a Hindu monk Chinmoy Das on the grounds of disrespecting the national flag, an act that New Delhi viewed as part of systemic targeting of the country’s Hindu minority ever since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government was toppled by a popular revolt in August.

In return, Bangladesh’s interim government suspended all consular services at the Agartala mission and summoned the Indian envoy in Dhaka. The interim government even suggested holding anti-India demonstrations in the country.

The diplomatic rift comes in the backdrop of a series of grievances Bangladesh harbours against the regional power India. The two nations share a 4096-kilometre border, the world’s fifth-largest.

Since Hasina's ouster, India, under the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has taken an increasingly vocal stance on alleged minority rights abuses in Bangladesh, which the new caretaker government in Dhaka has repeatedly denied.

Modi and his Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar repeatedly called on the interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, to safeguard the country’s Hindu minority – a position in line with the Modi government’s portrayal of itself as the global guardian of Hinduism.

These calls have been perceived in Dhaka as condescending and hypocritical, given India’s contentious record on minority rights.

On December 10, a day after Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri raised concerns about the welfare of minorities in Bangladesh, Yunus’ press secretary Shafiqul Alam acknowledged that minorities, mainly Hindus, were indeed targeted in 88 incidents of violence between August and December. According to local rights group Ain O Shalish Kendra, at least seven Hindu temples have been desecrated between October and November.

But what rubbed the new leadership, as well as a large number of Bangladeshis, the wrong way was Indian politicians and media projecting a few dozen attacks against minorities as a carnage of sorts. Some prime-time news anchors even went as far as to claim thousands of attacks targeting Hindus had taken place.

This discord has impacted many aspects of India-Bangladesh relations. Cross-border travel has dipped. The number of flights and passengers travelling between Kolkata and Dhaka halved between July and November. Truckers have scaled down operations, resulting in shortages of food and other essentials.

But how did we come to this point?

The minority question

The Yunus-led government faced the challenge of curtailing a wave of violence against supporters of Hasina’s disgraced Awami League party, which included members of the country’s Hindu minority.

As India considered her a trustworthy ally in a region being lured away by its mightier rival China, New Delhi granted Hasina asylum despite her direct involvement in ordering the police and army to open fire and use coercive means to crush the popular uprising against her rule.

As a result, at least 800 people were killed in the police firing. Independent estimates have recorded the death toll exceeding the 800 mark. Throughout the crisis, no condemnation of the brutal crackdown came from India.

But New Delhi has not spared an opportunity to show its sympathy for the Hindu minority in Bangladesh while conveniently turning a blind eye to hundreds of killings that Hasina ordered in her last-ditch attempt to stay in power.

Yunus has been quite transparent in explaining the situation to the world. He acknowledged that sporadic violence did take place upon Hasina’s exit but maintained that the law and order situation improved soon after he took control of the country’s affairs while directing law enforcement to tighten the security measures to safeguard minority communities. So far over 70 people have been arrested for engaging in violence against minorities.

Yet, Indian media became replete with portraying a one-sided picture that overlooked New Delhi’s role in propping up an autocratic ruler who was widely hated in the country for more than two decades.

Speaking to the TRT World, Asif Mahmud, a youth leader during the summer protests against Hasina and currently an adviser in the Yunus administration, spoke critically of India’s Hindu-nationalist government’s close ties with the Awami League.

“They (the Indian government) are now even giving Hasina, who is accused of crimes against humanity, state facilities. That is why Bangladeshi people are angry with the Indian government’s stance,” he said.

A large number of Bangladeshis also find India’s stance hypocritical in light of motivated attacks against Indian Muslims that are commonplace and even enabled by members of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

“We demand Indian minorities’ safety,” read a poster carried by a Dhaka protester on a recent Friday.

Bangladeshis have also taken a strong note of Modi’s anti-Muslim remarks. He called Muslims “invaders” in one of his election speeches earlier this year.

Bangladeshis are also concerned about the fact that there are no Muslim ministers in his cabinet while the Muslim-majority state of Jammu & Kashmir is being governed with an iron fist.

Sharif Osman Hadi, spokesperson of Inquilab Mancha, a right-leaning group involved in anti-India protests, said that India at first has to fix their minority problem”.

“Bangladesh is a perfect example of religious harmony, and India would be the first in oppressing the minorities. So, we don’t want Big Brother approach from them,” he added.

According to The New York Times's latest report, the situation of Bangladesh’s minorities can be defined somewhere between the two extremes - an exaggerated view coming from India vs incidents of violence being downplayed or lampooned in Bangladesh.

“Smiles are rare, and businesses are struggling,” S.K. Nath Shymal, the president of the Bangladesh National Hindu Grand Alliance in Chattogram, was quoted in the NYT report as saying.

Simmering anger

The groundswell of opposition to India’s unflattering depiction of Bangladesh as a place unsafe for minorities is not restricted to activists. Members of the interim administration and other political parties have also spoken out.

“India is constantly spreading misinformation against Bangladesh and the July revolution, aiming to isolate Bangladesh internationally and portray it as an Islamist stronghold,” Asif Nazrul, law minister in the interim government, told TRT World.

Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, senior joint secretary of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, a nemesis of the Awami League, started a campaign against India’s perceived hegemony even before Sheikh Hasina’s regime was toppled.

Rizvi recently burned his wife’s Indian saree in a press conference as a mark of protest against New Delhi.

He went on to add that countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Pakistan are no longer aligned with India due to its “hateful” and “malicious” approach.

“Bangladesh is also not with you (India). This is solely because of your arrogance and the exploitative attitude you continue to demonstrate,” Rizvi said.

Shahab Enam Khan, a professor of the International Relations Department at Jahangirnagar University, said the BJP's foreign policy seems hindered by short-sightedness and a lingering attachment to its sole ally, the Awami League (AL).

“Bangladesh has no logical reason to create obstacles in its bilateral relations, nor does it view its engagement with Delhi through a religious lens or power politics,” Professor Shahab told TRT World.

“They must accept that this relationship can only thrive based on mutual respect and reciprocity”.

Sreeradha Datta, professor of international affairs at the OP Jindal Global University and non-resident senior fellow with the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, echoed a similar view, saying disinformation and hate speech influx from India’s mainstream media as well as rightwing social media handles led to the escalation and hostility between the two countries.

“There are vested quarters who want to create political division and escalate hostility to benefit from the ‘rift’. Both countries' governments must do the needful to remain as a friendly neighbour in their words and actions,” she said.

A recent study by Bangladeshi fact-check organisation Rumor Scanner exposed 49 Indian media outlets spreading 13 false stories about Bangladesh, many of which painted the country’s democratic uprising as an Islamist insurgency.

Professor Datta considers Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri’s December 9 visit to Dhaka a significant step toward normalisation of ties between the two countries.

It was the first high-ranking Indian official’s visit to the country after the popular uprising forced Prime Minister Hasina to flee to India in August.

“Both countries shared their concerns and discussed the way out of the hostility. I hope the situation will deescalate after the visit,” Professor Datta said.