Modi’s new govt must speak with Sheikh Hasina & ensure Khaleda Zia gets medical attention

India, which wields more influence in Bangladesh than even the US, must rein in vengeful & vindictive Sheikh Hasina before it’s too late.

File photo of Narendra Modi and Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina | PIB photo

A 73-year-old grandmother who is battling numerous ailments and can barely walk is being denied medical treatment of her choice by none other than Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, one of New Delhi’s closest strategic allies.

Hasina-led alliance holds the enviable record of winning 288 of the 300 seats in Bangladesh’s Parliament in the recently held general elections.

Interestingly, the frail and extremely ill woman, “trapped between life and death” according to a report, is no ordinary Bangladeshi either.

She is Khaleda Zia – who served two full terms as Bangladesh’s Prime Minister, was her country’s first woman PM and the second in the whole Muslim world after Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto. Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), once a formidable force in the predominantly Muslim South Asian nation, was badly defeated by the Hasina-led Awami League in December 2018, although the poll outcome is incredulous to say the least. Hasina got a straight third term as the PM with a shocking 96 per cent of seats in Parliament.

And now a full-blown, sordid tale of badla is playing out in India’s backyard. It’s no secret that the current and ex-PM hate each other beyond all civilised norms. The bellicose begums have a long history of hostility and sorry enmity, which refuses to die down. The danger today is that it might turn lethal as Zia’s life is at grave risk, according to her lieutenants and doctors.

Hence the urgent need for the world community, especially India, which wields more influence in Bangladesh than even America, to rein in the vengeful and vindictive Hasina – who is 71 and a grandmother herself – before it’s too late.

Zia is passing her days in a crumbling 200-year-old prison in Dhaka since February 2018 when she was found guilty of corruption in what is now known as the Zia Orphanage Trust case. It is one of the nearly 30 ‘concocted’ and ‘politically motivated’ corruption or criminal cases stacked up against her, according to Zia supporters, to prevent her from contesting elections.

While Hasina is on top of the world, ex-PM Zia, according to her lieutenants, is rotting in a room infested with rats and cats. But Zia’s and her party’s biggest grievance is that the regime is refusing to let her personal doctors treat her in jail or in a private nursing home. She is being compelled to receive treatment at the state-run Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital by doctors handpicked by a retired brigadier general who controls BSMMU, thereby overruling her wish to be treated by her personal physicians at Dhaka’s private United Hospital.

For court appearances, Zia is brought in a wheelchair as she is too weak to stand on her own and struggles to walk. She is suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes. Loneliness and advancing age too have taken their toll and she is known to have bouts of depression. Overall, her health is sliding in the absence of proper medical care.

All attempts by top barristers to get her out on bail on medical grounds have been so far stonewalled by the government, which keeps claiming that it is up to the courts to decide her bail petitions. But the truth of the matter is that in Bangladesh as in India bail is usually granted if the public prosecutor doesn’t object. And they don’t object only if they are instructed by the government not to. Public prosecutors are vociferously unsparing during any Zia bail hearing.

It would be too much to expect even a Bangladeshi apex court judge to overrule a government counsel and grant Zia bail after what happened to Surendra Kumar Sinha, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, for speaking a few unpalatable truths about the government as recently as two years ago. Hasina’s aides even linked the Hindu judge with the Jamaat-e-Islami, a radical group, to tarnish his reputation.

According to Jamiruddin Sircar, barrister and BNP Standing Committee member, the physical and mental torture Zia is being subjected to can have a tragic consequence. Addressing the press on 18 May, he warned that his leader faces the risk of a sudden heart attack triggered by “repression”, and is being denied bail, which is “contrary to the constitution and human rights”.

He also lambasted Hasina for lying in London that Zia gorges on payesh, a variation of kheer, implying that her sugar level is perfectly normal and she is faking illness to get out of jail and evade justice.       

To make Zia grovel and beg for clemency, the regime keeps hinting that she can be released on parole provided she applies. But she hasn’t gone down that road because she prefers judicial relief to an executive favour. Last month, there were persistent rumours of her release on parole for medical treatment in the UK where her fugitive son and heir apparent Tarique Rahman lives, before the BNP bosses cleared the air.

After Narendra Modi’s council of ministers is announced Thursday, it’s imperative for India’s new external affairs minister to have a quiet word with Hasina. As upholders of democracy and human rights, New Delhi must urge Dhaka to ensure that Zia is at least treated by her personal physicians in a hospital of her choice. There is also no harm in advocating her release on bail as she is too old to flee the country.

I know that anti-India radical groups were allowed to grow during Zia’s second term but that’s no reason for India for abandon her when she is down and out.

In diplomacy, as in politics, there can’t be permanent foes or friends. India has already alienated countless Bangladeshis by backing Hasina unconditionally. We can now control the damage by going to Zia’s aid. As they say, it’s never a good idea to keep all your eggs in one basket.

The author is a former deputy editor of Outlook and executive editor of Daily Sun, Dhaka. Views are personal.