From 5 August to 5 February. It was exactly on the 180th day of her ouster in a bloody upsurge that Sheikh Hasina, the deposed Bangladeshi leader, went live on social media to give a speech to the nation. Her decision has led to widespread anger and a spate of fear among a large section of Bangladeshis that her party, the Awami League, is trying to make a comeback.
What started as a not-so-serious post on Facebook was quickly picked up by Bangladeshi youth. By evening, it led to a gathering of a few thousand angry protesters in downtown Dhaka. A couple of bulldozers were brought in— by the time Hasina began her speech, the historic building in Dhanmondi Road 32, where her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, had spent his last days as Bangladesh’s uncrowned king, was in flames. The large metal blades of a yellow dozer had already clawed into the house, and the demolition had begun on a building from which some of the major decisions in Bangladesh’s struggle for freedom were made.
The event has surprised many, perhaps even members of Bangladesh’s establishment. Around 40 Army men went to the mouth of the road to try to enter the house. They were soon outflanked by the protesters and shooed away into a nearby Chinese restaurant.
At sunrise, Bangladesh woke up to a changed landscape—what the Pakistan Army didn’t do during the nine long months of Bangladesh’s liberation war had happened in nine hours. The house on Road 32 was all but a mangled debris of bricks and ashes.
But make no mistake. These are not angry mobs or religious fanatics who are trying to rewrite history, or are bent on taking Bangladesh back to the pre-1971 days when the country was a part of Pakistan. Among those who clapped and cheered and took selfies stood the country’s English-educated middle-class, and urban poor. They saw their voting rights robbed by Hasina and her cronies for 15 long years. A majority in the crowd were thirty-somethings who’d never voted in their life, thanks to one rigged election after another under Hasina’s rule.
To shore up support, she has relied heavily on her father’s legacy and the country’s liberation war. So much so that ordinary Bangladeshis are finding it increasingly difficult to separate Mujib from Hasina. Both have become tragically entwined, and, India, where she’s taken shelter, has found itself stuck in a foreign policy web.
Emotions in Dhaka are running high. While describing the incident, Ehtasham Haque, a British-Bangladeshi politician has said, “You expect millions of victims to respect the symbol of their oppressor— a house made of bricks and sand… Can you return the wealth that was stolen from us? Can you restore the eyes and limbs that were brutally taken from our countrymen? Every brick torn down today is a small act of justice, a symbol of compensation claimed by the victims from their oppressor.”
Hasina has made Mujib a symbol of enforced disappearance, kleptocracy, misrule, and abuse of power. His house, which once was looked up as a monument of pride by Bangladeshis, has become synonymous with Hasina.
India’s Awami League Problem
Meet Sohel Taj, son of Tajuddin Ahmed who led Bangladesh’s independence war when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was held a prisoner in Central Jail Mianwali in Pakistan’s Rawalpindi. Tajuddin was assassinated less than three months after Mujib was brutally killed, along with all but two adult members of his family. Syeda Zohra Tajuddin, Tajuddin’s widow and Sohel’s mother, reorganised Awami League and was elected the party’s convenor in 1977.
It is a small wonder that a day after the havoc, Sohel, a former Awami League MP, didn’t mince words. Without naming anyone, he has squarely blamed his party’s sorry state on Hasina, who has been heading the Awami League since 1981. “Someone has masterminded a situation where the reputation of a historic political party that led the country’s independence has been put into question,” he said.
The question of India’s unfettered and unwavering support of Hasina is highlighted every time her activities are reported in the media. A few days ago, she allegedly ordered her party members to torch the homes and businesses of those who oppose her. “Just stay put and set fire to their homes,” she’s heard saying in an audio clip.
It’s as clear as daylight that Hasina is no Dalai Lama, and this should put India, the world’s largest democracy, in a moral quandary. She has long been India’s closest friend in the neighbourhood, and the Awami League is the country’s only ally in Bangladesh. But rehabilitating Hasina back into Bangladesh is a near impossible task, especially when memories of murders carried out by her forces across the country are still raw in public memory. The demolition of Mujib’s house on Road 32 is a case in point. Before Hasina decided to give that fateful speech, her opponents appeared in disarray—signs of disagreement had started to surface in the movement that led to the Monsoon Revolution. But, ironically, Hasina managed to successfully unite her opposition. The moment her shadow appeared on the horizon, they quickly forgot whatever differences they had.
It has also put the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in a rather awkward position. To placate India, the populist party has opposed the idea of banning the Awami League. The BNP has also been careful not to spew anti-India rhetoric. But at the end of the day its leaders have the masses to face an election to win—how long the BNP will be able to hold its tongue is a question up for debate.
India needs to see Bangladesh through the eyes of the country’s young population, which has seen its basic human dignity trampled by Hasina for years. And she has had two weapons in hand— her father’s legacy and India’s support. The destruction of Mujib’s historic house should be seen in this light and the widespread resentment prevailing against India among a large number of population ought to be understood from that point of view.
New Delhi must swallow its pride and realise that it has unashamedly supported a despot in a country with which it shares the world’s fifth-largest land border. All it needs is the pragmatism of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Even when the India-Bangladesh relationship had hit a nadir, he gave BNP leader Khaleda Zia the offer to have her knee operated on through his own initiative.
Trump’s transactional world
Donald Trump, the new US President, is a pragmatist. His world is transactional, where the highest bidder gets what they want. Bangladesh, which is nestled at the strategically important Bay of Bengal is crucial for both China and the US. The former views Bangladesh as a central location for its strategic advances in the Indian Ocean. In case of a naval blockade in the South China Sea, China will need either Burma or Bangladesh or both for a sea opening. Bangladesh also holds an important place in the US Indo-Pacific pivot.
The Monsoon Revolution has given Bangladesh the unique position to make the right bargain with both the superpowers. While India’s South Block appears to be fixated on its fantasy of bringing the Awami League back to power in Bangladesh, China is cosying up to the regime in Dhaka.
Given this situation, India must make new friends in Bangladesh. Portraying ordinary Bangladeshis as the “spectre of Pakistan” might be good for domestic consumption and help win some votes in West Bengal, but in the long run, it is as damaging as losing everything in a strategically crucial country that India itself has mid-wifed.
Contrary to China, which, when it comes to Bangladesh, is as practical as ever, India’s policy appears to be centred around a 77-year-old ousted prime minister who, according to Human Rights Watch, is responsible for several murders. India’s ostrich effect should be alarming for the US too, as it relies on India in South Asia to contain China.
Ahmede Hussain is a Bangladeshi writer and journalist. He is the editor of The New Anthem: The Subcontinent in Its Own Words (Tranquebar Press; Delhi). He has just finished writing his first novel. His X handle is @ahmedehussain. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
Contrary to what writer has written, Bangladesh has no great strategic value. It is surrounded from all sides by India with small land border disturbed as civil war ongoing in Myanmar. With heightened radicalism / fundamentalism, a densely populated and Natura resource wisw poor country like Bangladesh is well on the way to become like Syria/ Iraq minus oil. Good luck to so called students and their mentor and their advising.
How can someone publish a blind opinion with out justifying the reality of it. Don’t know why you are being a part of this Nazi like propaganda machine.
It is no wonder that folks like Trump are getting elected. The ostrich effect is in failing to see efforts to whitewash history. If the author fails to see how Bangladesh is going down the drain, he will soon be living in a medieval Islamic country that cannot tolerate any alternate views. It is all well to speak against power in a democratic country like India. The fact that all newspapers in Bangladesh were threatened not to carry Sheikh Hasina’s speech and the fact that none of them had the backbone to publish speaks volumes of the new Bangladesh…Look at yourself in the mirror…
The current state of India’s regional relations suggests that its foreign policy approach may play a central role in these recurring tensions. A critical question arises: why do a majority of India’s neighbouring nations—whether Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, or others—seem to encounter persistent diplomatic, territorial, or strategic disputes with New Delhi? While external factors and historical complexities undoubtedly influence these relationships, the pattern invites scrutiny of India’s own strategic posturing and diplomatic priorities.
For instance, accusations of hegemony, unresolved border conflicts, and competing regional influence have often overshadowed collaboration. This recurring friction raises concerns about whether India’s foreign policy framework adequately balances assertiveness with empathy, or national interests with the sovereignty of neighbouring states. Rather than attributing blame unilaterally, it would be prudent for Indian policymakers to engage in earnest self-reflection. A candid reassessment of diplomatic strategies, coupled with open dialogue to address grievances, could pave the way for more stable, equitable partnerships. After all, sustainable regional stability hinges not only on power dynamics but also on mutual respect and trust-building measures.
Good to read a contrarian view on this subject.
Author harks back to the days with Vajpayee when DGFI and ISI conspired and supported ULFA whose bombing ripped through Assam. Not only killing hundreds and thousands of people but also igniting fault lines. He thinks India should keep quiet while her neighbours keep on sticking her people and dismantle her security.
Vajpayee learned the hard way that the do quami species of 47 would not change no matter if you save them literally from a genocide. And this is not the only instance. Moraji Desai extended support to a post Mujib government which was answered by helping Tripuri insurgents, Islamists etc by General Zia. It is absolutely frustrating to see GOI not classifying the country as inimical to Indian interest.
As for 71, revisionism is in the air. If we have to rewrite let us agree on something, the Dhaka based elite never supported the independence movement and until the very final days of the war, their stalwarts were part of the collaborator Shanti Bahini. At first they did not care about the slaughter because most of them were Hindus and then when their own people started getting killed also, they shrugged of them as they were mostly villagers. Intellectuals were assaassinated and they probably thought that they had it coming. The joke is this people are the ones who ran the country.
As for Dalai Lama, you are right Hasina is not Dalai Lama. But GOI is not under any obligation to force her to not speak out given the rhetoric and gutter level discourse against India in Bangladesh. Not to mention the deliberate attempt to bring in Pakistani deep state. In essence to ignite hostility with India.
greatly written
And who is Md Yunus ? If the author takes this myopic liberty to presume who the Dalai Lamas of the world are, may I digress and ask who the Dalai Lama in current Bangladesh is with whom India can be all friendly while the opposite end clearly goes about its charade of blatant disregard and instigation in the name of independent foreign policy and revolution ?
A word of advice for the Print editors – you know something is being desperately tried to push when an article published a few hours ago rakez up thousands of likes in the Facebook/ Meta plugin. Who is trying desperately to push an agenda ? And why ?