India must play peacemaker in bloodied Bangladesh 

Students , in Bangladesh's Dhaka clash with police during a protest over a controversial quota system for government job applicants. (Source: AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government can’t wash its hands of the bloodbath in Bangladesh – more than a 140 agitating young men have been already killed in the anti-quota protests rocking our neighbour – because India has a far bigger stake in Bangladesh than any other country in the whole world. Any upheaval there -- whether it leads to regime change or eventually dissipates – has grave implications for our national security. It’s therefore in our own strategic interests to sort out the mess on a war footing and restore normalcy there at any cost.

It’s perfectly okay to take an official stand that the deadly turmoil in Bangladesh is its internal matter, advice Indian nationals there to steer clear of trouble and evacuate them if necessary, as our External Affairs Ministry has done in the circumstances. But India mustn’t stop at that because it is the resident power with onerous duties and responsibilities that it can shirk only at its own cost.

As things stand today, New Delhi can’t afford to dither or look away. It has no option but to take charge as an elder brother, if not ‘big brother’, in its zone of influence.

Hasina’s cancelled foreign trips indicate a big problem

The volatility can be gauged from the fact that Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who had to cut short her state visit to China last week and return home to quell the violent protests by university students against job quotas which gathered momentum in her absence, has now been compelled to cancel her tour of Spain and Brazil to handle the increasingly dangerous state of affairs.

An indefinite national curfew and shoot-on-sight order is in force, the army, paramilitary, tanks and armoured carriers are patrolling the streets, mobile internet and broadband service is shut down and all trains have been cancelled by Hasina’s Awami League administration, turning the densely populated Muslim nation at our doorstep into a ticking time bomb.

Fake news for sympathy

Notably, even as Bangladesh burned, mid-week there were reports of opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party leaders being closeted in the Chinese embassy in Dhaka with Beijing’s diplomats, who were joined by the Pakistani High Commissioner making it a threesome! These patently untrue stories were obviously planted in the media by Hasina’s government to gain India’s sympathies by characterising the skyrocketing turmoil as the handiwork of colluding anti-India BNP, Pakistani and Chinese saboteurs.

Fortunately, New Delhi - which thoroughly monitors its backyard - has seen through all these canards. It is treating with equal disdain fabricated reports of anti-quota protestors demanding termination of India’s access to railways, roads and rivers in their country as one of the pre-conditions to call of their agitation.

On Sunday, the Supreme Court scaled back the job quotas but hasn’t altogether abolished the highly discriminatory government job reservations which blatantly favour the Awami League and triggered the students’ rebellion. The judicial intervention is unlikely to restore normalcy immediately given the high number of casualties and brutalities inflicted by the army-police at Hasina’s behest which has created a chasm between the regime and ordinary Bangladeshis.

India needs to counsel restraint

In such a foreboding scenario, India’s task is cut out. Without wasting any time, New Delhi must counsel Hasina to control her temper and tongue after all the damage her loose talk, especially the abusive-derogatory term “Razakar”, has done. At the age of 76 and a four-term PM, she should speak like a grandmother-cum-elder statesman and not a rabble rouser hurtling the country into chaos and anarchy.

Secondly, New Delhi must become the bridge between the Hasina government and protestors’ leaders so that the two sides sit across the table at the earliest. To put it bluntly, India’s mediation is the need of the hour in Bangladesh. Although India is known to be pro-Hasina, no one in Bangladesh is going to rebuff India if it comes forward as a peacemaker.

Ukraine is very far away. Let’s start from our backyard where our standing is at an all-time high. India is the best third-party to end the spiral of violence and usher in peace after all the unnecessary bloodletting of the last few days.

Hands-off policy is not realisitic

Bangladesh is far too important for India to pursue a hands-off policy at this critical juncture. Let’s not forget that it is not just another neighbouring country like Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan or Sri Lanka – it’s a lot more than that. Geographically, Bangladesh is well and truly embedded “inside” India.

Save for a short boundary with Myanmar and the waters of the Bay of Bengal in the south, Bangladesh is surrounded by as many as five Indian states – West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram – on all sides. In that sense, Bangladesh is indeed “inside” India – and therefore far more important than a neighbour in the traditional sense.

Bangladesh’s domestic politics and governance naturally impact India more than any other country in the world. A Bangladesh on the boil would be disastrous for India’s restive northeast. So the faster we act, the better for us and our dear neighbour.