Begum Khaleda Zia was accorded
a warm reception during her recent visit to India. But the former Prime
Minister of Bangladesh has always been anti-India. There’s nothing to suggest
that she has changed
By the the time this column
appears, Begum Khaleda Zia, leader of the Opposition in Bangladesh and a former
Prime Minister of that country, would be close to the end of her week-long
visit. She should be pleased with the outcome. She has had a half-an-hour-long
meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh where, what might be called in
‘diplomatese’ as “matters of mutual interest”, were discussed. Mr Singh
reportedly assured her that India will take Bangladesh along the path of
economic growth it pursued and will not undermine Dhaka’s interests.
Things seem to have gone
pleasantly. While Begum Zia sought greater transparency in India’s construction
of dams on rivers common to both countries, Mr Singh assured her that his
Government was trying to achieve political consensus on the Teesta waters
treaty blocked by West Bengal’s Chief Minister, Ms Mamata Banerjee, and on the
exchange of border enclaves. Begum Zia was reportedly appreciative of the steps
taken by India to liberalise trade with Bangladesh, increasing garment imports
from the latter, providing it with power and strengthening its economic
infrastructure. She is said to have been positive and forthcoming on terrorism
and the activities of cross-border insurgent groups which are important to New
Delhi.
The question is: What does India
want from the visit? The basic objective apparently is to ensure that the good
relations it enjoys with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Government continues
with the successor regime — whoever heads it — after the general election due
in the country latest by early 2014. An invitation to Lt-Gen HM Ershad, a
former President of Bangladesh and head of the Bangladesh Jatiya Party, who
visited India recently, is said to have been a part of the same exercise.
The approach, eminently sensible
on paper, will recoil. Like her late husband President Ziaur Rahman, Begum Zia
is intensely anti-Indian and instinctively pro-Pakistan. In November 1977,
President Rahman converted the Directorate of Forces Intelligence, set up in
1972, into the Directorate-General of Forces Intelligence. An organisational
clone of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate and linked almost
umbilically to it, the DGFI was established shortly after a visit to Dhaka by
the then ISI chief, Lt-Gen Ghulam Jillani Khan. Many of its officers have been
trained at the ISI’s training centre at Islamabad.
Moloy Krishna Dhar, a
former joint director of the Intelligence Bureau, points out in Fulcrum of
Evil: ISI-CIA-Al Qaeda Nexus, that the ISI and the DFI began collaborating from
1976 in “imparting training and supplying arms” to the militant groups of
north-eastern India. The process, which ran into difficulties after Sheikh
Hasina became Prime Minister for the first time in 1996, picked up sharply
after Begum Zia began her second innings in 2001. Dhar’s book, published in
2006, states that the number of camps of North-Eastern rebels in Bangladesh
“have increased by about 40 in the last few months touching the figure of
180-200.”
Begum Zia’s own deeply anti-India
approach was intensified by that of her coalition partner, Jama’at-e-Islami
Bangladesh, which, in its policy on national defence, identified India as
Bangladesh’s only enemy and called for the inculcation of the spirit of jihad
in the country’s military against India’s Armed Forces. Given the close links
which the Jama’at has with Pakistan and fundamentalist Islamist organisations
like the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh, Jama’at-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh
and Hizbut Tawhid, it is hardly surprising that Bangladesh became a hub of
ISI's anti-India terror operations during 2001-2006.
The Jama’at called the shots in
Begum Zia’s Government and savagely persecuted the minorities. Ahmadiyyas were
targeted relentlessly. Hindus came under vicious attack even before Begum Zia
returned to power following the general election on October 1, 2001. Terrorised
by murders, rapes, looting of property, burning of houses, and large-scale
assaults, over 15,000 Hindus fled to the border areas of West Bengal. About
100,000 more were reportedly trying to follow suit but were being hindered by
the police and the paramilitary personnel.
The Government of Bangladesh, of
course, sought to play down the scale of the atrocities. In a statement in the
country’s Jatiya Sangsad (National Parliament), Home Minister Altaf Hussain
Choudhury, put the number of those killed and raped over a period of 25 days at
266 and 213 respectively. While these figures are high enough, the actual
incidence of the crimes appears to have been much higher. According to a report
in the widely-circulated Bangla daily Janakantha (The Voice of the People), the
atrocities on Hindus exceeded in places even those that were inflicted on them
during the 1971 liberation war.
In a piece in the same daily of
October 16, one of Bangladesh’s greatest poets ever, Samsur Rahman, wrote, “It
is a matter of regret that atrocities by terrorists on the minorities have been
continuously increasing in many parts of Bangladesh, particularly in the
muffosils, over several days. There have been repeated attacks; the homes of
the minorities have become deserted. Women have been victims of rape. To save
their lives and honour, many have been compelled to leave their homes and
hearths with heavy hearts and embrace endless agonies with tear-laden eyes in
the hope of finding refuge in India.” (Translated from Bengali by this writer.)
Besides Begum Zia’s background
and record in office, there is the experience of 2001, when her son Tareq Zia
was brought to India, taken around, introduced to industrialists and generally
given the red-carpet treatment. The sustained contempt and hostility with which
she treated India after her return to power, is public knowledge. There is no
indication that it will be any different if she again becomes Prime Minister.
Meanwhile, nothing prevents Begum Zia from projecting her visit as an
indication of India’s recognition of the inevitability of her return to power
and an indication of its endorsement of the prospect. Recall the subtle manner
in which she portrayed the outcome of her recent visit to China, announcing
several promises made by Beijing in a manner which suggested that it was
negotiating with a
Prime Minister elect.
This may well persuade a section
of undecided voters to swing to her support for the rewards that await those on
the winning side. Sheikh Hasina can hardly be blamed if she is not amused. And
India will only have itself to blame if it loses a genuine friend. And what
happens if she and the Awami League retain power, something which can by no
means be ruled out?
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