THE January 7 election was surreal. The country learnt that there were 648 members of parliament in the constitutionally mandated 300-member national assembly after the 300 members elected on January 7 had taken oath. It was a mega constitutional violation that will be resolved, believe it or not, when the 348 members of the 11th parliament are ‘timed out’ with the first session of the 12th parliament on January 30. This mega constitutional violation flagged that nothing is illegal or unconstitutional for the Awami League regime as long as its interests are served.
India, China, Russia, the United States and its western allies and the United Nations were all seriously involved in such a general election. The United States and its western allies and the United Nations made serious efforts to encourage the Awami League regime to follow the right path and hold the election in a free, fair, peaceful, and participatory manner. They also warned it of serious consequences such as economic sanctions if it failed to hold the election the way it wanted.
India vacillated in the beginning. Its opposition to Bangladesh’s membership of BRICS at the Johannesburg Summit in August 2023 hinted that it was perhaps going to join the US-led initiative. In the end, closer to the election, India distanced itself from the US-led initiative when it became evident that the Awami League would lose such an election by a landslide which was unacceptable for India from its security point of view. India, since the G20 Summit in Delhi in September 2023, took the position that people of Bangladesh should decide the issue of election that made it clear that it opposed the US-encouraged free and fair election.
Ironically, China, India’s worst nemesis in the region and vice versa, also held the same view. China spiced its stand with a warning to the United States that the Bangladesh election was an interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country. The Awami League regime, thus, dared to make light of the US-west-UN warnings encouraged by these two powers, one the enemy of the other but together in a common cause to help a regime that served their interests retain power at any cost.
The Awami League conducted an election that history will record as not even an apology for an election. Through it, the Awami League once again took away the right of the people to vote, the third time in a row. There is widespread feeling among the people of Bangladesh that they have lost their power to vote, permanently or as long as the present Awami League leadership holds sways over the party. There was, however, nothing surreal either about the role of the external powers or in the outcome of the election.
The United States emerged from it as the clear loser which was made worse by the confident demands it made leading to the election for a free and fair election that raised high hopes in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led opposition that their political nightmare would end soon. The Awami League regime ignored the United States and did the opposite with a damn care attitude. The United States has failed to do anything since the election, particularly with the economic sanction to which they had alluded. Matthew Miller, the spokesman at the US state department, stated a few times that the January 7 election was not free, or fair. This has left the opposition forces or the majority of the people of Bangladesh lamenting that they have been betrayed by the United States.
The January 7 election, therefore, made huge dents in the US credibility. The Bangladesh election was also a major test of the much-heralded Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States. A free and fair election with respect for democracy and human rights would have sent the right message to the 40 nations in the ambit of the IPS to unite on democracy, human rights and faith in free and fair elections to contain the expansion of China in the region and beyond. That strategy met with a massive failure in Bangladesh on January 7.
The January 7 election has been a great success of China’s master-class diplomacy that flagged a major failure of the China containment policy of the Indo-Pacific Strategy. If the January 7 Bangladesh election can be compared with a championship event with China, India and the US-west as the contestants, that championship trophy has been won by China. Bangladesh was, however, not an easy championship for China to win given the fact that it had opposed the country’s war of liberation in 1971 and opposed its UN membership till August 31, 1975, when all major nations had recognised the country.
China shed its pariah status and befriended all regimes, from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to General Ershad’s military regime and even the Awami League since diplomatic ties were established on August 31, 1975. Nevertheless, India managed to impose on the Bangladesh regimes to restrict its ties with China to trade, commerce and investment, where strategic relationship was made a taboo. India considered Bangladesh the soft belly for Indian security. New Delhi was convinced till the Awami League came to power in January 2009 that separatists in the Seven Sisters such as ULFA used Bangladesh as a sanctuary and a route for their arms and weapons.
The January 7 election has finally ended China’s pariah status in Bangladesh and India imposed taboo on it from strategic issues sensitive to India. The recent news carried by all mainstream media of the meeting of the Chinese ambassador with the home minister flagged these changes and developments. The minister and the ambassador discussed issues of law enforcement and security cooperation ‘amid new circumstances.’ The news circumstances were what China wanted to flag for India, in particular. Under an AL government and after an election where external pressures were so strongly on the Awami League regime, it should have been the Indian high commissioner and not the Chinese ambassador holding the meeting on law enforcement and security issues.
Earlier, the Chinese ambassador stated confidently on the media that China would soon start the construction of the Teesta barrage and six smart cities on the banks of the Teesta. The Teesta project is situated near the Siliguri Corridor and is a place of critical importance to Indian security. It is as red a flag for Indian security as there can be. China has established a surveillance base on Myanmar’s Coco Island close to the south-eastern tip of Bangladesh and 56 kilometres from of Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal where all three Indian defence forces are stationed. Meanwhile, Bangladesh has established a submarine base in the Bay of Bengal for its submarines all purchased from China.
The Chinese threat to Indian security was on the periphery at the start of the Awami League’s present term. New Delhi was greatly relieved after the AL government had granted and assured India a total security guarantee that was mainly against threats from China. If China finally gets to build the Teesta project, it will move from the periphery to the centre of Bangladesh in strategic terms from the Indian perspective. It will consequently bring into discussion the main reason for which India had interfered in Bangladesh’s liberation war which was a security guarantee forever on its eastern frontier.
BNP-led opposition forces have blamed India for taking away their democratic hopes and aspirations by backing the Awami League to hold the January 7 election. They have launched a ‘boycott Indian goods’ campaign. India’s acceptance has hit its nadir in Bangladesh as a consequence. Ironically, China which supported the Awami League regime more than India has not faced any such backlash that further flagged the master-class diplomacy of China leading to the Bangladesh election and its aftermath.
Ironically, India paved the way for China’s present position in Bangladesh. India of all the external powers alone had the influence to encourage the Awami League to hold a free and fair election. Such an election would have brought the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to power, but it would also have stopped China from the position that China would, henceforth, have in Bangladesh. The January 7 election has given China the dominant position in Bangladesh instead of containing it as the United States wanted. China has finally come to stay in Bangladesh as long as it wants and neither India nor the United States can do anything.
India has created for itself a security nightmare if it still believes that China is its biggest security threat in the region. India, nevertheless, took this risk to avoid an immediate political nightmare. The Bharatiya Janata Party could not go to a general election due in April and May on the Hindutva mantra with an anti-Indian and pro-Islamic Bangladesh Nationalist Party in power. The Bharatiya Janata Party opted to deal with its immediate political nightmare and in doing so has given China a huge success for its master-class diplomacy.
M Serajul Islam is a former career ambassador.
New Age