Mahmudur Rahman

The Russian embassy in Bangladesh has issued a statement on 20 December in support of the current fascist regime in Dhaka. Couched in diplomatic terms, the statement is highly critical of the recent US effort to push the government of Bangladesh to accept the popular demand for a free, fair and inclusive election. The statement praises the Sheikh Hasina government, “States like Bangladesh, which shape their foreign and internal policy to serve their own national interests instead of following the lead of external powers, take a similar approach”.

The Russian embassy has conveniently forgotten that a few months earlier the foreign minister of Bangladesh publicly acknowledged that he had begged the Indian government to interfere in the election process to keep Sheikh Hasina in power. A few years earlier the fascist Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also said in the press that she has given everything to satisfy India. The same Russia invaded the neighbouring state of Ukraine and is presently engaged in a long-drawn war that has shaken the global economy. In a direct criticism of the US and Western democracy, the Russian embassy said, “The hegemonic ambitions are most vividly displayed by the countries, which identify themselves as developed democracies”. With this statement, Moscow has clearly indicated that they will support Sheikh Hasina along with India and probably, China to withstand the US pressure to return to democracy in Bangladesh. Washington is now left to ponder the consequence of its historic follies in shaping South Asian geopolitics.

Blinded by rabid Islamophobia in an environment vitiated by the 9/11 terrorist attack, the successive US administration (Bush, Obama and Trump) have not only created and nurtured a Frankenstein in the form of Sheikh Hasina but also transformed a democratic and moderate Bangladesh into a terror-state like Myanmar. While Myanmar inhumanly persecuted and ethnically cleansed the minority Rohingya Muslims with full support from Beijing and New Delhi, Sheikh Hasina did the same to the majority Muslim population in the façade of fighting fake ‘Islamic terror’. The so-called Islamic terror outfits in Bangladesh are mostly the creation of various government agencies (RAB, DB, DGFI, etc.) to justify heinous crimes of extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearance to silence all forms of dissent by spreading fear among ordinary citizens. Indian intelligence agency RAW is alleged to have assisted Hasina in devising the ruthless strategy. Both soft-Hindutva (Congress) and fanatic Hindutva (BJP) political leadership in India received unconditional support from Washington in its desire to establish hegemonic control over Bangladesh in particular and entire South Asia in general.

India had been trying to establish absolute control over Bangladesh since its independence in 1971, but the fact that nearly 90% of the population are Muslim has been an unsurmountable block to India’s hegemonic aspirations. As part of its strategy, Delhi’s aim had been to completely destroy pro-Islamic political forces in Bangladesh. Post-9/11, the objective of Delhi converged with the policy of US to obliterate political Islam. Historically, the Awami League, a genetically terrorist and anti-Muslim organization, has shown that it can serve as the vanguard to implement the de-Islamization strategy of the Indo-US axis in South Asia. While courting Hindu fanaticism, an obsessed Washington seemed to have completely forgotten the history of strategic and ideological bond between India and the Soviet Union during the Cold-War era.

The Russia-Ukraine war has ruthlessly exposed the weakness of the hare-brained US policy in South Asia. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, the Indian government and the majority of the population have firmly taken the side of Putin. Except for Washington, no one is surprised that India chose to support Russia while providing only lip service to Europe and the US. India has conveniently used the Islamophobia, naivety and Indo-centric romanticism of the US strategists to let them lose the reign of terror in Kashmir, brutally suppress the minority Indian Muslims and establish hegemonic control over Muslim-majority Bangladesh. In return, the US has gained nothing. Neutralizing Russia in New Delhi was always a non-starter. Even the US expectation of the Indian military to challenge the power of China has remained elusive. According to the political philosophy of the fanatic Modi government, Pakistan and the Muslims are the principal threat against Hindu India. They consider China as a competitor, but not an enemy. Since coming to power in 2014, Narendra Modi has always downplayed Chinese threats and engaged in track-2 diplomacy to improve bilateral relations with the Asian superpower. A number of times, the Indian government has publicly contradicted the Pentagon reports on Chinese encroachment in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh. Myanmar is a successful example of Indo-Chinese cooperation in regional geopolitics. India never objected to the Chinese presence in Myanmar and actively supported the Myanmar government (Both Suu Kyi and Junta) in the ethnic cleansing of the Minority Rohingya Muslims. Bangladesh is now set to become another example of Sino-India cooperation in their joint bid to keep the US away from influencing geopolitics in South Asia. In the case of Bangladesh, as a quid pro quo, China has apparently accepted Indian political hegemony in Dhaka in lieu of its unhindered trade and economic interest. A fascist ruler like Sheikh Hasina will not hesitate for a second to divide Bangladesh and present it to Beijing and New Delhi if that would ensure her stay in power. Unfortunately, the lust for the power of a single person has made Bangladesh a fertile ground for a proxy war.

We have seen in Bangladesh that diplomats from the Western world usually interact with the so-called secular segment belonging to the elite society. As a result, they remain oblivious of the hopes and aspirations of the majority population. The seculars in Bangladesh are in most cases, anti-Islamic, and pro-Indian and they provide biased information to the diplomats to serve Indian interests. One of the root causes of the failure of the US policy in Bangladesh is their almost complete dependence on the Civil Society which had previously served the Indo-Soviet axis. If any person in the US embassy checks the background of their local friends, he or she will be amazed to find that majority of them came from a pro-Moscow left political background. These elements convinced Sheikh Mujib in 1975 to bury democracy and create a Soviet-style one-party authoritarian state. Islamophobia acted as the catalyst to unite ex-Soviets with the Americans in the 21^st century. Sheikh Hasina is the child of this perverse politics.

I would conclude the editorial by reminding the people of Bangladesh that freedom from tyranny cannot be obtained without courage and supreme sacrifice. The big powers only work for their geopolitical interest. The same Sheikh Hasina who instructed her party thugs to physically attack Ambassador Mercia Bernicat and Ambassador Peter Hass was warmly congratulated by Ambassador James Moriarty on her lopsided victory in the Indo-US-Bangladesh Army managed election drama in 2008. The successor of Ambassador Moriarty, Ambassador Dan Mojena was publicly insulted by Sheikh Hasina and her ministers when he objected to the single-party election in 2014. He was also snubbed in New Delhi. It is an irony of history that all four ambassadors belong to the same super-power. This is the price the US so far has paid for its meek appeasement of India and its agent in Bangladesh.

Editor, Amar Desh

21-12-2022