Opinion: Pointing fingers over the floods shows how rapidly anti-India sentiment is growing in Bangladesh

Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Deluges are no strangers in eastern India and Bangladesh. Following heavy monsoon rainfall last Wednesday, several districts in Bangladesh, particularly Feni, Comilla and Noakhali, were inundated and according to some estimates, about 4.5 million people were affected. In neighbouring Tripura too, about 50,000 people were displaced by heavy rains. The floods were one of the first administrative challenges faced by the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, who took over after the collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s government on August 5. According to student leader Nahid Islam, who holds the portfolio of telecommunications and information technology in the Bangladesh government, the floods were a direct result of India releasing water from a barrage in Tripura. he/she claimed that India has displayed humiliating behaviour against the people of Bangladesh to oust the fascist Hasina government.Blaming India
This childish speech by a student activist, fortunately, was not repeated by others in responsible positions. However, it has become the new conspiracy theory in Bangladesh that oscillates between highlighting the horror stories of the overthrown Awami League regime and creating hatred towards India, as India has consistently supported the ousted leadership, including giving asylum to Sheikh Hasina. The coordinators of the anti-quota student movement are the front-runners in the leadership, two of whom are in the interim administration, and their mentor Asif Nazrul, who has been given the portfolios of law and culture in the Yunus regime. Additional inspiration is provided by several YouTube commentators based in France and the US. They were responsible for Yunus relieving the Home Department, which was taken away from M Sakhawat Hasan. he/she had shown the courage to say that the party of the liberation struggle, the Awami League, should also be included in future democratic elections.

However talented and well-regarded representatives of Bangladesh’s thriving NGO movement, such as Magsaysay Award winners Syeda Rizwana Hasan and Sharmin Murshid, and Yunus’s trusted Grameen Bank colleague Nur Jahan Begum, present the interim administration as a body committed to fundamental structural reforms that will not be discredited by political subterfuge, the reality is more awkward.

These people became the target of the movement
At first, the initial mystery of who was responsible for the “spontaneous” destruction of monuments commemorating Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the 1971 Liberation War appeared to have been resolved. The targets of vandalism included a cultural centre named after Indira Gandhi and a member of the minority Hindu community, singer Rahul Anand. It now appears that these were targeted by the student movement, whose leadership appears to have no place for either Bangabandhu or the Awami League. Following sustained student pressure, the interim administration cancelled the public holiday on August 15 to commemorate Mujib’s martyrdom day. In fact, those who came to pay homage at the iconic leader’s burned-out house in Dhanmondi on August 15 were attacked and humiliated. Later, the students celebrated their ‘victory’ with a blazing lungi dance.

To say that the driving force behind the student movement is Islamists would not be accurate. So far they have no connection with the sporadic attacks on Hindus in various parts of Bangladesh. From various media statements and passionate public speeches, it appears that a large section of the student activists, not already associated with the Bangladesh National Party and Jamaat-e-Islami, are loosely left-wing in leanings. While some of this is undoubtedly romanticised, a large section is motivated by bitter hatred for India.

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Why this feeling of bitterness?
Presumably, this opposition has been fuelled by India’s relationship with the Awami League government, particularly its bungling of three successive elections. However, scenes of grand celebrations in Bangladesh after India lost to Australia in the ICC World Cup last year suggest that the hatred has gone beyond politics and taken on a civilisational dimension. Why this is happening, given that Bangladesh relies on healthcare facilities in India and has cultural ties with West Bengal, is mysterious. Judging from the rants of professional anti-India people who blame New Delhi for all of Bangladesh’s ills, some of the hatred is also economic. The suggestion is that too many Indian goods are being sold in Bangladesh, too many Indian companies are dominating local enterprises and too many Indians are taking away jobs from locals. The students say that if India continues its undeclared war on Bangladesh, there will be retaliation and renewed unrest in Assam and north-east India, a complete reversal of Hasina’s zero tolerance towards those who used Bangladesh to break up India.

These may be the half-baked ideas of a few militants who need to grow up. Unfortunately, these are also the beliefs of those who feel that the future belongs not to either Yunus and his/her NGO or the successors of former president Ziaur Rahman but to those who faced the bullets in July-August 2024, the so-called ‘Second Liberation’ which, unlike the first, does not involve India at all.