After closing hostilities with Pakistan, India has turned its attention on Bangladesh, which is fast moving from being India’s “close friend” to an undefined status. Last week, it took two significant steps to warn the Mohammad Yunus government in Dhaka that it has had enough of its anti-India rhetoric and cosying up with India’s known enemies.
First came the Teesta Prahar exercise in India’s Siliguri, or “chicken neck”, corridor along the border with Bangladesh, and then, on Saturday night, New Delhi announced fresh restrictions on its eastern neighbour’s garment exports.
The Teesta Prahar Exercise, a battlefield live drill involving air power, electronic warfare, infantry, armour, artillery and special forces, was played out soon after hostilities with Pakistan ended in a provocative message to the Yunus government.
Yunus’s advisors and aides and Yunus himself have, at times, spoken of India’s “vulnerable” Siliguri corridor and about joining hands with China in case war breaks out with China and being the guardian of the Indian Ocean.
The Prahar (Strike) exercise by India’s Trishakti Corps brought in more of the Indian Army’s latest weaponry and gadgetry this time round in an attempt to instil shock and awe on its would-be enemies and was clearly more of a diplomatic warning than just a routine exercise.
To rub in the message, within days of the drill ending, New Delhi imposed restrictions on the import of Bangladeshi garments, allowing their entry only through the seaports of Kolkata and Mumbai (Nhava Sheva).
The move, seen as a calibrated response to recent developments in Dhaka, is aimed at tightening control over select trade channels while maintaining broader bilateral economic engagement.
Besides garments, India has also placed restrictions on how a range of other Bangladeshi products can be brought into the country.
All this happened after two recent significant diplomatic snafus were committed by the Yunus regime, which came in after the Sheikh Hasina government was forced out of power by a ‘colour revolution’ in August last year.
Soon after the Pahalgam massacre, a top aide to Bangladesh’s Chief Advisor Mohammad Yunus triggered a diplomatic firestorm by suggesting a joint Bangladesh-China move to “take over” India’s northeast if India strikes Pakistan.
The former head of Bangladesh’s Border Guards and a key figure in the Yunus administration, Major General (Retd) ALM Fazlur Rahman, posted on social media: “If India attacks Pakistan, Bangladesh should occupy the seven states of Northeastern India.”
The inflammatory comment followed Yunus’s own controversial pitch in China earlier this year, where he declared Bangladesh as the “only guardian” of the Indian Ocean and pointed out that India’s northeastern states are landlocked and depend on Bangladesh for access to the Bay of Bengal.
India’s response took some time in coming, say those involved in the diplomatic answer, but may prove to be more than just a warning.
New Delhi’s move to restrict imports from Bangladesh through land ports will affect goods worth US $770 million—nearly 42 per cent of total imports —warns a new report by the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI).
The biggest blow will fall on Bangladesh’s booming garment exports. Valued at US $618 million annually, these goods can now enter India only through two designated seaports, shutting down crucial land routes.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh itself is in a state of churn. There are rumours of a coup by the army alarmed by developments triggered by the Yunus regime, as well as of an Islamist putsch against the army chief, General Waker Uz Zaman, one of the saner voices in the three-way power-sharing formula that runs Dhaka.
In the midst of all this, starting Sunday, restrictions have been imposed by the army on demonstrations at various key points in Dhaka and around the Dhaka military cantonment. This comes after street demonstrations by Islamist students who shouted “Waker na Hasnat; Hasnat, Hasnat” (Waker or Hasnat; Hasnat, Hasnat).
Hasnat Abdullah was one of the main organisers of the August movement against Sheikh Hasina and has recently founded a new party, which is likely to align with Jamaat-i-Bangladesh in any coming elections; though Islamists, who have declared Yunus to be a “God-sent” leader, would prefer that polls are not held and the current unelected disposition continues for at least another five years, as they are unsure of a victory at the hustings.
The power triangle in Dhaka now comprises the pro-West, pro-China Prof. Mohammad Yunus, who heads the government, his ministry of sorts cobbled together by various Islamist forces, who are openly pro-Pakistan and pro-China rather than pro-West and certainly are against India, and Gen. Zaman, who seems to be the voice of moderation and of Bangladesh’s self-interests.
The triangular fight is not only over power but also how much to accede to the Western designs for establishing the Arakan Corridor to establish a supply link with Myanmar’s breakaway Rakhine province and fears that this could provoke a conflict with Myanmar. Yunus has, in order to facilitate that corridor, also announced a plan to give control of all major Bangladeshi ports to global port companies, which are either aligned to Western or Chinese interests.
To come back to the ban on rallies and demonstrations—the move comes in the wake of a government-sponsored rally by Islamists and students, which led to the banning of the Awami League. However, this ban will hit neither the Awami League, which is mostly functioning underground, nor the Islamists who are now ruling, but rather the Khaleda Zia-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
The BNP, which has been out of power for nearly two decades now, was hoping to win big in any election which is held over the next year or so. Their political activities, opposition to the measures being taken by the Yunus government, will remain on TV talk shows and in newspaper columns but not where they count—the streets of Dhaka—where the new political game is being played.
