December 26, 2025 • 48 mins
The killing of student leader Sharif Osman Hadi has set Bangladesh on fire again. But this time, the anger isn't just anti-government, it's dangerously anti-India.
In this episode of In Our Defence, host Dev Goswami and defence expert Sandeep Unnithan decode the chaos next door. From the smashing of Sheikh Mujib's statues to the chilling return of the Pakistan Army in Bangladeshi politics, the two answer the hard question: Is India facing a new "Third Front"?
The two discuss:
-The legacy of the founder (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) and the general (Ziaur Rahman)
-How the erasure of 1971 is opening the door for a "Pakistan-style" Islamic nationalism
-The rumor of a Pakistan-Bangladesh mutual defence pact and why that should worry India
-What 2026 may bring to Bangladesh and its politics.
Produced by Taniya Dutta
Sound mixed by Rohan Bharti
In this episode of In Our Defence, host Dev Goswami and defence expert Sandeep Unnithan decode the chaos next door. From the smashing of Sheikh Mujib's statues to the chilling return of the Pakistan Army in Bangladeshi politics, the two answer the hard question: Is India facing a new "Third Front"?
The two discuss:
-The legacy of the founder (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) and the general (Ziaur Rahman)
-How the erasure of 1971 is opening the door for a "Pakistan-style" Islamic nationalism
-The rumor of a Pakistan-Bangladesh mutual defence pact and why that should worry India
-What 2026 may bring to Bangladesh and its politics.
Produced by Taniya Dutta
Sound mixed by Rohan Bharti
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is India Today Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to Season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
Deve Goswami and every week I sit down with experts
and retired officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force
to decode all things to do with India security and
explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
(00:27):
stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
This is in our Defense, Saturady.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Very tumultous history right from partition in nineteen forty seven.
Quick recap from forty seven to seventy one. They were
the eastern wing of Pakistan, right you had this bizarre
geography of Pakistan on the west and Pakistan on the
east of India and separated by over two thousand kilometers
of Indian territory. And in East Pakistan, now what happened
(00:56):
was that there was Bengali nationalism, which I think the
military rulers of West Pakistan underestimated and they try to
repress that. YABAMAI League is seen as secular, progressive democratic.
The B and B, which is Jianzhiyo Raiman's party, is
seen as more closely aligned with the Jamath and they
(01:17):
are seen as more fundamental.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
The legacy of Sheik Jibur Rahman.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
You have instances where his where his houses, houses have
been attacked, his statues had been toppled. His daughter is
living in exile in India. The party he founded has
been disbarred from from conducting from being part of elections.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
The fifteen years that Sheik Hassina has been in power
in Bangladesh have been the best years for India Bangladesh relations.
And I'm here looking at it. I'm looking at Bangladesh
from purely India perspective. Right, what was Bangladesh before Sheikh
Hasina came to power, Before her nearly three ten years
back to back, it was a hub of Islamis. It
(01:59):
was a hub of you know, illegal activities all directed
at India. India ever prepared for a contingency to see
this sort of a turn in Bangladesh. The anti India
sentiment that I was talking about, you experience very beautifully
by saying that you never managed to the Pakistan of Bangladesh.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Welcome to defense. Bangladesh is on the boil once again.
For over a year now, Bangladesh has seen wild political
uncertainty after the former Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina was forced
to flee the country and to seek refuge in India.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
She fled in.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Around August last year, if I'm getting the month correct,
over massive youth protests.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
That were launched over job quotas.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Quotas meant for descendants of freedom fighters, freedom fighters who
fought for Bangladesh's independence. Since then, there is a lot
of uncertainty Banglades. There's been an interim government, there was hopes,
there are hopes of an election being held very soon. However,
the Avarming League of Shaikhsina has been disbarred from the election. Now,
(03:04):
up until now, I'd rather say up until a couple
of months ago, this was mostly for India, sort of
a regen change situation in Bangladesh. But what's happened in
the last few weeks has almost become a hostile neighborhood
sort of a situation, which is exactly why I want
to discuss this with Adep on.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
This episode of independs. Hey sleep, how are you hey?
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Good? They've good to be back, so SANDIEP.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I think this is perhaps the right way to put it.
It was mostly the gen change last year and over
the period of several months now it's become.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Very hostile neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Just before the recording, we were talking about this chatter
that's then their online of a defense pact that Pakistan
and Bangladesh may signed something on the Saudi Pact that
Pakistan signed a couple of months ago that we had
an episode on which would basically be on the lines
of Pakistan sort of coming to the aid of Bangladeshi
bang attacked and the other way around.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Obviously, that's that's going to be the.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Point of rest for us as we discussed the situation
in Bangladesh. But before we do a bill, obviously, sort
of get some medica of the history, because I think
to understand the two core parties at play Awami League
versus the bang Nationalist Party, you have to sort of
go back to the two men, the founder and the
general Rahman and Ziau Rahman, both of them assassinated, both
(04:23):
of them assassinated in coup attempts.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So, Sandy tell us about these two people. These two
are these two men, uh what has flown from them
in terms of the Aami League under Mujibur Rahman and
the b n P under ziaou Raman, their respective descendants,
Sheik Hasina and Khalida Zia uh So, tell us after independence,
(04:46):
what happened with these two men, the sort of ideologies
that diver diverged, and where they placed the Avami League
in BNP today.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Before we talk about the events of the last time.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Absolutely, they it's a fascinating story. I mean, it's the
subject of an OTT series if you ask me, I mean,
because this is like, you know, this is a script
that's writing itself in Bangladesh. If you look at it,
it's had a very tumultus history right from partition in
nineteen forty seven quick recap from forty seven to seventy one.
They were the eastern wing of Pakistan, right you had
(05:17):
this bizarre geography of Pakistan on the west and Pakistan
on the east of India and separated by over two
thousand kilometers of Indian territory. And in East Pakistan, and
what happened was that there was Bengali nationalism, which I
think the military rulers of West Pakistan underestimated, and they
tried to repress that. The Awami League was the secular
(05:42):
found of politics in then East Pakistan. They won the
elections in a landslide election that were conducted in nineteen
seventy but the Pakistan military rulers did not want to
give the Avami League power because that would mean that
for the first time you would have a Pakistani prime
(06:02):
minister from Bengal, right from the East part, which they
always looked upon as a colony. I mean, if you
look at the whole mindset of Pakistan, it's four provinces
in the west and one in the east. So the
four provinces, primarily the Panjabi dominated ones, look down upon
Bengali culture, Bengali nationalism, all of those things. And the
result was that in nineteen seventy one you had a genocide.
(06:24):
India stepped in aided the creation of Bangladesh. Now there
are two strands here in Bangladesh. There is a civil side,
which is Sheik Mujibu Raiman, who is the founder of
the Amami League. He's regarded as the father of modern Bangladesh.
And there is the military side, which is then Major
Ziau Rahiman, who then becomes general who actually issues the
(06:49):
declaration of the Independence of Bangladesh in March of nineteen
seventy one. And these two strands somehow coexist from nineteen
seventy one after the liberation till about nineteen seventy five
when there is this mysterious assassination of Sheik Mujibur Rayman
where you have these military officers who young captains and majors,
(07:13):
who come rushing into thirty two dun Mondi and where
the Sheikh Mujibur Rayman family lives, where Shaikh Mujib's family lives,
and they proceed to carry out one of the most
horrific massacres in political history, where they go literally from
room to room, they kill all his family members, his servants,
(07:34):
his friends, whoever's in that thirty two don Mondy is massacred.
And I've been to thirty two done Monday when it
was still standing about nearly a decade ago. I was
researching for my book and one of the freedom fighters,
you know, he took me around and he showed me, look,
this is what happened. They went from this room to
that room and they murdered everyone. And I was thinking,
(07:55):
you know, where did this violence strand, this violence streak
come from? Where you murder the man who's given you
freedom and his whole family right down to his fourteen
year old son, Shaik Russell. He's the youngest person to
be killed there. And the only two people who escape
are Sheik Hasina and Sheik Rahanna, who are his two
youngest children there overseas there in Europe at that time.
(08:18):
And this massacre happens in August of nineteen seventy five.
That's the only reason that they survived. And there are
certain events that you know, go into play and lo
and behold. The beneficiary of those events is General Ziao Raiman,
and he takes over par in nineteen seventy five, and
he launches the BNP, the Bangladesh National Party in nineteen
(08:42):
seventy eight. And in nineteen eighty one, General Ziaou Rayman
is assassinated in pretty much the same circumstances that Sheik
Moshibu Raiman is murdered. Where you have young officers, I
mean this again in Chittagong. He's there spending an evening
there because he wants to solve some political issues. And
(09:04):
early in the morning he's sleeping in this bungalow there
that's the military inspection bungalow kind of thing where and
suddenly that place is swarming with young officers, very angry
at supposed favoritism that's going on there, and they attack
this thing. And the interesting thing is that no JCOs
they're no n CEO's, no soldiers, they're all young officers
(09:28):
and these are all Mutijoda's, they're all being freedom fighters
in the seventy one war. And they come there and
one of them just picks up a Chinese submachine gun
and just sprays Mujib the General Ziau Raiman, with something
like an entire magazine and it just collapses there. So
two leaders political and military of the freedom struggle, they
(09:53):
die within like six years of each other. And what
happens is that the Avami League now is in the
hands of Sheikh Has his daughter, Bangabandhu's daughter. And in
nineteen eighty one you have Haalidazia, who's the widow of
General Ziaou Raman, who takes over the BNP. So the
politics of Bangladesh except for a brief spell wn Ershad
(10:15):
and this is interesting that Ershad is the one who
takes the benefit of the assassination of Ziau Rahman in
nineteen eighty one. He's a very quiet, wiley Canning fellow
who kind of takes power and he rules Bangladesh for
more than a decade, and then the Begums come together,
as they call him, the two Begums come together, and
they give him some kind of They put up a
(10:37):
united front and Ershad is out of the picture. By
the late eighties, he's gone, and very interestingly, he's one
of the very few leaders who actually has a very
peaceful you know, a dictator who retires peacefully. He starts
his own political party and then dies at the right
paid old age of eighty ninety or something in twenty nineteen.
(11:00):
And this thing between the two begums continues. So you
have these two ladies who are the who who are
taking forward the legacy of two of their founding fathers
of Bangladesh. So I mean that in a nutshell, is
literally what the fight is all about. The Abami League
is seen as secular, progressive democratic. The b and P,
(11:22):
which is z Rahman's party, is seen as more closely
aligned with the Jamat and they are seen as more fundamentals.
But though in recent years they've kind of tried to
break away from the Jamad, the Jamad once an identity
of its own. And so here we are in twenty
twenty six, we're looking at elections. Where as you mentioned,
the Armi League is out of the picture. They're not
(11:44):
going to be they're going to be disbarred from the elections.
But the B and P and Tarikrahman is the person
to watch out for. I mean, he's to arrive in
Dhaka on the twenty fifth of December, the Christmas Day
gift for Bangladesh after seventy years in exile. So he's
clearly the man to watch out for. And he's been
tipped to be the person who could be the Prime
(12:06):
Minister of Bangladesh in twenty twenty six. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Right, So let's look at what's happened in the last
one year.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
In early last years, on June July summer, you basically
had the court over there restoring job quoters for freedom
fighters descendants. That basically is the is what triggered massive
youth protest against Sheikassina the government, Shakassina's government. I'm sorry, uh,
the protest on violent. She made some comments, there were
allegations of she ca carried out your human as abuses
(12:32):
and stuff like that, and around August is when she fled.
I remember sitting in the newsroom and there was this
C seventeen low Master.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
If I'm not wrong, that was or.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So she flew yeah, and that was the most tracked
of playing on flight to dark that that day went.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
But you know, I have to tell you something very strange.
You know, I was talking to a friend and you're
talking about contingencies. So he said, look, I need to
drop some contingencies. This is a couple of years back.
I think it was two three years back. So he says,
give me some ideas that you can you know, contingency.
So I said, well, one contingency is that what happens
if and this is when Shae Cassina was in part,
(13:13):
what happens if Shay Hasina is deposed by the military
or Islamist? How will you rescue her? Because I said,
she is so valuable for India and the kind of
stuff she's done for India in fifteen years, these have
been the best years of India Bangladesh relations. So I said,
how are you going to fly in IFC one thirty
j's with Parasef guys to rescue sheik you know Hasina?
(13:37):
And this is exactly what happened. I said a few
years later because you know, Bangladesh is a very volatile,
unpredictable politics. It's not like us, you know, and we
keep saying this every time they and there is a
certain uh, you know process in Indian politics. There is
a certain element of predictability in our politics. Right you
(13:58):
have a prime mister who's elected and then he has
to sweat before the next election and then get his mandate,
renew his mandate or you know, be prepared to sit
in the opposition. There's a very gradual process that we've
kind of got used to now. Apart from the emergency
in seventy five, we haven't seen any great disruptions like that.
(14:20):
Every Indian prime minister who's come with a big mandate
has either seen his mandate go reduce or been voted
out of power or have to struggle to get the
next you know, to renew his mandate. Whereas in Pakistan
and now in Bangladesh, you're seeing this kind of unpredictability
where you know, the battle lines are so clearly drawn
(14:43):
and the enmity is like they're like blood feuds. There's
no easy you know politics over there. It's it's all
about killing the other person or exhaling them or imprisoning them,
you know, that kind of very extreme kind of which
we fortunately have not seen, or we haven't seen in
a while.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
A good point about the contingency bit, because I think
now that explains what happened last year. Because when she
flew into the Hindan Air Base flows to Delhi, the
national capital, and she stayed there for a few days,
it was it was turned into a.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Very high security zone.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
The speculation always was that this was just a temporary arrangement.
She was probably going to fly out to, let say,
the UK or some other some other country. That's what
a lot of people assumed. But then it turns out
that she's still here. She's living in as the Print
reported a few months ago, she's living in a bungalo
in the Lutkins out of Delhi, and she apparently takes
(15:40):
walk walks at the famous garden whose name I'm forgetting
right now. Yeah, it's very popular, yes, yes, yes, yes, right. Anyway,
so that's what happened last year. Then you had Mohammed
Yunus who came in with this interim government. That government
was supposed to sort of restore peace to the to
(16:00):
the immediate situation and eventually lead to a point where
elections would be held. Before then, the Army League was
declared as you know, illegal and they were said they
were disbarred from the election.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Uh So, up until now, like I said at the start.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Of my start of the episode, this was most more
orles a regime change situation for India, some amounts of violence.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
You know, by regime change, they I'm assuming you mean
that external forces brought about a change in the region.
And it wasn't the spontaneous student protests, yes, yes, thing
them to be. It was a deliberate action from yeah
oh side.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yeah, And that is also something that we're not going
to come to in a bit.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Now.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
What's happened in the latest flashpoint is there's this anti
India leader, pretty rabid called Sharif force Manhadi who has
been killed. This happened a couple of days ago, a
few days ago, and it's the trigger point for a
discussion as well.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Now the questions and to my mind is is.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
This sort of anti India sentiment that you are seeing
in Bangladesh right now, the anti founder sentiment.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I don't know, if I don't know if this is
where I.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Want you to come in whether these two strands go together,
that there is a sentiment against the man who founded
your country and also the country that's been a very
good friend of yours, the country that helped in your
liberation strugglet So where is this Are these two anti
sentiments coming from?
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Do they go handing out? So so a good question there.
Now the thing is that and here I have to
quote my friend General Ravishankar, who's you know, because he's
the point that he made about Bangladesh is very interesting.
Couple of months back we were talking where he says that,
you know, what happened in nineteen seventy one is that
India took Bangladesh out of Pakistan, but they didn't take
(17:50):
the Pakistan out of Bangladesh. Right, So, when you go
deeper into the politics of nineteen seventy one and the
run up to the liberal of Bangladeshi realized that there
was a very sizeable population within Bangladesh that were entirely
pro Pakistan. They were actually what Djamath comes from. And
(18:12):
then you understand how the ruling military junta in East
Pakistan was able to recruit Rasakhash They you know, the
al Bada and those kind of razakhas who were basically militias,
which they used then to hunt down Awami leaguers, intellectual students,
(18:33):
all of those kind of things, right and minorities. Of course,
now these people have kind of been there in the
population and they lie low. So what happens is that
when I was there, I was told this thing that
you know, this guy, just be careful, don't mingle too much,
don't speak too much to him, because you know he's
b and P and they're just waiting to come back.
(18:56):
And they hadn't been back in part in about fifteen years.
But there's a that radical strand which is not BNP.
The BNP is not as radical as the Jamat. Now,
the BNP is actually a political party. They committed to
the democratic process. They believe in elections and all of that.
The Jamat is not. The Jamat's end state is for
Shariah to be imposed in Bangladesh, right, and they believe
(19:19):
in the concept of the Kaliphate and all of that. Right,
they are a far right Islamist party and that's their agenda. Now,
what has happened is that this violent, virulent right wing
Islamist strand has always been there in East Pakistan. And
let's not forget that you've had some horrific riots at
(19:41):
partition pre partition nineteen forty six. You've had massacres, you
have had the Direct Action Day and all of that.
So there's been a very violent Islamist strand within the
Freedom Movement of Pakistan as well in Bengal, and that
has always been below the surface. The Awami League is
(20:03):
the moderate, secular, progressive part and we've always, for obvious reasons,
you know, sided with the Awami League. And I must
tell you this, Dave, that you know, in the fifteen
years that Shaikh Hassina has been in power in Bangladesh
have been the best years for India Bangladesh relations. And
I'm here looking at it. I'm looking at Bangladesh from
(20:24):
purely India perspective. Right, what was Bangladesh before Sheikh Hassina
came to power, Before her nearly three ten years back
to back, it was a hub of Islamis. It was
a hub of you know, illegal activities all directed at India.
And if you go back into time nineteen seventy one,
(20:44):
what is one of the biggest reasons that Arankau wanted
to go into East Pakistan to liberate East Pakistan, to
you know, break it away from the West. It was
that the fact that the ISI, they've had their basis
in East Pakistan from the nineteen fifties, not the sixties
or the seventies, right from the nineteen fifties. The Chickagong
(21:07):
Hill tracks in fact were used as a springboard for
insurgencies across northeastern India, whether it is the money Pour insurgency,
the Naga insurgency, the Miso insurgency. All the training camps
were in the Chicagong Hill tracks. And this is why
late sixties are in Coo says we need to break
(21:28):
Bangladesh away from Pakistan because it's going to be a sore,
you know, it's going to be a thorn in our
backside otherwise forever in the in our backyard, backside, whatever
you want to call it. And that's one of the
motivating factors for the breakaway of you know, the creation
of Bangladesh. Why Kau wanted a free Bangladesh. And of
(21:50):
course he's sent in his covert units, the SFF and
all were infiltrated into the Chicagong Hill tracks to you
know basically knock out those Pakistan military camps over there.
So when you have cut to nearly half a century
later under Sheik Hasina, you have a Bangladesh that is
very responsive to india security needs. We're very acutely aware
(22:10):
of the northeast, the problems that we have, the insurgencies.
You have China to the north. You have a hostile
China to the north in fact, and now what you
have in twenty twenty five and spilling over into twenty
twenty six is a hostile Bangladesh as well. Right, So
that thing of a chickens neck, the dilemma, of course,
I'm sure you will talk about it in a bit,
(22:33):
is a very real problem and that this is what
happens when you have a country that's you know, hostile
to your interests, you know, kind of going back to
what it was pre nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
But that's a fantastic point you made, some deepino because
many people, like an Iron, I'm one of them, see
it very simplistically that when the seventy one war happened,
the liberation happened, it was a clean break and suddenly
Bangladesh had nothing to do with Pakistan or society together.
But what do you say makes so much sense that
you haven't taken that strand out. That's right, fantastic point. Right,
(23:07):
So you know something before we talk about the defense
dilemma that this gives us one last point about what's
going on in Balaji in terms of who's also influencing it.
Last episode we talked a bit about how SPI agency's
function and we spoke about how one of their covert
one of their covert responsibilities in a in a foreign
(23:28):
country is sort of to influence policies there, influence outcomes,
their influence the situation there basically in the favor of
the country.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
For which you work for.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
So, which are the countries that are very immensely interested
in Bangladesh and would be and have been pulling the
strings to sort of influence what's been going on.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
So that's that's three. There's a triangle of you know,
countries over there. There's the United States, there's China, and
of course Pakistan. Pakistan is the overtact. China and the
United States are more in the background and they but
they have their interests there. Right. So the United States,
what it's looking at is this grand containment strategy of Chinina.
(24:14):
They want to, you know, get all these countries on
the southern flanks of China in their camp, which is
why they want Afghanistan, of course Pakistan. You're looking at
Bangladesh as well and Miyanmar. So these are all the
areas from where they could launch, you know, attacks against
China's back door. Now, if you look at where Bangladesh
(24:36):
is situated, it sits astride, a very important energy lifeline
for China, that is through the Bay of Bengal. China
is aware of its Malaka dilemma, which is a majority
of its energy flows through the Malaca Straits, which is
why they've been trying to build these alternate pipelines to
you know, diversify their energy supplies. That is, one is
(24:58):
through Miyanmar and the Bay of Bengal, and the other
one is to the Russian Federation. The Russian one will take,
of course some time to come, but in the meantime
you have these other pipelines. So the United States is
very keen on sitting over there. They don't have a
base there, they don't have a presence there, and that's
why this thing of the Saint Martin's Island came up
when the US is believed to have asked Shee Casina
(25:19):
for a base there in the Bay of Bengal where
they could kind of watch all of these activities, keep
a watch on China, keep a watch on Bangladesh as well.
And now from what one hears, the US presence, the
military presence at Bangladesh has gone up considerably. There are hundreds,
if not thousands, of US two hundreds definitely, there are
(25:41):
hundreds of US soldiers there for various exercises. And there
was one of the Special Forces guys turned up dead
in one hotel. And you know, those those kinds of
things have been happening there which you didn't see in
the last couple of years. So you know, these are
factors that worry India that to have other countries coming
into a country which you see has very vital, very
(26:05):
critical to your security interests. And of course the third
factor is China itself. China's had very close ties with Bangladesh.
In fact, these were built up by Ziau Rama where
he pivoted almost entirely towards China, and so China is
also very interested in what's going on in Bangladesh and
(26:25):
you've seen that in the last couple of years. Of course,
the big China Bangladesh to China pivot began during General
Ziao Rama's time and literally ninety percent of their military
arsenal is of Chinese origin. And China has built, you know,
a submarine base, one of the largest submarine bases in
(26:48):
the Indian subcontinent at Cox's Bazaar. It's a very large base,
and they've sold them to submarines, second and submarines, but
eventually they could be a larger there. And the worry
is that, of course, you could have Chinese submarines based
there at some point in the future. So these are all,
you know, competing interests China, Pakistan, the United States, all
(27:13):
of them very interested in Bangladesh, and of course its
location at the Bay of Bengal and you know, so
close to India, and for Pakistan is very you know,
it's very very obvious why they would want it. And
here there's that line of one of the Pakistani generals.
In fact, this was their military strategy prior to nineteen
(27:35):
seventy one, when Bangladeshi politicians, then East Pakistan politicians, would ask,
why are you so thinly defended in East Pakistan. They
never deployed very large formations, military formations. And the guys
in Islamabad and rawal Pindi would say, well, that's because
the defense of East Pakistan lies in the west. So
you know, we are going to draw away so many
(27:56):
Indian troops that they will not have enough to attack
East Pakistan with. And you know, more than fifty years later,
it's like we're going back to those days where you
have these very ambitious Pakistani general's phield Marshal Munir for sure,
who believes that if he, you know, does the security
(28:18):
agreement with Bangladesh, that will give India cost to worry
and therefore it's a reimagining of that old you know,
defense of Pakistan West Pakistan lies in the east, that
kind of scenario.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Right, we'll talk more about this just after a quick
quick break.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Why is it an unfinished revolution, because you know, the
revolution had a name. I mean that is not just.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
The ouster of the Sheikh Hasina regime, but also bringing
back the restoring the unstated aim was initially restoring law
and order and doing with corruption and mis governance.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
And all that.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
Now nothing of that is there.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Now.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
The whole thing has you know, swiveled onto what was
the original plan of the people behind the scenes, the
masters who were these students were merely puppets. The puppeteers
always wanted the Jamat to come to power in order
to needle India and pose as a security threat to So.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Who are the puppets?
Speaker 6 (29:21):
Are you in your book making the point that this
isn't a spontaneous students movement, this is actually an orchestrated
regime change operation.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Absolutely, because you know how the idea of the book
Impact was started, like the genesis was, why did this
happen suddenly? You know, this was the started off as
something to do with quotas, you know, anti discrimination and
and when and the government had nothing to the government
said that, yes, we are with the students, we are
with the protesters, and we concede there. We will concede
(29:54):
their demands eventually. Then it became a removed has removed
Shay Cassina. It talked about topling the government, etcetera. Why
did it suddenly happen? And while we were investigating, talking
to a lot of people across the board, talking to
both Obama League, the army and the security establishment and
the other parties, we realize that it was a regime
(30:15):
change operation. Absolutely one is the deep State of America,
and there's no doubt that the deep state is involved,
the US Deep State and is involved in.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
That Welcome back Sandip with Bangladesh. Now, we've always talked
about two front.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Situations for India, China and Pakistan.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Always, and this is always you lullge this sort of
sort of sort of complacency, perhaps that none of your
other neighbors Nepal, Buddha and Bangladesh Sri Lanka are too
much to worry about. But do you foresee a third
front situation forming around the way and next to next
(31:00):
to Indian Bangladesh in not as much as you know
Bangladesh being a military threat to you in terms of
Bangladesh attacking you or invading you, but providing that staging.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Ground for your enemies to use that area to trouble you.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Absolutely, this is the very real fear that I have,
and this agreement between Pakistan and Bangladesh only, you know,
illuminates that fear, and I think a lot of people
would be thinking this through. You know why the Pakistani
military chose to do this agreement under mahmaed Unus, which
is not a legitimate He cannot sign agreements of this nature.
(31:38):
These are very, very big strategic agreements. You can't sign
them when you don't have a lawfully elected government in place.
And I think the first thing that India should do
is when lawfully elected government does assume office next year,
should ask for the scrapping of this kind of a
deal because the consequences of that, the implications of that
(32:00):
are enormous. I'll just give you a couple of, you know, scenarios,
since I love scenarios so much. What if the Pakistan
military starts basing in Bangladesh, right, that could be, if
not an entire third front, but it could be a
half front. So you're looking at a two and a
half front situation, because I don't think Bangladesh has the
(32:22):
kind of potential to create an entirely new front. You're
looking at two big adversaries China of course, and Pakistan,
which is the fifth largest army in the world. Bangladesh
would not be very much, but it would if you
deployed Pakistani troops there. It would give you enough cost
for concern for you to deploy some forces in the
(32:45):
East to forest all any such You know what if
an division Pakistan deploys a division there, these are contingencies
that you must think through and you must also make
the Bangladeshi is aware of this that you do something
like this, you allow the basing of Pakistani troops or
assets or missiles or anything of that sort on your soil,
(33:06):
then you become party to a conflict. Right, and you
can be sure that the Bromos missiles would not be
flying west, they would be going east as well, right,
And that's something that we should call out very very
unequal unequal, We should call out very unequivocally with Bangladesh.
These are red lines. You cannot cross these red lines
(33:29):
because they directly impact our security in the northeast.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
There's also the point about that you made earlier that
have you prepared for the contingency of Sheikh Hasina being
sort of deposed either by the military or you know,
by the Islamists.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I think you were talking.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Mostly about the the the immediate situation contingency in terms
of the logistics of you know, getting across a plane
in some special forces guys to sort of bring her
to a tactical However, my question now is has in
India ever prepared for a contingency to see this sort
of a turn in Bangladesh. The anti India sentiment that
I was talking about, you experience very beautifully by saying
(34:08):
that you never banished the Pakistan Bangladesh. Has the Indian
establishment been aware of this fact? And have they been
preparing for a situation like this?
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Well, I'm sure they have. There are plans and they've
been discussed hinted at in the past as well, where
you know, we were prepared to militarily intervene at some point,
they say in the twenty tents in Bangladesh, and I'm
sure that those plans exist. If the situation were to
(34:42):
go beyond a point where India felt that its interests
were threatened, you would have to intervene military. But I
don't see anything happening in Bangladesh. Now, I must qualify
this by saying that I do not see as terrible
as India Bangladesh relations are in twenty twenty five, I
do not see any room for Indian military intervention in Bangladesh,
(35:03):
and that would be a terrible thing for us to do. Right,
you intervene in Bangladesh military, you get drawn into another
military coogmire where that's not our focus as of now.
Our entire focus should be on policing the border, just
making sure that the four thousand and ninety six kilometer
long India Bangladesh boundary is secure, there's no infiltration to
(35:28):
and fro and you just keep Bangladesh Caralden in that
fence area and not try and you know, do a
military intervention. But these are like you know, Niejak reactions.
They look very good tactically, you know, like O Indian
forces do this, that and all that. But what's the
end state, what's the endgame? Those things have to be
thought through very carefully, unless, of course, there is something
(35:48):
that happens which is of grave critical threat to India.
For instance, if there are troop movements out of Bangladesh
into India or moving towards the Chicken's Neck or something
of that sort happens, they get you know, militarily emboldened.
If if Wakaru Zaman, I mean, this is something that
I'm very mindful of, the fact is that you have
a military chief who's very sensible, General Wakaru Zaman, who's
(36:13):
he is not a hot head. Now, what if there
were to be a coup in the Bangladesh army, for instance,
and we've seen that in the past. What if he's deposed.
What if you get someone like Asimuni over there right
who's raging religious biggot and he plans to launch an
attack on India or you know, severed the chicken's neck
(36:33):
and all of these things. You know, India is this
very convenient punching bag for all of these countries. They
think that we spend a lot of time obsessing over
Bangladesh and what we must do it. We've got other
things to do, you know. But for them, one of
my friends used to say that, you know, I can
understand their predicament. They're surrounded by India on all sides, right,
(36:56):
so it's four thousand kilometers of They only have two
neighbors Bangladesh. They have India and they have Miyanmara and Myanmar.
The border is just about two hundred kilometers plus. It's
a small border. And they surrounded by Us, and therefore
they have this thing of the Big Brothers syndrome that
India is you know, against us, and it's conspiring and
wants to break us up. And no, I think we
have nothing but the best intentions for Bangladesh. We only
(37:18):
want Bangladesh to be stable, peaceful, progressive and not be
a base for anti India forces of the kind that
you're see now under units. I mean, this is really tragic.
And then this actually kind of justifies what we were
doing with Sheik Hasina over the last fifteen years, encouraging her.
We had excellent relations with her. The only thing was
(37:41):
we could not settle the Tista River dispute. We could
have done it but for a certain Indian chief minister
in a certain Indian state just across the boundary. But
you know, there's another big thing that's going to come up.
They've in nineteen twenty twenty six, which is the Ganga
(38:01):
water sharing agreement which we have with Bangladesh. That could
possibly be an issue in twenty twenty sixty. It's set
for a renewal next year. There's been a lot of
murmurs on both sides, but I don't see that as
a major issue unless some political party, you know, takes
it up and you know, makes it into another thing
that they're taking a water away or something like you
see in Pakistan.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Great, you know, as we end this discussion, since yoular
scenarios so much, I want to go back to the
to the assassinations that we began this episode with right
and sort of get an understanding from you on what
exactly went down. Not on the day of assassinations, but
you said they were in both cases young officers from
(38:45):
the military. But for both those assassinations, what could have
been those those those reasons that it happened.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Was it like a plan conspiracy or was it just
like in the moment sort of thing with I.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Think it's you know, I mean, this is not to
label an entire community or something, but you know, as
people say, Bengalis are very emotional and they militarize. So
there are these you know, particular stereotypes. Oh, you know,
Bengalis are not a violent or marshall non marshal there
are non marshal race and all of that. And yet
(39:21):
you have this strand of very extreme violence in Bangladesh
East Pakistan before that and uh and also invest Bengal
to a certain extent, you have a lot of political violence.
And interestingly in Bangladesh also pre the creation of Bangladesh,
you've seen a very violent counter attack by Bangladeshis against
(39:46):
the Pakistanis and the thing. And if you read Pakistani accounts,
they said we had to do Operation Searchlight because they
started killing our officers and our families and stuff like that.
And you know, there was this wholesale thing and this
was to bring control of cour The kind of violence
that they inflicted on East Pakistan then East Pakistan now
(40:06):
Bangladesh is unimaginable. But what happened after that is that
you had a situation where whenever there are wars and insurgencies,
a whole lot of weapons floating around, and you have
hot headed officers who believe that they can change the
course of history. Right, this is what happened in seventy
five where a section of the BANGLADESHAMI felt that who's
(40:28):
shait Mujibur Rayman. We're the guys who fought the war,
We are the Mukti Bahini. We liberated the country, and
this guy is now consolidating power and he's become a dictator.
He's become a civilian dictator. So it's time we, you know,
took matters into our own hands. And six years later,
that same thing happens once again. You have another group
of young officers who thinks the same way, and they
(40:52):
topple Ziau Rayman and it ends not in a toppling,
it ends in a you know, automatic weapons fire. And
there is at one end there is Chek Majibu Rahma
and the other you have Xiao Raiman. So this violentcetrand
has continued through Bangladeshi politics. And you saw that in
(41:17):
the mobs that were advancing towards say, Cassina's residence, official residents.
Those were not peaceful protesters, right of the kind that
you've seen another. They were there to literally kill you know,
shak Hasina and assassinate members of a family. They are
a very violent kind of mob and that is why
(41:39):
they had to you know, fly her out. Literally the
Bangladesh Army literally moved in and saved her. So there's
this conspiracy theory saying that oh no in the military
was also part of this conspiracy and they got her
out of the scene and so that they could be
you know, that the regime change, as they say, right,
But the fact is it is it's very violent. It
(42:02):
remains very violent, very you know emotional. I mean, if
you see the kind of crowds and that lynching of
that poor factory worker. These are not is lynching. Yeah,
these are not situations that happen in normal countries. Right.
They're going through a lot and one just hopes that
(42:25):
the elections are conducted in about two months time, you
have legitimately democratically elected government in power. Irrespective of who
comes to power. Most likely it seems that it is
going to be the BNP. The Jamad will also get
a sizable majority. But the other scenario that's being spoken
(42:46):
about is that Mamma Nus will not ride away quietly
into the sunset and he stays there as some kind
of president or senior statesman kind of figure with as
a very large you know, he kind of divides power
between the president and the prime minister. They don't want
(43:07):
a super powerful prime minister who can then, you know,
oppress other political parties do become a dictator, a civilian dictator.
So therefore there is this talk of power being shared
between the president and the Prime minister and even the
creation of an upper house. So it's it's a unique
emeral legislature that they have. The Jatiya Sansad is just
(43:31):
one thing. They will create an upper house as well.
It's so you'll have a Rajasaba equivalent, which will then
elect the president. So all of these scenarios are being
spoken about, but you must remember that whoever has you know,
planned this regime change and who's got all of these
chess pieces on the board, has some end state in
mind for Bangladesh. And you have to see the kind
(43:52):
of statements that came out of the Europeans when that
student leader was shot, nondescript guy Hadi, it was shot,
and you had Europeans coming out there and you know,
saying that we condemned this and uh and not a
word of regret for that poor factory workers lynched, public
(44:14):
people burnt alive and all of that. So then one
wonders whether there are other forces that play, whether it's
more than just those three countries that you know talk
that we talked about, right, that many other players hidden,
you know, in the shadows. But the fact is that,
you know, Bangladesh is a country that at some point
(44:34):
where people said pakistanis was saying that, you know, Bangladesh
today is doing so well. They're going at six percent.
They were at some point six or seven percent and
today they're back to about three, two or three percent. Right,
This is is that you know, Bangladesh is that is
the Pakistan that mohmadali Jina dreamt of. Right, They're doing
so well for themselves, and today I think they've decided
(44:58):
that we don't want economic growth, we don't want development,
we don't want all of this. We want to be
like Pakistan, you know, basket case.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Fantastic point.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
One last brief point to end the episode on what
is the future of the legacy of Sheikaman. You have
instances where his uh where his houses, houses have been attacked,
his statues have been toppled, His daughter is living in
exile in India. The party he founded has been disbarred
(45:32):
from from conducting from being part of elections.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
What about his legacy?
Speaker 3 (45:37):
His legacy continues there when the fact that his adversaries
are trying so hard to erase his legacy suggests that
they are really afraid of that legacy of his. And
he's the larger than life person, right. I never met him.
I mean, of course I was very small when he
passed away. But my co author, Captain emin Ar Salmon,
(45:57):
work very closely with him, and he's bout things to
say about him, and he says a very captivating personality right,
and the legacy that he's left. He is literally the
father of Bangladesha man who, as we discussed on a
previous episode, how Imran Khan is. The way he had
the gumption to stand up to the military is exactly
(46:19):
what Bangabandhu did. And he stood up to the Pakistani
military and they were as vicious with him as they
were with the other civilians, including Zadibhuto. It's a miracle
he managed to stay alive, and his legacy is not
going anywhere. It will remain in Bangladesh. It might be
below the radar right now for obvious reasons, because you
(46:40):
have lynch mobs running around, you know, being encouraged by
various external forces and some internal ones. But that legacy
remains and it will continue. And the Awami League is
a manifestation of that very sizable percentage of Bangladeshi population
who warned peace, progress democracy, a secular democracy which is
(47:05):
not about religious fundamentalism. They want to grow and they
want a stable, peaceful Bangladeshi. We saw for fifteen years.
It was at some point it was growing faster than
India even right, and their human development indics were better
than us in a couple of respects, but as we
realize now, it was all built on a foundation of sand.
(47:29):
And I mean today they are where they are, and
one only hopes that in twenty twenty six, you know,
they choose wisely and they come out of this mess
that they're in, because our you know, we have a
shared destiny. We can't choose our neighbors. Just so happens
that they are in our neighborhood, and we wish them well,
we want them to come out of this and become
(47:50):
a normal, stable, prosperous country, so we don't have to
keep looking over our shoulders that which terrorist organization has
set up a camp over there, or which is SI
chief is visiting over there? And what plans do they
have for stoking you know, instability in our northeast and
you know those kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Yeah, right, great, I think we'll end it there.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Like you said at the beginning of this episode, this
is like a not t D series that's still writing
itself because we don't know yet what will happen if
we don't know the identities of those in fact players
who are you know, playing with those those chess pieces.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
So I think this is something that will happen in
the near future, perhaps great and the thanks. Fantastic discussion
has always great insights from you.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
Thank you so much, thanks for having me there.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Yeah, thanks as always to our lists of viewers. That's
it for this mixed defense.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Those for more tune in next week. Till then, stay
safe and not cross any boundaries without a passport.
This is India Today Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to Season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
Deve Goswami and every week I sit down with experts
and retired officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force
to decode all things to do with India security and
explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
(00:27):
stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
This is in our Defense, Saturady.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Very tumultous history right from partition in nineteen forty seven.
Quick recap from forty seven to seventy one. They were
the eastern wing of Pakistan, right you had this bizarre
geography of Pakistan on the west and Pakistan on the
east of India and separated by over two thousand kilometers
of Indian territory. And in East Pakistan, now what happened
(00:56):
was that there was Bengali nationalism, which I think the
military rulers of West Pakistan underestimated and they try to
repress that. YABAMAI League is seen as secular, progressive democratic.
The B and B, which is Jianzhiyo Raiman's party, is
seen as more closely aligned with the Jamath and they
(01:17):
are seen as more fundamental.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
The legacy of Sheik Jibur Rahman.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
You have instances where his where his houses, houses have
been attacked, his statues had been toppled. His daughter is
living in exile in India. The party he founded has
been disbarred from from conducting from being part of elections.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
The fifteen years that Sheik Hassina has been in power
in Bangladesh have been the best years for India Bangladesh relations.
And I'm here looking at it. I'm looking at Bangladesh
from purely India perspective. Right, what was Bangladesh before Sheikh
Hasina came to power, Before her nearly three ten years
back to back, it was a hub of Islamis. It
(01:59):
was a hub of you know, illegal activities all directed
at India. India ever prepared for a contingency to see
this sort of a turn in Bangladesh. The anti India
sentiment that I was talking about, you experience very beautifully
by saying that you never managed to the Pakistan of Bangladesh.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Welcome to defense. Bangladesh is on the boil once again.
For over a year now, Bangladesh has seen wild political
uncertainty after the former Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina was forced
to flee the country and to seek refuge in India.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
She fled in.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Around August last year, if I'm getting the month correct,
over massive youth protests.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
That were launched over job quotas.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Quotas meant for descendants of freedom fighters, freedom fighters who
fought for Bangladesh's independence. Since then, there is a lot
of uncertainty Banglades. There's been an interim government, there was hopes,
there are hopes of an election being held very soon. However,
the Avarming League of Shaikhsina has been disbarred from the election. Now,
(03:04):
up until now, I'd rather say up until a couple
of months ago, this was mostly for India, sort of
a regen change situation in Bangladesh. But what's happened in
the last few weeks has almost become a hostile neighborhood
sort of a situation, which is exactly why I want
to discuss this with Adep on.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
This episode of independs. Hey sleep, how are you hey?
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Good? They've good to be back, so SANDIEP.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I think this is perhaps the right way to put it.
It was mostly the gen change last year and over
the period of several months now it's become.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Very hostile neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Just before the recording, we were talking about this chatter
that's then their online of a defense pact that Pakistan
and Bangladesh may signed something on the Saudi Pact that
Pakistan signed a couple of months ago that we had
an episode on which would basically be on the lines
of Pakistan sort of coming to the aid of Bangladeshi
bang attacked and the other way around.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Obviously, that's that's going to be the.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Point of rest for us as we discussed the situation
in Bangladesh. But before we do a bill, obviously, sort
of get some medica of the history, because I think
to understand the two core parties at play Awami League
versus the bang Nationalist Party, you have to sort of
go back to the two men, the founder and the
general Rahman and Ziau Rahman, both of them assassinated, both
(04:23):
of them assassinated in coup attempts.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So, Sandy tell us about these two people. These two
are these two men, uh what has flown from them
in terms of the Aami League under Mujibur Rahman and
the b n P under ziaou Raman, their respective descendants,
Sheik Hasina and Khalida Zia uh So, tell us after independence,
(04:46):
what happened with these two men, the sort of ideologies
that diver diverged, and where they placed the Avami League
in BNP today.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Before we talk about the events of the last time.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Absolutely, they it's a fascinating story. I mean, it's the
subject of an OTT series if you ask me, I mean,
because this is like, you know, this is a script
that's writing itself in Bangladesh. If you look at it,
it's had a very tumultus history right from partition in
nineteen forty seven quick recap from forty seven to seventy one.
They were the eastern wing of Pakistan, right you had
(05:17):
this bizarre geography of Pakistan on the west and Pakistan
on the east of India and separated by over two
thousand kilometers of Indian territory. And in East Pakistan, and
what happened was that there was Bengali nationalism, which I
think the military rulers of West Pakistan underestimated, and they
tried to repress that. The Awami League was the secular
(05:42):
found of politics in then East Pakistan. They won the
elections in a landslide election that were conducted in nineteen
seventy but the Pakistan military rulers did not want to
give the Avami League power because that would mean that
for the first time you would have a Pakistani prime
(06:02):
minister from Bengal, right from the East part, which they
always looked upon as a colony. I mean, if you
look at the whole mindset of Pakistan, it's four provinces
in the west and one in the east. So the
four provinces, primarily the Panjabi dominated ones, look down upon
Bengali culture, Bengali nationalism, all of those things. And the
result was that in nineteen seventy one you had a genocide.
(06:24):
India stepped in aided the creation of Bangladesh. Now there
are two strands here in Bangladesh. There is a civil side,
which is Sheik Mujibu Raiman, who is the founder of
the Amami League. He's regarded as the father of modern Bangladesh.
And there is the military side, which is then Major
Ziau Rahiman, who then becomes general who actually issues the
(06:49):
declaration of the Independence of Bangladesh in March of nineteen
seventy one. And these two strands somehow coexist from nineteen
seventy one after the liberation till about nineteen seventy five
when there is this mysterious assassination of Sheik Mujibur Rayman
where you have these military officers who young captains and majors,
(07:13):
who come rushing into thirty two dun Mondi and where
the Sheikh Mujibur Rayman family lives, where Shaikh Mujib's family lives,
and they proceed to carry out one of the most
horrific massacres in political history, where they go literally from
room to room, they kill all his family members, his servants,
(07:34):
his friends, whoever's in that thirty two don Mondy is massacred.
And I've been to thirty two done Monday when it
was still standing about nearly a decade ago. I was
researching for my book and one of the freedom fighters,
you know, he took me around and he showed me, look,
this is what happened. They went from this room to
that room and they murdered everyone. And I was thinking,
(07:55):
you know, where did this violence strand, this violence streak
come from? Where you murder the man who's given you
freedom and his whole family right down to his fourteen
year old son, Shaik Russell. He's the youngest person to
be killed there. And the only two people who escape
are Sheik Hasina and Sheik Rahanna, who are his two
youngest children there overseas there in Europe at that time.
(08:18):
And this massacre happens in August of nineteen seventy five.
That's the only reason that they survived. And there are
certain events that you know, go into play and lo
and behold. The beneficiary of those events is General Ziao Raiman,
and he takes over par in nineteen seventy five, and
he launches the BNP, the Bangladesh National Party in nineteen
(08:42):
seventy eight. And in nineteen eighty one, General Ziaou Rayman
is assassinated in pretty much the same circumstances that Sheik
Moshibu Raiman is murdered. Where you have young officers, I
mean this again in Chittagong. He's there spending an evening
there because he wants to solve some political issues. And
(09:04):
early in the morning he's sleeping in this bungalow there
that's the military inspection bungalow kind of thing where and
suddenly that place is swarming with young officers, very angry
at supposed favoritism that's going on there, and they attack
this thing. And the interesting thing is that no JCOs
they're no n CEO's, no soldiers, they're all young officers
(09:28):
and these are all Mutijoda's, they're all being freedom fighters
in the seventy one war. And they come there and
one of them just picks up a Chinese submachine gun
and just sprays Mujib the General Ziau Raiman, with something
like an entire magazine and it just collapses there. So
two leaders political and military of the freedom struggle, they
(09:53):
die within like six years of each other. And what
happens is that the Avami League now is in the
hands of Sheikh Has his daughter, Bangabandhu's daughter. And in
nineteen eighty one you have Haalidazia, who's the widow of
General Ziaou Raman, who takes over the BNP. So the
politics of Bangladesh except for a brief spell wn Ershad
(10:15):
and this is interesting that Ershad is the one who
takes the benefit of the assassination of Ziau Rahman in
nineteen eighty one. He's a very quiet, wiley Canning fellow
who kind of takes power and he rules Bangladesh for
more than a decade, and then the Begums come together,
as they call him, the two Begums come together, and
they give him some kind of They put up a
(10:37):
united front and Ershad is out of the picture. By
the late eighties, he's gone, and very interestingly, he's one
of the very few leaders who actually has a very
peaceful you know, a dictator who retires peacefully. He starts
his own political party and then dies at the right
paid old age of eighty ninety or something in twenty nineteen.
(11:00):
And this thing between the two begums continues. So you
have these two ladies who are the who who are
taking forward the legacy of two of their founding fathers
of Bangladesh. So I mean that in a nutshell, is
literally what the fight is all about. The Abami League
is seen as secular, progressive democratic. The b and P,
(11:22):
which is z Rahman's party, is seen as more closely
aligned with the Jamat and they are seen as more fundamentals.
But though in recent years they've kind of tried to
break away from the Jamad, the Jamad once an identity
of its own. And so here we are in twenty
twenty six, we're looking at elections. Where as you mentioned,
the Armi League is out of the picture. They're not
(11:44):
going to be they're going to be disbarred from the elections.
But the B and P and Tarikrahman is the person
to watch out for. I mean, he's to arrive in
Dhaka on the twenty fifth of December, the Christmas Day
gift for Bangladesh after seventy years in exile. So he's
clearly the man to watch out for. And he's been
tipped to be the person who could be the Prime
(12:06):
Minister of Bangladesh in twenty twenty six. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Right, So let's look at what's happened in the last
one year.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
In early last years, on June July summer, you basically
had the court over there restoring job quoters for freedom
fighters descendants. That basically is the is what triggered massive
youth protest against Sheikassina the government, Shakassina's government. I'm sorry, uh,
the protest on violent. She made some comments, there were
allegations of she ca carried out your human as abuses
(12:32):
and stuff like that, and around August is when she fled.
I remember sitting in the newsroom and there was this
C seventeen low Master.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
If I'm not wrong, that was or.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So she flew yeah, and that was the most tracked
of playing on flight to dark that that day went.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
But you know, I have to tell you something very strange.
You know, I was talking to a friend and you're
talking about contingencies. So he said, look, I need to
drop some contingencies. This is a couple of years back.
I think it was two three years back. So he says,
give me some ideas that you can you know, contingency.
So I said, well, one contingency is that what happens
if and this is when Shae Cassina was in part,
(13:13):
what happens if Shay Hasina is deposed by the military
or Islamist? How will you rescue her? Because I said,
she is so valuable for India and the kind of
stuff she's done for India in fifteen years, these have
been the best years of India Bangladesh relations. So I said,
how are you going to fly in IFC one thirty
j's with Parasef guys to rescue sheik you know Hasina?
(13:37):
And this is exactly what happened. I said a few
years later because you know, Bangladesh is a very volatile,
unpredictable politics. It's not like us, you know, and we
keep saying this every time they and there is a
certain uh, you know process in Indian politics. There is
a certain element of predictability in our politics. Right you
(13:58):
have a prime mister who's elected and then he has
to sweat before the next election and then get his mandate,
renew his mandate or you know, be prepared to sit
in the opposition. There's a very gradual process that we've
kind of got used to now. Apart from the emergency
in seventy five, we haven't seen any great disruptions like that.
(14:20):
Every Indian prime minister who's come with a big mandate
has either seen his mandate go reduce or been voted
out of power or have to struggle to get the
next you know, to renew his mandate. Whereas in Pakistan
and now in Bangladesh, you're seeing this kind of unpredictability
where you know, the battle lines are so clearly drawn
(14:43):
and the enmity is like they're like blood feuds. There's
no easy you know politics over there. It's it's all
about killing the other person or exhaling them or imprisoning them,
you know, that kind of very extreme kind of which
we fortunately have not seen, or we haven't seen in
a while.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
A good point about the contingency bit, because I think
now that explains what happened last year. Because when she
flew into the Hindan Air Base flows to Delhi, the
national capital, and she stayed there for a few days,
it was it was turned into a.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Very high security zone.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
The speculation always was that this was just a temporary arrangement.
She was probably going to fly out to, let say,
the UK or some other some other country. That's what
a lot of people assumed. But then it turns out
that she's still here. She's living in as the Print
reported a few months ago, she's living in a bungalo
in the Lutkins out of Delhi, and she apparently takes
(15:40):
walk walks at the famous garden whose name I'm forgetting
right now. Yeah, it's very popular, yes, yes, yes, yes, right. Anyway,
so that's what happened last year. Then you had Mohammed
Yunus who came in with this interim government. That government
was supposed to sort of restore peace to the to
(16:00):
the immediate situation and eventually lead to a point where
elections would be held. Before then, the Army League was
declared as you know, illegal and they were said they
were disbarred from the election.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Uh So, up until now, like I said at the start.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Of my start of the episode, this was most more
orles a regime change situation for India, some amounts of violence.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
You know, by regime change, they I'm assuming you mean
that external forces brought about a change in the region.
And it wasn't the spontaneous student protests, yes, yes, thing
them to be. It was a deliberate action from yeah
oh side.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yeah, And that is also something that we're not going
to come to in a bit.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Now.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
What's happened in the latest flashpoint is there's this anti
India leader, pretty rabid called Sharif force Manhadi who has
been killed. This happened a couple of days ago, a
few days ago, and it's the trigger point for a
discussion as well.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Now the questions and to my mind is is.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
This sort of anti India sentiment that you are seeing
in Bangladesh right now, the anti founder sentiment.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I don't know, if I don't know if this is
where I.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Want you to come in whether these two strands go together,
that there is a sentiment against the man who founded
your country and also the country that's been a very
good friend of yours, the country that helped in your
liberation strugglet So where is this Are these two anti
sentiments coming from?
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Do they go handing out? So so a good question there.
Now the thing is that and here I have to
quote my friend General Ravishankar, who's you know, because he's
the point that he made about Bangladesh is very interesting.
Couple of months back we were talking where he says that,
you know, what happened in nineteen seventy one is that
India took Bangladesh out of Pakistan, but they didn't take
(17:50):
the Pakistan out of Bangladesh. Right, So, when you go
deeper into the politics of nineteen seventy one and the
run up to the liberal of Bangladeshi realized that there
was a very sizeable population within Bangladesh that were entirely
pro Pakistan. They were actually what Djamath comes from. And
(18:12):
then you understand how the ruling military junta in East
Pakistan was able to recruit Rasakhash They you know, the
al Bada and those kind of razakhas who were basically militias,
which they used then to hunt down Awami leaguers, intellectual students,
(18:33):
all of those kind of things, right and minorities. Of course,
now these people have kind of been there in the
population and they lie low. So what happens is that
when I was there, I was told this thing that
you know, this guy, just be careful, don't mingle too much,
don't speak too much to him, because you know he's
b and P and they're just waiting to come back.
(18:56):
And they hadn't been back in part in about fifteen years.
But there's a that radical strand which is not BNP.
The BNP is not as radical as the Jamat. Now,
the BNP is actually a political party. They committed to
the democratic process. They believe in elections and all of that.
The Jamat is not. The Jamat's end state is for
Shariah to be imposed in Bangladesh, right, and they believe
(19:19):
in the concept of the Kaliphate and all of that. Right,
they are a far right Islamist party and that's their agenda. Now,
what has happened is that this violent, virulent right wing
Islamist strand has always been there in East Pakistan. And
let's not forget that you've had some horrific riots at
(19:41):
partition pre partition nineteen forty six. You've had massacres, you
have had the Direct Action Day and all of that.
So there's been a very violent Islamist strand within the
Freedom Movement of Pakistan as well in Bengal, and that
has always been below the surface. The Awami League is
(20:03):
the moderate, secular, progressive part and we've always, for obvious reasons,
you know, sided with the Awami League. And I must
tell you this, Dave, that you know, in the fifteen
years that Shaikh Hassina has been in power in Bangladesh
have been the best years for India Bangladesh relations. And
I'm here looking at it. I'm looking at Bangladesh from
(20:24):
purely India perspective. Right, what was Bangladesh before Sheikh Hassina
came to power, Before her nearly three ten years back
to back, it was a hub of Islamis. It was
a hub of you know, illegal activities all directed at India.
And if you go back into time nineteen seventy one,
(20:44):
what is one of the biggest reasons that Arankau wanted
to go into East Pakistan to liberate East Pakistan, to
you know, break it away from the West. It was
that the fact that the ISI, they've had their basis
in East Pakistan from the nineteen fifties, not the sixties
or the seventies, right from the nineteen fifties. The Chickagong
(21:07):
Hill tracks in fact were used as a springboard for
insurgencies across northeastern India, whether it is the money Pour insurgency,
the Naga insurgency, the Miso insurgency. All the training camps
were in the Chicagong Hill tracks. And this is why
late sixties are in Coo says we need to break
(21:28):
Bangladesh away from Pakistan because it's going to be a sore,
you know, it's going to be a thorn in our
backside otherwise forever in the in our backyard, backside, whatever
you want to call it. And that's one of the
motivating factors for the breakaway of you know, the creation
of Bangladesh. Why Kau wanted a free Bangladesh. And of
(21:50):
course he's sent in his covert units, the SFF and
all were infiltrated into the Chicagong Hill tracks to you
know basically knock out those Pakistan military camps over there.
So when you have cut to nearly half a century
later under Sheik Hasina, you have a Bangladesh that is
very responsive to india security needs. We're very acutely aware
(22:10):
of the northeast, the problems that we have, the insurgencies.
You have China to the north. You have a hostile
China to the north in fact, and now what you
have in twenty twenty five and spilling over into twenty
twenty six is a hostile Bangladesh as well. Right, So
that thing of a chickens neck, the dilemma, of course,
I'm sure you will talk about it in a bit,
(22:33):
is a very real problem and that this is what
happens when you have a country that's you know, hostile
to your interests, you know, kind of going back to
what it was pre nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
But that's a fantastic point you made, some deepino because
many people, like an Iron, I'm one of them, see
it very simplistically that when the seventy one war happened,
the liberation happened, it was a clean break and suddenly
Bangladesh had nothing to do with Pakistan or society together.
But what do you say makes so much sense that
you haven't taken that strand out. That's right, fantastic point. Right,
(23:07):
So you know something before we talk about the defense
dilemma that this gives us one last point about what's
going on in Balaji in terms of who's also influencing it.
Last episode we talked a bit about how SPI agency's
function and we spoke about how one of their covert
one of their covert responsibilities in a in a foreign
(23:28):
country is sort of to influence policies there, influence outcomes,
their influence the situation there basically in the favor of
the country.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
For which you work for.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
So, which are the countries that are very immensely interested
in Bangladesh and would be and have been pulling the
strings to sort of influence what's been going on.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
So that's that's three. There's a triangle of you know,
countries over there. There's the United States, there's China, and
of course Pakistan. Pakistan is the overtact. China and the
United States are more in the background and they but
they have their interests there. Right. So the United States,
what it's looking at is this grand containment strategy of Chinina.
(24:14):
They want to, you know, get all these countries on
the southern flanks of China in their camp, which is
why they want Afghanistan, of course Pakistan. You're looking at
Bangladesh as well and Miyanmar. So these are all the
areas from where they could launch, you know, attacks against
China's back door. Now, if you look at where Bangladesh
(24:36):
is situated, it sits astride, a very important energy lifeline
for China, that is through the Bay of Bengal. China
is aware of its Malaka dilemma, which is a majority
of its energy flows through the Malaca Straits, which is
why they've been trying to build these alternate pipelines to
you know, diversify their energy supplies. That is, one is
(24:58):
through Miyanmar and the Bay of Bengal, and the other
one is to the Russian Federation. The Russian one will take,
of course some time to come, but in the meantime
you have these other pipelines. So the United States is
very keen on sitting over there. They don't have a
base there, they don't have a presence there, and that's
why this thing of the Saint Martin's Island came up
when the US is believed to have asked Shee Casina
(25:19):
for a base there in the Bay of Bengal where
they could kind of watch all of these activities, keep
a watch on China, keep a watch on Bangladesh as well.
And now from what one hears, the US presence, the
military presence at Bangladesh has gone up considerably. There are hundreds,
if not thousands, of US two hundreds definitely, there are
(25:41):
hundreds of US soldiers there for various exercises. And there
was one of the Special Forces guys turned up dead
in one hotel. And you know, those those kinds of
things have been happening there which you didn't see in
the last couple of years. So you know, these are
factors that worry India that to have other countries coming
into a country which you see has very vital, very
(26:05):
critical to your security interests. And of course the third
factor is China itself. China's had very close ties with Bangladesh.
In fact, these were built up by Ziau Rama where
he pivoted almost entirely towards China, and so China is
also very interested in what's going on in Bangladesh and
(26:25):
you've seen that in the last couple of years. Of course,
the big China Bangladesh to China pivot began during General
Ziao Rama's time and literally ninety percent of their military
arsenal is of Chinese origin. And China has built, you know,
a submarine base, one of the largest submarine bases in
(26:48):
the Indian subcontinent at Cox's Bazaar. It's a very large base,
and they've sold them to submarines, second and submarines, but
eventually they could be a larger there. And the worry
is that, of course, you could have Chinese submarines based
there at some point in the future. So these are all,
you know, competing interests China, Pakistan, the United States, all
(27:13):
of them very interested in Bangladesh, and of course its
location at the Bay of Bengal and you know, so
close to India, and for Pakistan is very you know,
it's very very obvious why they would want it. And
here there's that line of one of the Pakistani generals.
In fact, this was their military strategy prior to nineteen
(27:35):
seventy one, when Bangladeshi politicians, then East Pakistan politicians, would ask,
why are you so thinly defended in East Pakistan. They
never deployed very large formations, military formations. And the guys
in Islamabad and rawal Pindi would say, well, that's because
the defense of East Pakistan lies in the west. So
you know, we are going to draw away so many
(27:56):
Indian troops that they will not have enough to attack
East Pakistan with. And you know, more than fifty years later,
it's like we're going back to those days where you
have these very ambitious Pakistani general's phield Marshal Munir for sure,
who believes that if he, you know, does the security
(28:18):
agreement with Bangladesh, that will give India cost to worry
and therefore it's a reimagining of that old you know,
defense of Pakistan West Pakistan lies in the east, that
kind of scenario.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Right, we'll talk more about this just after a quick
quick break.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Why is it an unfinished revolution, because you know, the
revolution had a name. I mean that is not just.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
The ouster of the Sheikh Hasina regime, but also bringing
back the restoring the unstated aim was initially restoring law
and order and doing with corruption and mis governance.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
And all that.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
Now nothing of that is there.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Now.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
The whole thing has you know, swiveled onto what was
the original plan of the people behind the scenes, the
masters who were these students were merely puppets. The puppeteers
always wanted the Jamat to come to power in order
to needle India and pose as a security threat to So.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Who are the puppets?
Speaker 6 (29:21):
Are you in your book making the point that this
isn't a spontaneous students movement, this is actually an orchestrated
regime change operation.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Absolutely, because you know how the idea of the book
Impact was started, like the genesis was, why did this
happen suddenly? You know, this was the started off as
something to do with quotas, you know, anti discrimination and
and when and the government had nothing to the government
said that, yes, we are with the students, we are
with the protesters, and we concede there. We will concede
(29:54):
their demands eventually. Then it became a removed has removed
Shay Cassina. It talked about topling the government, etcetera. Why
did it suddenly happen? And while we were investigating, talking
to a lot of people across the board, talking to
both Obama League, the army and the security establishment and
the other parties, we realize that it was a regime
(30:15):
change operation. Absolutely one is the deep State of America,
and there's no doubt that the deep state is involved,
the US Deep State and is involved in.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
That Welcome back Sandip with Bangladesh. Now, we've always talked
about two front.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Situations for India, China and Pakistan.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Always, and this is always you lullge this sort of
sort of sort of complacency, perhaps that none of your
other neighbors Nepal, Buddha and Bangladesh Sri Lanka are too
much to worry about. But do you foresee a third
front situation forming around the way and next to next
(31:00):
to Indian Bangladesh in not as much as you know
Bangladesh being a military threat to you in terms of
Bangladesh attacking you or invading you, but providing that staging.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Ground for your enemies to use that area to trouble you.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Absolutely, this is the very real fear that I have,
and this agreement between Pakistan and Bangladesh only, you know,
illuminates that fear, and I think a lot of people
would be thinking this through. You know why the Pakistani
military chose to do this agreement under mahmaed Unus, which
is not a legitimate He cannot sign agreements of this nature.
(31:38):
These are very, very big strategic agreements. You can't sign
them when you don't have a lawfully elected government in place.
And I think the first thing that India should do
is when lawfully elected government does assume office next year,
should ask for the scrapping of this kind of a
deal because the consequences of that, the implications of that
(32:00):
are enormous. I'll just give you a couple of, you know, scenarios,
since I love scenarios so much. What if the Pakistan
military starts basing in Bangladesh, right, that could be, if
not an entire third front, but it could be a
half front. So you're looking at a two and a
half front situation, because I don't think Bangladesh has the
(32:22):
kind of potential to create an entirely new front. You're
looking at two big adversaries China of course, and Pakistan,
which is the fifth largest army in the world. Bangladesh
would not be very much, but it would if you
deployed Pakistani troops there. It would give you enough cost
for concern for you to deploy some forces in the
(32:45):
East to forest all any such You know what if
an division Pakistan deploys a division there, these are contingencies
that you must think through and you must also make
the Bangladeshi is aware of this that you do something
like this, you allow the basing of Pakistani troops or
assets or missiles or anything of that sort on your soil,
(33:06):
then you become party to a conflict. Right, and you
can be sure that the Bromos missiles would not be
flying west, they would be going east as well, right,
And that's something that we should call out very very
unequal unequal, We should call out very unequivocally with Bangladesh.
These are red lines. You cannot cross these red lines
(33:29):
because they directly impact our security in the northeast.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
There's also the point about that you made earlier that
have you prepared for the contingency of Sheikh Hasina being
sort of deposed either by the military or you know,
by the Islamists.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I think you were talking.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Mostly about the the the immediate situation contingency in terms
of the logistics of you know, getting across a plane
in some special forces guys to sort of bring her
to a tactical However, my question now is has in
India ever prepared for a contingency to see this sort
of a turn in Bangladesh. The anti India sentiment that
I was talking about, you experience very beautifully by saying
(34:08):
that you never banished the Pakistan Bangladesh. Has the Indian
establishment been aware of this fact? And have they been
preparing for a situation like this?
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Well, I'm sure they have. There are plans and they've
been discussed hinted at in the past as well, where
you know, we were prepared to militarily intervene at some point,
they say in the twenty tents in Bangladesh, and I'm
sure that those plans exist. If the situation were to
(34:42):
go beyond a point where India felt that its interests
were threatened, you would have to intervene military. But I
don't see anything happening in Bangladesh. Now, I must qualify
this by saying that I do not see as terrible
as India Bangladesh relations are in twenty twenty five, I
do not see any room for Indian military intervention in Bangladesh,
(35:03):
and that would be a terrible thing for us to do. Right,
you intervene in Bangladesh military, you get drawn into another
military coogmire where that's not our focus as of now.
Our entire focus should be on policing the border, just
making sure that the four thousand and ninety six kilometer
long India Bangladesh boundary is secure, there's no infiltration to
(35:28):
and fro and you just keep Bangladesh Caralden in that
fence area and not try and you know, do a
military intervention. But these are like you know, Niejak reactions.
They look very good tactically, you know, like O Indian
forces do this, that and all that. But what's the
end state, what's the endgame? Those things have to be
thought through very carefully, unless, of course, there is something
(35:48):
that happens which is of grave critical threat to India.
For instance, if there are troop movements out of Bangladesh
into India or moving towards the Chicken's Neck or something
of that sort happens, they get you know, militarily emboldened.
If if Wakaru Zaman, I mean, this is something that
I'm very mindful of, the fact is that you have
a military chief who's very sensible, General Wakaru Zaman, who's
(36:13):
he is not a hot head. Now, what if there
were to be a coup in the Bangladesh army, for instance,
and we've seen that in the past. What if he's deposed.
What if you get someone like Asimuni over there right
who's raging religious biggot and he plans to launch an
attack on India or you know, severed the chicken's neck
(36:33):
and all of these things. You know, India is this
very convenient punching bag for all of these countries. They
think that we spend a lot of time obsessing over
Bangladesh and what we must do it. We've got other
things to do, you know. But for them, one of
my friends used to say that, you know, I can
understand their predicament. They're surrounded by India on all sides, right,
(36:56):
so it's four thousand kilometers of They only have two
neighbors Bangladesh. They have India and they have Miyanmara and Myanmar.
The border is just about two hundred kilometers plus. It's
a small border. And they surrounded by Us, and therefore
they have this thing of the Big Brothers syndrome that
India is you know, against us, and it's conspiring and
wants to break us up. And no, I think we
have nothing but the best intentions for Bangladesh. We only
(37:18):
want Bangladesh to be stable, peaceful, progressive and not be
a base for anti India forces of the kind that
you're see now under units. I mean, this is really tragic.
And then this actually kind of justifies what we were
doing with Sheik Hasina over the last fifteen years, encouraging her.
We had excellent relations with her. The only thing was
(37:41):
we could not settle the Tista River dispute. We could
have done it but for a certain Indian chief minister
in a certain Indian state just across the boundary. But
you know, there's another big thing that's going to come up.
They've in nineteen twenty twenty six, which is the Ganga
(38:01):
water sharing agreement which we have with Bangladesh. That could
possibly be an issue in twenty twenty sixty. It's set
for a renewal next year. There's been a lot of
murmurs on both sides, but I don't see that as
a major issue unless some political party, you know, takes
it up and you know, makes it into another thing
that they're taking a water away or something like you
see in Pakistan.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Great, you know, as we end this discussion, since yoular
scenarios so much, I want to go back to the
to the assassinations that we began this episode with right
and sort of get an understanding from you on what
exactly went down. Not on the day of assassinations, but
you said they were in both cases young officers from
(38:45):
the military. But for both those assassinations, what could have
been those those those reasons that it happened.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Was it like a plan conspiracy or was it just
like in the moment sort of thing with I.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Think it's you know, I mean, this is not to
label an entire community or something, but you know, as
people say, Bengalis are very emotional and they militarize. So
there are these you know, particular stereotypes. Oh, you know,
Bengalis are not a violent or marshall non marshal there
are non marshal race and all of that. And yet
(39:21):
you have this strand of very extreme violence in Bangladesh
East Pakistan before that and uh and also invest Bengal
to a certain extent, you have a lot of political violence.
And interestingly in Bangladesh also pre the creation of Bangladesh,
you've seen a very violent counter attack by Bangladeshis against
(39:46):
the Pakistanis and the thing. And if you read Pakistani accounts,
they said we had to do Operation Searchlight because they
started killing our officers and our families and stuff like that.
And you know, there was this wholesale thing and this
was to bring control of cour The kind of violence
that they inflicted on East Pakistan then East Pakistan now
(40:06):
Bangladesh is unimaginable. But what happened after that is that
you had a situation where whenever there are wars and insurgencies,
a whole lot of weapons floating around, and you have
hot headed officers who believe that they can change the
course of history. Right, this is what happened in seventy
five where a section of the BANGLADESHAMI felt that who's
(40:28):
shait Mujibur Rayman. We're the guys who fought the war,
We are the Mukti Bahini. We liberated the country, and
this guy is now consolidating power and he's become a dictator.
He's become a civilian dictator. So it's time we, you know,
took matters into our own hands. And six years later,
that same thing happens once again. You have another group
of young officers who thinks the same way, and they
(40:52):
topple Ziau Rayman and it ends not in a toppling,
it ends in a you know, automatic weapons fire. And
there is at one end there is Chek Majibu Rahma
and the other you have Xiao Raiman. So this violentcetrand
has continued through Bangladeshi politics. And you saw that in
(41:17):
the mobs that were advancing towards say, Cassina's residence, official residents.
Those were not peaceful protesters, right of the kind that
you've seen another. They were there to literally kill you know,
shak Hasina and assassinate members of a family. They are
a very violent kind of mob and that is why
(41:39):
they had to you know, fly her out. Literally the
Bangladesh Army literally moved in and saved her. So there's
this conspiracy theory saying that oh no in the military
was also part of this conspiracy and they got her
out of the scene and so that they could be
you know, that the regime change, as they say, right,
But the fact is it is it's very violent. It
(42:02):
remains very violent, very you know emotional. I mean, if
you see the kind of crowds and that lynching of
that poor factory worker. These are not is lynching. Yeah,
these are not situations that happen in normal countries. Right.
They're going through a lot and one just hopes that
(42:25):
the elections are conducted in about two months time, you
have legitimately democratically elected government in power. Irrespective of who
comes to power. Most likely it seems that it is
going to be the BNP. The Jamad will also get
a sizable majority. But the other scenario that's being spoken
(42:46):
about is that Mamma Nus will not ride away quietly
into the sunset and he stays there as some kind
of president or senior statesman kind of figure with as
a very large you know, he kind of divides power
between the president and the prime minister. They don't want
(43:07):
a super powerful prime minister who can then, you know,
oppress other political parties do become a dictator, a civilian dictator.
So therefore there is this talk of power being shared
between the president and the Prime minister and even the
creation of an upper house. So it's it's a unique
emeral legislature that they have. The Jatiya Sansad is just
(43:31):
one thing. They will create an upper house as well.
It's so you'll have a Rajasaba equivalent, which will then
elect the president. So all of these scenarios are being
spoken about, but you must remember that whoever has you know,
planned this regime change and who's got all of these
chess pieces on the board, has some end state in
mind for Bangladesh. And you have to see the kind
(43:52):
of statements that came out of the Europeans when that
student leader was shot, nondescript guy Hadi, it was shot,
and you had Europeans coming out there and you know,
saying that we condemned this and uh and not a
word of regret for that poor factory workers lynched, public
(44:14):
people burnt alive and all of that. So then one
wonders whether there are other forces that play, whether it's
more than just those three countries that you know talk
that we talked about, right, that many other players hidden,
you know, in the shadows. But the fact is that,
you know, Bangladesh is a country that at some point
(44:34):
where people said pakistanis was saying that, you know, Bangladesh
today is doing so well. They're going at six percent.
They were at some point six or seven percent and
today they're back to about three, two or three percent. Right,
This is is that you know, Bangladesh is that is
the Pakistan that mohmadali Jina dreamt of. Right, They're doing
so well for themselves, and today I think they've decided
(44:58):
that we don't want economic growth, we don't want development,
we don't want all of this. We want to be
like Pakistan, you know, basket case.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Fantastic point.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
One last brief point to end the episode on what
is the future of the legacy of Sheikaman. You have
instances where his uh where his houses, houses have been attacked,
his statues have been toppled, His daughter is living in
exile in India. The party he founded has been disbarred
(45:32):
from from conducting from being part of elections.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
What about his legacy?
Speaker 3 (45:37):
His legacy continues there when the fact that his adversaries
are trying so hard to erase his legacy suggests that
they are really afraid of that legacy of his. And
he's the larger than life person, right. I never met him.
I mean, of course I was very small when he
passed away. But my co author, Captain emin Ar Salmon,
(45:57):
work very closely with him, and he's bout things to
say about him, and he says a very captivating personality right,
and the legacy that he's left. He is literally the
father of Bangladesha man who, as we discussed on a
previous episode, how Imran Khan is. The way he had
the gumption to stand up to the military is exactly
(46:19):
what Bangabandhu did. And he stood up to the Pakistani
military and they were as vicious with him as they
were with the other civilians, including Zadibhuto. It's a miracle
he managed to stay alive, and his legacy is not
going anywhere. It will remain in Bangladesh. It might be
below the radar right now for obvious reasons, because you
(46:40):
have lynch mobs running around, you know, being encouraged by
various external forces and some internal ones. But that legacy
remains and it will continue. And the Awami League is
a manifestation of that very sizable percentage of Bangladeshi population
who warned peace, progress democracy, a secular democracy which is
(47:05):
not about religious fundamentalism. They want to grow and they
want a stable, peaceful Bangladeshi. We saw for fifteen years.
It was at some point it was growing faster than
India even right, and their human development indics were better
than us in a couple of respects, but as we
realize now, it was all built on a foundation of sand.
(47:29):
And I mean today they are where they are, and
one only hopes that in twenty twenty six, you know,
they choose wisely and they come out of this mess
that they're in, because our you know, we have a
shared destiny. We can't choose our neighbors. Just so happens
that they are in our neighborhood, and we wish them well,
we want them to come out of this and become
(47:50):
a normal, stable, prosperous country, so we don't have to
keep looking over our shoulders that which terrorist organization has
set up a camp over there, or which is SI
chief is visiting over there? And what plans do they
have for stoking you know, instability in our northeast and
you know those kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Yeah, right, great, I think we'll end it there.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Like you said at the beginning of this episode, this
is like a not t D series that's still writing
itself because we don't know yet what will happen if
we don't know the identities of those in fact players
who are you know, playing with those those chess pieces.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
So I think this is something that will happen in
the near future, perhaps great and the thanks. Fantastic discussion
has always great insights from you.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
Thank you so much, thanks for having me there.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Yeah, thanks as always to our lists of viewers. That's
it for this mixed defense.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Those for more tune in next week. Till then, stay
safe and not cross any boundaries without a passport.
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