Author: Shyam Khosla
Publication: Organiser
Date: July 12, 2009
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=299&page=37
A threat to Indian security and territorial
integrity
Massive popular uprising against the Pakistani
military junta that unleashed a reign of terror against Bangla-speaking people,
including Hindus, and resisted the legitimate demand for power to Awami League
that had won a majority of seats in the National Assembly did play a part
in defeating the evil designs of the Pakistani rulers. However, the well-trained
and professional Pakistani army with the help of entrenched Islamists would
have brutally crushed the revolt but for the powerful political, moral and
military support extended by India. A new nation committed to liberal democracy
was born in 1971 but India's fond hope of having a friendly and secular democracy
on our eastern borders soon vanished as an illusion. Gruesome assassination
of the founding father of the nascent nation Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and most
of his family in a military coup led to the ascendancy of jehadis. Fanatic
elements that had betrayed the liberation struggle and were guilty of perpetrating
crimes against humanity whipped anti-India and anti-Hindu frenzy. For more
than two decades, the country was ruled by Islamists-General Zia, General
Ershad and Begum Khaleda Zia. It was during that period that fundamentalism
took roots and jehadi elements entrenched themselves in the political establishment,
civil services, the army and the police. There was a rapid deterioration of
the socio-political scenario in the country that witnessed anti-Hindu pogroms.
Murders, rapes, arson and confiscation of Hindu property became the order
of the day. Military dictators and BNP government encouraged Islamic fundamentalism
through an enormous growth of madrasas all over the land.
Several jehadi outfits emerged with the active
support from the ISI, which established its foothold in the political and
administrative establishment. BNP came to power in alliance with Jammat-e-Islami-a
rabidly radical Islamist outfit that had bitterly opposed the liberation movement.
Rabble-rousing clerics like Maulana Abaidul Haq did the rest to Talibanise
the country. Several radical groups linked to Taliban emerged as significant
players in the religious, social and political fields. Sections of army, bureaucracy,
intelligence services and intellectuals joined the radicals to convert Bangladesh
into a hub of secessionist outfits operating in the north-eastern states of
India. Top leaders of ULFA, Pravesh Barua and others, were provided shelter
and support by the state machinery under successive governments. ISI played
a major role in providing training and supplying arms and ammunition to the
outlaws. Bangladesh became a safe haven for insurgent groups operating in
Tripura, Manipur and Nagaland. Weapons smuggled from China and other unfriendly
countries through Chittagong port were routinely transported to the north-eastern
states through the porous Indo-Bangladesh border. Bangladesh-based notorious
jehadi outfit-HUJI-spread terror in different parts of India by targeting
sensitive cities and towns with bomb blasts.
Emergence of Bangladesh as a jehadi hub poses
a serious threat to India's national security and territorial integrity. It
is one of the most densely populated and demographically aggressive countries
in the world. Low-populated areas in the north-eastern region that are victims
of insurgencies for decades are critically vulnerable. The region can be unhooked
from the rest of the country by choking or severed by force the Siliguri Corridor-popularly
called the chicken neck-that is merely 10 to 20 km wide and 200 km long. Illegal
migration of Bangladeshis over the decades has completely changed the demography
of most of the districts bordering Bangladesh. UPA government legitimised
the infiltration through the Illegal Migration (Determination by Tribunals)
Act 1983 for sheer vote-bank politics. The Act was struck down by the Supreme
Court of India, which in a landmark judgment called the massive infiltration
an "invasion" on India. But New Delhi in connivance with the Congress
government in Assam subverted the apex court's order by illegitimate and covert
means. Illegal infiltration continues unabated as the Congress and the communist
welcome with open arms "vote banks" from across the border.
Unfortunately, Bangladesh has been perpetually
in a denial mode. Dhaka claimed there was "complete communal harmony"
in the country and no untoward incident had taken place anywhere in the country
even when Bangladesh's newspapers were full of reports about gory tales of
arson, loot, rape and demolition and desecration of about 3000 Hindu temples
all over the country in the wake of the demolition of the disputed structure
at Ayodhya. On another occasion, the then Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia
claimed in a televised broadcast that Bangladesh was a country of communal
harmony even when it was rocked by Islamic frenzy and ethnic cleansing. Her
foreign minister had on one occasion shamelessly claimed that there were no
minorities in the country and as such all reports about atrocities against
them were "imaginary". Only a few years ago, the interim military
government of the country claimed there was not a single Bangladeshi infiltrator
in India. New Delhi let these false claims go unchallenged under the garb
of maintaining friendly relations with neighbouring countries, IK Gujral style.
Begum Hasina Sheikh's coming to power in Bangladesh
with a massive majority is an indication of winds of change in the country
for whose emergence India shed a lot of its blood. Prime Minister Hasina appears
to be acutely aware of the threat she and her party face from jehadi elements.
Her pronouncements and initiatives are music to Indian ears and democracy-loving
people all over the world. She talked of working with neighbouring countries
(read India) to chalk out effective measures to fight terrorism. Both Bangladesh
and India would gain a lot if she is able to fulfil her promise of not allowing
terror outfits to operate from Bangladeshi soil. Friendly and warm Indo-Bangladesh
relations are in our mutual interest. While India needs willing cooperation
from Bangladesh to strengthen its fight against terror, the very survival
of Hasina's government, nay nation, will depend on how far she succeeds in
containing fundamentalists.
