Road ahead for India’s high-stake ties with Bangladesh

For all its impressively consistent recent economic growth, Bangladesh, South Asia’s second-biggest economy, often belied the modernisation of its polity. That is quite dumbfounding for modernists who empirically and emphatically believe that improvements in social and economic outcomes propel institutional nourishments and predictable stability in a country’s polity.

Barring the sparse existence of informal sector institutions that fostered economic growth, the country of 171 million people never got sure-footed institutions reasonably rooted either in the rule of law or in democratic resilience. Bangladesh is the singular exception among countries that hold frequent elections where an unbridgeable difference is often spotted when it comes to agreeing on the father of the nation.

As the massive protests swept through the country that had forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee the angry mobs frequently targeted the statutes of her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. There is no denying the role that Rahman played in the creation of Bangladesh and the sterling qualities of his leadership, his immense sacrifice, and eventual martyrdom. Most of his family was annihilated as Bangladesh started its complex political journey where Bengali cultural identity was supposed to subsume other political identities.

But that never was the case. A country born out of a massive struggle, 24 years after India got Independence from Britain, soon faced a situation where many ideals of its liberation struggle fell on face when Bangladesh's President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman proclaimed Bangladesh a one‐party State in February 1975. 

Through three swift presidential decrees, all existing political organisations, except his own Awami League, were wiped out including 13 political parties, from the communists on the Left to conservative Islamic groups on the Right. 

Rahman had said that having only one party in the country would help promote “the fundamental principles of state policy, namely nationalism, socialism, democracy and secularism.”

In Bangladesh’s relatively long journey, its polity was never leavened by any sense of larger nationalism that would make political parties spar with each other but never undermine their nation’s existence. Democratically elected leaders around the world tend to develop authoritarian tendencies. Still, they would be held to institutional checks and balances as well as the democratic consciousness of the people expressed through regular elections. The polity of Bangladesh fell short of these.

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Hasina has been a truly great and deeply understanding friend of India. The relationship between the two countries improved massively under her watch. India transitioning from a Congress-led UPA government to a BJP-led NDA government never came in the way of the upward trajectory of the bilateral relationship. The two countries could settle a land-border dispute, a first for Independent India, and embark on a transformational economic relationship and alliance.

However, the simmering internal political situation seems to have halted this smooth sailing. A country’s foreign policy is never insulated from the domestic political rumblings. As a true friend, India could get Hasina out of danger, and into safety.

However, the current political landscape in Dhaka might not look like a familiar terrain. The domestic political landslide that resulted in the ouster of Hasina has left a trail of remnants that India needs to be cautious about. Bangladesh’s liberation struggle and India’s historic relationship with the Awami League is a matter of pride, and it will always be. But it should not prejudice India against pragmatically understanding the currents of an unsettled polity in Bangladesh.

Dhaka is a crucial neighbour and it is a high-stakes relationship. Engaging with those who are in power in terms of mutual interests is the best way forward. India is likely to be dragged into this domestic political churn. That should not distract New Delhi. Engaging for mutual benefit and in good faith should be the way ahead when old certainties give way to a new order created by an unsettled domestic polity.

Jayanth Jacob, a foreign policy commentator, has covered the Ministry of External Affairs for over two decades. X: @jayanthjacob.