Bangladesh’s just ousted president, Sheikh Hasina, has sought shelter in India, her closest foreign supporter. According to reports, her attempts to obtain hospital in the UK, Canada, and the US failed, leaving her with a chance of staying in India for the foreseeable future.
The fallen leader’s child, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, has stated that she has no intention of leaving India, and it appears that she is now planning a counteroffensive in response to the rebellion that ended her much law.
Hasina’s strategy so far seems to involve her partnering with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) and its Hindutva supporters, which could give her more political influence in Bangladesh if she wins the election.
To know what’s at stake, it’s important to understand the relationship relationships at enjoy. Hasina and her Awami League have persistently benefited from the Indian government’s efforts to establish a patron-client relation similar to those in Russia and Belarus.
Hasina successfully won the election in 2014 even before the vote was over, with the major opposition BNP going to the polls.
In the lead-up to that contentious election, then-BJP outside affairs secretary Sushma Swaraj met with Bangladesh Jatiya Party officials to promote their involvement, giving the poll a facade of legitimacy.
With an astonishingly high percentage of almost 95 %, which is similar to that of North Korea, Hasina’s Awami League won another highly contentious election victory in 2018. Unavoidable political fraud that was carried out to respect the ruling party was to blame for this victory.
The BJP-led American state was the first to congratulate Hasina and provide important international support that strengthened her plan despite widespread international denunciation of the election as a sham. The American formation, it is commonly believed, was totally aware of the obvious vote-rigging that took place at the time.
Western forces began to force Sheikh Hasina to hold a free and fair election as the election year neared. But, Delhi, acting on Hasina’s representative, apparently managed to alleviate any potential reaction from these capabilities, especially the US, allowing another flawed vote to continue.
When A K Momen, the then-foreign minister, declared that he had urged India to do everything in its power to maintain the Awami League, the depth of the relationship was more noted in 2022.
Obaidul Quader, the Awami League’s common minister and former chancellor, echoed the mood when he declared,” Indeedlands are here, we are here,” and that India may stop any legal risk to the Awami League’s supremacy.
Awami League political candidates also campaigned as” Delhi’s Candidate”, boldly acknowledging their dependency on American help. Now, Hasina’s son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, is officially urging India to stress the time government to hold elections within 90 days.
Hasina’s unexpected resignation sent ripples through the American political establishment. For some time, Bangladesh was left without a functioning state, and in this power vacuum, popular chaos erupted.
Over the past 15 times, the Awami League had turned its gathering agencies and authorities terminals into centers of persecution, bribery and fraud.
As panic ensued, local populations, fed up with years of abuse, decided to take matters into their own hands. Awami League leaders were killed in the murder, and thousands of police stations and gathering headquarters were set on fire.
About 10 % of Bangladesh’s Muslim lot community is Hindu, a minority statistical represented within the Awami League. Consequently, a notable section of the group’s leadership is Hindu.
It is unclear whether these problems were motivated by religious identification or social associations because the crowds targeted both Hindu and Muslim Awami League leaders.
The larger pattern suggests that the primary motivation for the assaults was Awami League membership. The Awami League’s Muslim victims were largely ignored by the BJP-aligned media in India, who immediately obliterated this distinction and portrayed the crime as an abuse on religious minorities.
This description diverted interest from the social context of the turmoil by portraying Hindu leaders and protesters as victims of religious persecution.
Quick actions were taken to protect minority properties and temples in response to the rising crime. Although these actions might be seen as political political work, there is also a strategic consideration: some people may have understood that the Awami League and its BJP-aligned media could use the tale of minority abuse to undermine and destroy any post-Hasina government.
On X ( previously Twitter ), BJP-aligned Indian media and influencers have chosen to present the situation in a way that appeals to right-wing political agendas.
Misinformation and doctored video clips are spreading rapidly, fueling false narratives. For instance, false reports of temples being set on fire in restaurants and markets are being made of fires in restaurants and markets, and disturbing footage of mobs lynching Muslim Awami League leaders being misrepresented as being violent against Hindus.
In one instance, Indian media inaccurately described the incident as an attack on cricketer Liton Das because of his religion when former Bangladesh cricket captain Mashrafe Mortaza’s house was burned due to his association with the Awami League in a disputed election.
Similarly, a fire that spread from Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s residence to the home of Rahul Anand, a member of the band Joler Gaan, was misrepresented despite Anand’s clarification that it was an accident.
Independent fact-checkers like Boom, Dismisslab, and AFP are working hard to counteract the surge of fake news from India, but they face an uphill struggle, for each piece of misinformation they correct, numerous others quickly spread on social media.
There has also been some notable criticism of protesters who toppled the statues of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who is frequently portrayed as the architect of independent Bangladesh.
This criticism frequently ignores the fact that Mujibur Rahman was given a near-mythical status by the Awami League government, with murals and statues akin to the Kim clan’s fairy tale personality cult built around the Kim clan in North Korea.
After the party’s worst electoral performance in a decade, the BJP-leaning media in India is taking advantage of this opportunity to resurrect their support base.
Hasina’s son Sajeeb has been making regular appearances on Indian media, echoing BJP talking points by placing blame on phantom enemies like Pakistan’s ISI and America’s CIA. In his TV shows, he has also actively promoted the idea of violence against Hindus.
However, the careless reporting by the Indian media has also affected Sajeeb and Hasina. A statement attributed to Hasina that claimed she had resigned recently was published by The Print, prompting Sajeeb to quickly denounce the report as false and fabricated. The incident suggests that the Awami League might be trying to find new stories to appeal to more people.
In Bangladesh, the Awami League seems to be exploiting a contrived issue. Reports in Sylhet suggest that Awami League leaders have carried out false flag attacks on Hindu communities.
Additionally, party leaders and Bangladesh Chhatra League students are holding demonstration rallies where Hindu victims who were actually killed by Hasina’s security forces are portrayed as victims of the current interim government.
The” Jai Shri Ram” (” Glory to Lord Rama” ) chant, which is associated with the BJP’s Hindutva movement but unfamiliar to the Bangladeshi Hindu community, has also been used at these rallies. The Hindu Grand Alliance’s leader, Govinda Pramanik, has already accused the Awami League of defrauding the Hindu population and gaining control.
Subramanian Swamy, a prominent right-wing Indian MP, has suggested the annexation of northern Bangladesh in response to these media reports.
He suggested in a YouTube video that the Indian military should set up a military operation to bring Hasina to power outside of Bangladesh’s borders.
Hasina has long been an unwavering supporter of India, and her support might be seen as a way to show how loyal she is to her. However, this approach runs the risk of impairing India and Bangladesh’s long-term diplomatic ties with their respective populations.
On a positive note, many decent people in India are aware of the larger repercussions of this support and are showing strong support for the Bangladeshis, calling for a more unbiased and principled approach to a volatile situation that could still lead to many twists and turns.
Taukir Aziz is an economic, financial and political analyst specializing in Bangladesh’s political economy and financial sector, and where the two intersect.