It was last month, as protests swept Bangladesh and bodies lay on the streets, that then-Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina hastily boarded a helicopter. She was unaccompanied by any political aides and did not tell any of her senior ministers she was leaving. In a matter of hours, she touched down in neighboring India, where she has been ever since.
The protests that led to Hasina’s downfall had quickly escalated from student demonstrations on campuses to a nationwide mass revolution, with hundreds of thousands calling for her removal and the return of democracy. Hasina’s government responded with an onslaught of violence and bullets, leaving hundreds dead and thousands injured.
Hasina’s decision to flee on Aug. 5 after protesters stormed her residence was greeted with jubilation across Bangladesh, but in the corridors of power in New Delhi, the collapse of Hasina’s regime was seen as nothing short of a disaster.
Illustration: Mountain People
India has long been seen as Hasina’s greatest ally. She was given refuge in the country once before, in 1975, after her father, the freedom fighter founding father of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated and she stayed in exile in India for more than six years, along with her husband and children, before returning to Bangladesh in 1981.
Hasina’s close personal ties with India’s Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress Party helped Bangladesh become New Delhi’s closest and most loyal regional ally. At the same time, it gave India a crucial foothold in their often-unfriendly neighborhood and kept Bangladesh away from China’s clutches. Both in her first term from 1996 to 2001 and then again when she was re-elected in 2009 onward, Hasina began to grant India influence through economic and security cooperation, including access to crucial waterways and allowing Indian businesses to do lucrative deals in the country.
In return, India not only turned a blind eye as her regime became increasingly oppressive and autocratic, but Indian officials and ministers were also accused by the international community of actively intervening in Bangladesh’s affairs to help keep her in office, as well as pressuring other countries to accept her leadership.
India used its close relationship with the US to ease pressure on Hasina before the election early this year, diplomatic sources said.
In the months in the run-up to the election, US Ambassador to Bangladesh Peter Haas and US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu began a concerted campaign to try to ensure the polls were free and fair.
However, after intervention by India, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly told Haas and Lu to “knock it off with Bangladesh,” dealing a blow to opposition parties that had hoped for US support.
Hasina was easily returned to power amid widespread allegations of rigging.
The unconventional nature of the relationship between the two nations over the past 15 years gradually became a source of consternation in Bangladesh.
“The Indo-Bangladesh relationship essentially became a relationship with one individual and one party,” Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies senior fellow Shafqat Munir said.
In a view echoed by several analysts, Munir called on New Delhi to review its approach to Bangladesh in the wake of the people’s democratic movement that brought down Hasina.
An interim government, led by the leading economist and Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus, is now in place, promising widespread reforms and accountability for the actions of Hasina’s government. Nonetheless, Yunus has emphasized it faces monumental challenges and it is likely to be months before elections are possible.
“There is now a need for India to accept that Sheikh Hasina is gone, she is history, and the relationship has to be completely reset and rebooted,” Munir said. “Relationships between countries cannot be hostage to the vicissitudes of changing governments.”
One issue threatening to cast a further shadow over the India-Bangladesh relationship is the ongoing presence of Hasina in India. Though her family say it is only temporary and there has yet to be an official extradition request from Bangladesh for her return, there are growing calls from activists and political opponents for her to be brought back.
More than 100 cases alleging the former Bangladeshi prime minister played a role in murder and abduction have been filed against Hasina, and Bangladesh’s international crimes tribunal is investigating her on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in connection with the killings that took place during the recent protests. Hasina’s government had previously denied any human rights abuses. The Bangladesh government has also revoked the diplomatic passport that Hasina used to travel to India.
This week, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party Secretary-General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir made a direct plea to India to send Hasina back, and alleged that Hasina was using her haven in the country to attempt to thwart the interim government and democratic movement in Bangladesh.
“It is our call to you that you should hand her over to the government of Bangladesh in a legal way,” Alamgir said. “The people of this country have given the decision for her trial. Let her face that trial.”
Ali Riaz, a political scientist specializing in Bangladesh at Illinois State University, said India was also having to grapple with the embarrassment of a “serious intelligence failure” that meant the collapse of Hasina’s regime caught it off guard and left it unprepared for the significant regional setback and the rising anti-India sentiment now rife in Bangladesh.
“India pursued a very myopic policy with Bangladesh by putting all their eggs in one basket with Hasina and her party, instead of having a state-to-state relationship,” Riaz said. “As a result, India is now in a precarious situation of its own making.”
In the weeks since the collapse of Hasina’s regime, the response of the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to events has made little reference to the push for democratic reform by the new regime and has instead expressed “deep concern” at the instability and the threats faced by the Hindu minority.
This was emphasized again this week in an official statement released by Modi after a phone conversation with US President Joe Biden. While the US readout of the interaction made no mention of Bangladesh, the Indian side said the leaders had discussed the need for the “early restoration of normalcy,” and law and order.
The comments were poorly received over the border.
“We’re not trying to restore normalcy,” one Bangladeshi commentator said. “We’re trying to reclaim democracy.”
The return of US president-elect Donald Trump to the White House has injected a new wave of anxiety across the Taiwan Strait. For Taiwan, an island whose very survival depends on the delicate and strategic support from the US, Trump’s election victory raises a cascade of questions and fears about what lies ahead. His approach to international relations — grounded in transactional and unpredictable policies — poses unique risks to Taiwan’s stability, economic prosperity and geopolitical standing. Trump’s first term left a complicated legacy in the region. On the one hand, his administration ramped up arms sales to Taiwan and sanctioned
World leaders are preparing themselves for a second Donald Trump presidency. Some leaders know more or less where he stands: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy knows that a difficult negotiation process is about to be forced on his country, and the leaders of NATO countries would be well aware of being complacent about US military support with Trump in power. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would likely be feeling relief as the constraints placed on him by the US President Joe Biden administration would finally be released. However, for President William Lai (賴清德) the calculation is not simple. Trump has surrounded himself
US president-elect Donald Trump is to return to the White House in January, but his second term would surely be different from the first. His Cabinet would not include former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former US national security adviser John Bolton, both outspoken supporters of Taiwan. Trump is expected to implement a transactionalist approach to Taiwan, including measures such as demanding that Taiwan pay a high “protection fee” or requiring that Taiwan’s military spending amount to at least 10 percent of its GDP. However, if the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) invades Taiwan, it is doubtful that Trump would dispatch
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has been dubbed Taiwan’s “sacred mountain.” In the past few years, it has invested in the construction of fabs in the US, Japan and Europe, and has long been a world-leading super enterprise — a source of pride for Taiwanese. However, many erroneous news reports, some part of cognitive warfare campaigns, have appeared online, intentionally spreading the false idea that TSMC is not really a Taiwanese company. It is true that TSMC depositary receipts can be purchased on the US securities market, and the proportion of foreign investment in the company is high. However, this reflects the
RSS