In focusing on the scale of Sheikh Hasina’s victory in the general election a few days ago and the allegations of rigging by her opponents in Bangladesh, it is easy to miss the significant structural change unfolding in Bangladesh and its long-term implications.
Khaleda’s imprisonment will not allow her to contest the elections in Bangladesh slated for December and is likely to inflame the infamous rivalry with her longtime opponent and prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
Bangladesh is in a straitjacket and its government is embattled. With no sign of a let-up in the killings of liberals and secular writers, the feeling grows that the administration led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is not on top of the situation.
The early Sunday executions of two politicians convicted of war crimes in Bangladesh’s liberation war of 1971 are, for Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League government, a major challenge overcome. These executions are not the first on Hasina’s watch. Two other convicted war criminals, both belonging to the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami, were executed earlier. The difference is that the executions of Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid were preceded by a flurry of activity at home and abroad to save them from the gallows.
…the optimism was diluted by the strong sense of disappointment at the failure to make any breakthrough on the proposed Teesta water-sharing agreement. The presence of Mamata Banerjee alongside Modi had encouraged people to believe that, following what many saw as a very successful visit by her to Dhaka earlier in the year, the heart of the West Bengal chief minister had melted. But Banerjee remained uncharacteristically quiet on the matter, taciturn and brooding, during the entire visit. So, instead of the much-needed Teesta waters, we have got another bucket full of promises and assurances with which we will have to irrigate the water-hungry Teesta basin on our side.
The talk of the town in Dhaka is the forthcoming visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 6. The enthusiasm generated by the impending trip is rare and can only be compared with that experienced during the visit of Indira Gandhi in 1972. She was welcomed effusively because of the support she gave Bangladesh in its War of Liberation.
Diplomacy and bilateral exigency triumphed over politics and emotions as the Narendra Modi government steered the passage of the Bill that ratified and allows the operationalisation of the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) between India and Bangladesh. In a rare show of unanimity, the Bill was passed by both Houses of Parliament, a move that would now facilitate the exchange of territory between the two neighbours.
India is too strategically powerful and too close a neighbour to play a partisan role in favouring any political party over another in Bangladesh
There seems little chance of any understanding between Bangladesh’s two main political forces emerging ahead of the scheduled January 5 elections.
A peaceful mass secular protest involving people from all walks of life, spearheaded by a tech savvy young generation, apparently independent from political parties, seeking accountability for war crimes committed in 1971. This has been Shahbag, a square in the centre of Dhaka, Bangladesh, an (almost) non-stop protest since February 5. The positive aspects are obvious to all those interested in a secular Bangladesh, who support accountability for the terrible atrocities committed during the nine-month-long war.
