Bangladesh Watchdog

Sheikh Hasina’s Political Career at a Cross Road

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 03:46:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

In the wake of the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) verdict for the death penalty for Sheikh Hasina, will her political career come to an end on the road? It would be difficult for her to return to Bangladesh with a death penalty and lead the Awami League to survive in a rough sea.

Hasina’s father (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) originally set up Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal to try cases of atrocities during the Liberation War. The ICT was supposed to put on trial 195 Pakistani military officers accused of war crimes in the 1971 bloody independence war.

Hasina revived the tribunal when she assumed power in 2009. The current regime has used it against her opponents, wrote Bhagyasree Sengupta in the FirstPost. Hasina did not show remorse for the crimes against humanity in killing 1,400 protesters during last year’s July-August bloody uprising.

Hasina refused to accept defeat. Her party members also refused—especially those who fled to India. She must be having sleepless nights and worrisome days. The woman who ruled Bangladesh for nearly 20 years with an iron hand did not express her remorse for misrule.

For the past 15 months, even while staying in India, Hasina has been spewing venom about the July–August uprising and, in a way, attempting to call for the overthrow of this government.

In the past, she lived in exile in Delhi. For her, it was not a new city when she lived a low-profile life for six years until 1981, forming close relationships with leaders like Indira Gandhi and Pranab Mukherjee. During her tenure as Prime Minister, she gradually tilted towards India for security, intelligence sharing, trade, bilateral relations, and other crucial issues.

Hasina became an all-weather friend of India. Delhi reciprocated unflinching support to Dhaka in the regional forum and international forum. She listened to Delhi and destroyed the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The platform for regional understanding and cooperation collapsed after Islamabad announced that host the SAARC Summit.

Indian Prime Minister boycotted the event, and promptly, Hasina also cancelled her visit to Pakistan. Islamabad has postponed the summit. Since the boycott of the SAARC Summit in 2016, Bangladesh-Pakistan bilateral relations have plummeted. At one stage, Hasina decided to snap diplomatic relations. She called back senior diplomats, including the High Commissioner to Dhaka and kept them idle. She refused to give clearance to the new Pakistan High Commissioner to Bangladesh for several years.

The news of ice-breaking was first known through Pakistan’s news media that a new High Commissioner has arrived and met Sheikh Hasina at the Prime Minister’s Office. It was not clear what changed the mindset of Hasina to meet the High Commissioner. Whether there was external influence or other compulsion. Dhaka also sent High Commissioners to Islamabad, which eased the diplomatic relations.

The country twice declared two diplomats of Pakistan persona non grata. Islamabad reciprocated by deporting one Bangladeshi diplomat. It could not be determined whether the diplomats sent back home were on the basis of tit-for-tat.

Meanwhile, trade and commerce continued at a slow pace. Both countries depended on each other’s products. Bangladesh is dependent on several products, as raw materials, to feed the export-oriented industries. What will happen to her party is difficult to predict.

However, several political observers say the days will become thinner for Hasina. The extravagant pomp and glory that she enjoyed will be no more, no doubt, said a political analyst, Mohiuddin Ahmad, political historian and writer.

Well, Hasina will not be extradited by India, where she is living in a safe home, somewhere in New Delhi, presumed to be an armed force establishment. Dhaka has once again sent a note verbale in reference to the verdict of the death penalty, and the ICT has declared her a fugitive.

India, as usual, is dead silent over the issue of extradition. The Ministry of External Affairs has issued a brief statement acknowledging the ICT verdict and carefully did not mention the Delhi plan about Hasina’s status. The silence gave a clear message that Delhi will not hand over its loyal friend, Hasina and will not speak a word about her status.

There will be no resolution to these questions while this current government remains in power. The government has made it clear that the Awami League will not be allowed to contest the election during this term. What happens next will depend entirely on the government that comes afterwards—our future course and the structure of our politics will be shaped by that, wrote once a fiery student leader, Mahmudur Rahman Manna, in the largest circulated Bangla daily Prothom Alo.

Returning Hasina and her co-accused to Home Minister Asaduzzaman Kamal is dark. She and he co-accused, will live in Indian as guest. No Indian government will send her back when her life is in danger.

Delhi may reject the ICT and deny its legitimate existence and trial in a tribunal which was exclusively set up by Hasina for the trial of war criminals and crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 war.

The Indian statement, soon after the verdict of Hasina’s death penalty it has put the International Crimes Tribunal in question. Which means Delhi does not recognize the tribunal.

Indian could use the exception clause in the 2013 Bangladesh-India Extradition Treaty. There are certain clauses which could give leverage to India, refusing to hand over Hasina and others, said Suhasini Haidar with The Hindu.

To keep the diplomatic channels open to discuss Bangladesh’s concerns, convey India’s concern and possibly push Bangladesh for an inclusive election to allow Hasina’s party, Awami League, to participate in the upcoming February election, said Haider.

Presently, the government has imposed restrictions on party activities, and the Election Commission has deleted the boat symbol from the list of election symbols.

The death sentence awarded to Sheikh Hasina, former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, is a seismic political event that will be seared into the nation’s collective memory for a long time. Its tremors will be felt through the country’s institutions even if the death sentence is never executed.

Ironically, Hasina has now fallen victim to the system she created by weaponizing the judiciary against her political opponent, Bharat Bhushan writes.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Pakistan, on 27 November 2025

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist based in Bangladesh and a media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders. He is the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and the Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at: saleem.samad.1971@gmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Defiant Sheikh Hasina refuses to apologize for her crimes

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 07:15:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

Ousted Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina refused to apologize for the bloody crackdown on street protests that led to her downfall last year, and tells international media outlets that she has no intention to leave India.

Last week, Sheikh Hasina from her safe house – somewhere in Delhi, India gave written interviews to Reuters, The Independent, and French news agency AFP.

The interviews via email with international outlets were her first media engagements since her autocratic regime collapsed during the Monsoon Revolution. She spoke her mind, planned on her exile, her political party, Awami League, the upcoming election sans Awami League, and, of course, critiquing the Interim Government, describing it as an “illegal” government. She blamed the Yunus government was “sowing the seeds” of further division in her country.

The three international media which were published on the same day – the 78-year-old former leader remained defiant in her exile, rejecting charges of crimes against humanity and describing her ongoing trial as “politically motivated.” Despite her failure to hold free, fair, and inclusive elections in three consecutive sham polls during her 15-year rule, she has now demanded that the Interim Government should hold an inclusive election.

“Elections without the direct participation of all major parties, including the Awami League, cannot be credible,” she said. It should be pointed out that Hasina has been accused of disenfranchising millions of voters through holding elections in 2014, 2018, and 2024 without the participation of opposition parties.

The same opposition, Hasina once castigated, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is seen as the frontrunner, while Jamaat-e-Islami, the Sunni Muslim-majority country’s largest Islamist party, is rising in popularity during post Hasina.

The Election Commission suspended the Awami League’s registration in May. Earlier, the government banned all party activities, citing national security threats and crimes against humanity probe into senior Awami League leaders.

She warned that the ban on her Awami League by the interim government of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was deepening a political crisis in the country of 170 million people, ahead of elections slated for February 2026. Millions of supporters of Bangladesh’s Awami League will boycott next year’s national election, Hasina told Reuters from her exile in India.

Hasina, 78, said she would not return to Bangladesh under any government formed after elections that exclude her party, and plans to remain in India to live “quietly and freely”, where she fled in August 2024 following a deadly student-led uprising. She added that she had “no intention of seeking asylum beyond India (in a third country).”

“The ban on the Awami League is not only unjust, it is self-defeating,” Hasina said in emailed responses to Reuters — her first media engagement since her dramatic fall from power after being elected to power for the fifth tenure.

“The next government must have electoral legitimacy,” Hasina told Reuters. “Millions of people support the Awami League cannot disenfranchise millions of people.” Political analyst Mohiuddin Ahmad said that Hasina shouldn’t expect from an “illegal” government. She has no alternative but to remain calm and enjoy the hospitality of Delhi.

Hasina is in exile in New Delhi for the second time. Earlier, she stayed for six years, from 1975 to 1981. Later, she returned to Bangladesh as president of Awami League, and in 1996, she was elected Prime Minister for the first time. The 78-year-old former leader remained defiant, rejecting charges of crimes against humanity and describing her ongoing trial as “politically motivated.”

The Prosecutors of the International Crimes Tribunal, a Bangladesh war-crimes court, are seeking the death penalty for Hasina, accusing her of crimes against humanity by ordering the use of lethal force against student protesters, resulting in up to 1,400 deaths.

In her AFP interview, Hasina rejected the accusations of crimes against humanity, insisting they were “not supported by any evidence” and that the tribunal was appointed by an administration that included her political opponents.

Hasina contested the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) death toll claim during the July Uprising in 2024, saying that “the 1,400 figure is useful to the ICT for propaganda purposes but is probably inflated”.

Prosecutors have sought the death penalty for Hasina, accusing her of ordering lethal force against protesters in July and August 2024, when as many as 1,400 people were killed and thousands were injured, according to what the United Nations described. Hasina is defended in ICT by a state-appointed lawyer, but said she would only recognize an “impartial” process, such as one at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Hasina, meanwhile, has defied court orders to return to attend her trial on whether she bears command responsibility for the deadly crackdown, charges amounting to crimes against humanity under Bangladeshi law. A verdict is due on 13 November. In response to AFP, Hasina also condemned her crimes against humanity trial as a “jurisprudential joke”, adding she believed a guilty verdict was “preordained”. Her critics, including interim officials and human rights lawyers, say she bears “command responsibility” for the use of lethal force. Chief prosecutor Tajul Islam described her as “the nucleus around whom all the crimes were committed,” urging the court to impose the death penalty if found guilty.

Bangladesh’s premier English newspaper, the Daily Star’s own investigations found that Hasina had personally authorized the use of lethal weapons. The newspaper had published a leaked phone recording from 18 July 2024 where Hasina tells her nephew, former Dhaka South Mayor Fazle Noor Taposh, “I have given instructions, now I have given direct instructions; now they will use lethal weapons. Wherever they find them [protesters], they will shoot directly.” “The charge that I personally directed security forces to open fire on crowds is bogus,” Hasina told AFP, while conceding that “some mistakes were certainly made within the chain of command.” “They’ve been brought by kangaroo courts, with guilty verdicts a foregone conclusion,” she told Reuters, adding that she would “neither be surprised nor intimidated” if she were sentenced to death.

She told the Independent that she “mourns each and every child, sibling, cousin, and friend we lost as a nation,” but refused to issue a formal apology, arguing that the unrest was manipulated by her political rivals to topple her government. “I mourn the lives we lost, but I reject the false allegation that I ordered police to shoot demonstrators,” she said.

Rights groups, including the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, long accused her government of a litany of abuses, including the murder of rivals, suppression of opposition parties, rigged courts, and one-sided elections.

In response to AFP, Hasina said her priority now was “the welfare and stability of Bangladesh,” while her party explores legal and diplomatic avenues to contest its exclusion from the political process.”

Yunus must reinstate the Awami League to give Bangladeshis the choice they deserve.”

To conclude, Awami League’s return to power, in any foreseeable future, remains a political impossibility, Abu Jakir wrote in a news portal, Bangla Outlook.

This article was published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, on 2 November 2025

https://stratheia.com/defiant-sheikh-hasina-refuses-to-apologize-for-her-crimes/

Bangladesh Politicalscape Division Deepens Over Democratization Roadmap

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 02:33:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

The majority of people in Bangladesh are in the dark and groping in the wild to understand what the much-talked-about “July National Charter” is about, a political roadmap for democratic transition, at the behest of the Interim Government.

A genuine national consensus on the path to democratic renewal has fallen short of expectations. Uncertainty surrounding its implementation has left several political parties hesitant to sign, despite an eleventh-hour intervention by Chief Adviser Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus.

Many parties have shown themselves to be unable to bridge their differences over the nation’s future direction. Since the circulation of the final draft, some have questioned whether the exercise produced any meaningful consensus, wrote Kamal Ahmed, a columnist and former Chairperson of Media Reforms Commission of the Interim Government.

Last Friday, millions with access to national media, including television, newspapers, news portals, and social media, who are supposed to make informed decisions, plunged into a state of confusion over the new political roadmap.

Hasnat Quaiyum, president of the left-leaning Bangladesh Rastro Songskar Andolon, described the draft as “weaker” than the accord reached among the three alliances during the 1990s student uprising against former military ruler General HM Ershad.

However, the two major political parties Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Awami League, in a see-saw to power several times, never bothered to bring about legislation in the parliament to implement the reforms agreed to in the joint declaration post-1990.

The Charter was named after the July-August Monsoon Revolution, which ousted autocratic Sheikh Hasina after 15 years of rule. A year ago, the street protests killed nearly 1400 young people in 36 days of Monsoon Revolution.

With the July Charter finally taking shape, Mohiuddin Alamgir of the Daily Star looks into the changes in the constitution, legislative structure, balance of power, and caretaker government system, as well as the new laws needed to reshape governance.

The Charter, born out of a compact among political parties, proposes a raft of constitutional reforms to reinvigorate Bangladesh’s parliament, which has remained weak and failed to function as an effective check on executive authority.

The proposals include the introduction of a bicameral legislature, a stronger opposition bench, institutional oversight, and checks and balances at the heart of parliamentary democracy.

Very few topics in Bangladesh’s political discourse have sparked as much debate or endured as long as the caretaker government system. To many, it represents not just a procedural framework but also a reliable means of conducting free and fair elections.

Introduced in 1991 through a rare political consensus, the caretaker system was widely accepted as a safeguard to ensure neutral elections, free from the influence of ruling parties. It was incorporated into the constitution in 1996.

Its unilateral abolition by the Awami League government in 2011 triggered a decade-long bitter dispute over an acceptable mechanism for holding credible elections.

The issue has emerged again with renewed urgency, as the July charter calls for the restoration of the system.

Restoring the caretaker system with more safeguards in the charter has been stressed. Presently, the Supreme Court is hearing the abrogation of the caretaker government system.

Once the apex court renders a verdict on the cancellation of the system, Bangladesh will switch to the caretaker system mode. The Interim Government will cease to function 90 days before the election and hand over power to the Caretaker Government.

Reforms ahead of the national election have been the most consistent pledge of the interim government. One of the core reforms, apart from reviving the caretaker government system, is to bring about a balance of power between the prime minister and the president.

For years, critics have warned that the immense constitutional powers vested in the prime minister risk fostering authoritarianism, with the post of president remaining largely ceremonial, devoid of substantive authority.

The July Charter proposes curbing the PM’s overarching powers and strengthening the role of the president.

“To prevent the emergence of a fascist regime in the future, there must be a balance of power,” said Prof Ali Riaz, vice president of the National Consensus Commission.

Political parties have long stressed the need for a mechanism to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of the head of the government.

“Nearly all institutions are subject to the prime minister’s unilateral control. The president is constitutionally bound to act on the advice of the prime minister. In effect, the president holds no independent authority,” remarked Riaz.

Presently, the post of president is ceremonial. Real executive authority lies with the PM, who is the most powerful political actor with control over the executive, strong influence over the legislature, and indirect dominance over other state organs, wrote Alamgir.

Following independence, Bangladesh adopted a parliamentary system of government. However, the country transitioned to a presidential form through the fourth amendment to the constitution in 1975.

The parliamentary system was reinstated in 1991, designating the prime minister as the executive head of the government and the president as the constitutional head of state. In reality, the president acts on the PM’s advice in almost all matters.

In an effort to curb the concentration of power in the Prime Minister’s Office, according to the charter, most political parties agreed that an individual may serve as PM for a maximum of 10 years. The PM will not be the leader of the ruling party in the parliament.

The charter proposes that a lawmaker would be barred from holding the office of PM and remaining party chief at the same time. However, BNP and several like-minded parties issued a note of dissent on the matter.

Not to the surprise of political analysts, the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islam always echoed the Interim Government’s election road map, without any question.

“The aim here is to create a degree of separation between the party and the government, thereby reducing the concentration of power in the hands of the prime minister,” Ali Riaz said.

“Plenty of theoretical ideas are there [in the charter], but what will happen in reality remains to be observed,” said Al Masud Hasanuzzaman, a former teacher of Jahangirnagar University.

Consensus Commission Vice President Ali Riaz said the overarching objective is to establish an accountable state and strengthen its institutions so that the country is not governed by the whims of any individual or group.

Kamal Ahmed, consultant editor of The Daily Star, concludes that the deeper divisions surfaced over contentious political questions. Disagreements persist over the powers of the proposed second chamber in parliament, eligibility criteria for its members, provisions for amending or suspending the constitution, appointments to key constitutional and regulatory bodies, the president’s impeachment process, nominating a deputy speaker from the opposition, and parliamentary ratification of international treaties.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, 20 October 2025

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist based in Bangladesh and a media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders. He is the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and the Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleem.samad.1971@gmail.com>; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

India Never Questioned the Bangladesh Elections

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 15:05:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

Last week, the Indian External Affairs Secretary Vikram Misri opined that Bangladesh should hold a free, fair, and inclusive election. It is fair to make a generalist statement to a group of visiting Bangladeshi journalists in Delhi.

The Bangladesh Foreign Affairs Advisor Touhid Ahmed, in a rebuttal, said that the Indian foreign secretary’s remark on the upcoming polls was ‘completely unwarranted’, saying that it is entirely an internal affair of the country.

“I see that statement as not their matter; it is entirely an internal issue for Bangladesh, and such comments are completely unwarranted,” he told local reporters recently. Prof Muhammad Yunus has announced that the general election will be held next February. The announcement was made after several parleys with political parties.

The journalists did not counter that the ousted Sheikh Hasina had held elections in 2014, 2018, and 2024. The three elections were fraudulently organized sans opposition political parties. Tens of thousands of opposition leaders, members, and sympathizers were held in prison for months during each election. What the journalists could not respond that, soon after the questionable elections were held, India was the first country to congratulate Hasina for being elected for another term of office.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the days after elections, posted a congratulatory message on Twitter (X) hailing Hasina for holding an election. Such a post gives a hidden message that India will always remain beside Bangladesh. Delhi never advised Dhaka to hold a free, fair, and inclusive election. Possibly Hindu-extremist ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) never wanted to embarrass their all-weather friend Hasina in urging to hold credible elections in Bangladesh.

Several countries in the West, including the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United Nations, and even Japan, urged Hasina to hold free, fair, and inclusive elections. Their request fell on deaf ears. She often barked at the West, stating that they are creating political pressure on her government in the election, and told conspiracy theories. This was later found to be based on misinformation and fake news.

In another statement by the Indian External Affairs Secretary that India would continue to engage with whoever comes to power in Bangladesh through free, fair, transparent, internationally recognized, and participatory elections. This statement was clearly understood, that India will reset its button after an elected government takes charge, likely in the coming February. Until then, the hot and cold relations will continue during the Interim Government. Delhi South Block will continue to go slow in bilateral relations with Dhaka. Whichever political party comes to power, it will be critical of India’s foreign policy and bilateral relations. The new government will vehemently oppose the Indians in every sphere.

The new democratically elected government will demand to resolve the long dispute on water-sharing, border-killing by Indian forces, pushing “illegal migrants” through the porous borders, lopsided trade balance, and other issues, including relaxing the visa regime. On the visa regime: India has clamped a moratorium on the issuance of tourist visas to Bangladeshi nationals since the ouster of Hasina. Except for one in Dhaka, other visa centers have been shut down for more than a year.

The Bangladeshi journalists have raised the issue of the visa regime in Delhi South Block. Indian Secretary Misri did not give a plan for resuming visas to Bangladeshi. On the other hand, Bangladesh missions in India have continued issuing visas to Indian nationals on a priority basis. Yunus urged the diplomatic missions abroad to expedite visas to journalists. Now all missions have been issuing visas to foreign journalists, including Indian scribes.

Earlier, journalists seeking a visa faced a hassle and were often turned down or rejected. The visa application first arrives at the Foreign Ministry. The application travels through the bureaucrat’s desk of the Home Affairs Ministry and the Information Ministry. After approval, the journalists and TV crew were given visas. Before arriving in Bangladesh, the journalists or TV crews were briefed on do’s and don’ts. After arriving in the country, the smart guys from the security agencies kept surveillance of their movements, the people they met, and the places they visited.

The crucial issue would be to extradite Sheikh Hasina from a military safe-house somewhere in Delhi without any conditions. Another critical issue would be to deport hundreds of most-wanted Awami League leaders, party members, and their cohorts living in exile, mostly in Kolkata. According to The Print, an Indian portal, it is estimated that 1,300 Awami League leaders and members are living in India. Their official status of staying in India is unknown.

The Awami League has opened two offices in Kolkata and New Delhi. Delhi has not commented on the party leaders and members overstaying in India, and has also made no comment on their offices in India. If Delhi does not comply with the extradition of the wanted persons within the stipulated deadline, the new government in Dhaka will surely declare non-cooperation with India. Many other actions will follow, which will be difficult for Delhi to digest.

What Ambassador Humayun Kabir, also President of Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI), says India never faced any challenges from Bangladesh. Prof Yunus deliberately avoids confrontation with India. Even then, Yunus is despised by the Delhi South Block and the BJP. The upcoming political government in 2026, the Bangladesh-India relations are likely to turn sour, and the bone of contention will center on Hasina.

India will be in a dilemma to extradite Hasina and improve the relations or keep her in a safe-house and jeopardize the relations, says Kabir. India will bully Bangladesh, which will not be liked by the West. She (India) will not be able to justify the poor relations with Bangladesh to the West, nor can she raise the issue to the United Nations or any world forum to resolve the bilateral relations.

First published in Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, 09 October 2025

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist based in Bangladesh and a media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders. He is the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and the Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleem.samad.1971@gmail.com>; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

https://stratheia.com/india-never-questioned-the-bangladesh-elections/

India Spreading ‘Fake News’ About Anti-Hindu Violence

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 02:46:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh, like elsewhere, the Hindus are celebrating a weeklong Durga Puja. This is the second Durga Puja celebration since the Interim Government took charge of the helm of affairs of the nation.

Durga Puja is widely celebrated with great enthusiasm, color, festivity, and religious passion by Bangla-speaking Hindu diasporas and in several neighboring Indian states and among those living abroad.

The festival goes beyond religion to promote strength, unity, and community spirit. However, the Puja is not the mainstream religious festival of majoritarian Indians. They celebrate the Diwali festival of lights.

“There is no anti-Hindu violence,” Chief Adviser of the Interim Government Professor Muhammad Yunus said in an interview with veteran journalist Mehdi Hasan for Zeteo news media on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last week.

Bangladesh’s majoritarian population is Sunni Muslims, and the religious minorities make up a small but diverse portion of the population of 9 per cent.

Hindus are the largest minority of 8 per cent, followed by Buddhists and Christians. The country has a tiny population of Shia Muslims, Ahmadiyya Muslims, Baha’is, animists, and atheists. Dismissing the claims as misinformation, Yunus told Hasan, “One of the specialities of India right now is fake news.”

Professor Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist, became the interim head of Bangladesh following the 2024 July Uprising known as Monsoon Revolution that led to the ouster of former fascist Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Mehdi sits down with Yunus in New York, a year after student protesters in his country ousted the repressive former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who ruled the 174 million people with an iron hand for more than 15 years.

The Nobel Laureate accuses India of spreading ‘fake news’ about anti-Hindu violence. Delhi often blames the Dhaka authorities for not doing enough to ensure protection and security for the Hindu population, especially the protection of Hindu temples, which Indian authorities claim are being sporadically attacked.

Dhaka avoids pointing fingers at Delhi for persecution, intimidation, and violence by Hindu extremists on Dalits (untouchable community), Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Adivasis (ethnic communities), and others.

In November, around 30,000 Hindus in Bangladesh gathered to protest Yunus’ interim government, demanding protection and security, with Donald Trump even weighing in to call Bangladesh’s treatment of Hindus “barbaric”. “One of the specialities of India right now is fake news,” the Nobel laureate tells Zeteo, before declaiming, “There’s no anti-Hindu violence.”

Once, Murshidabad was the capital of Nawab Sirajuddowla (1756-1757), the last independent Nawab of Bengal. The young Muslim ruler met at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. He was defeated by the British East India Company. His defeat marked the end of the 500-year-long Muslim rule over Bengal.

In the same capital, a pavilion of a Durga Puja at Murshidabad, in a state adjacent to Bangladesh. The goddess Durga has other faces of Prof Yunus as a demon, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and US President Donald Trump as evils. It did not surprise many, the organizers deliberately avoided Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, blamed for atrocities in Gaza.

BBC Bangla was the first to post a visual story of the Puja celebration in Murshidabad, which enraged the netizens and social media users in Bangladesh and the Bangladeshi diasporas abroad. The tension and distrust between the two neighboring countries in South Asia have gone cold. No visible diplomatic initiatives from Dhaka and Delhi to warm up the relations.

In one incident, Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal urged the interim government in Dhaka to “live up to its responsibility” of protecting minorities without “inventing excuses.” MEA protested the claim of vandalism at Rabindranath Tagore’s ancestral home in Shahzadpur, north of Bangladesh.

Immediately Indian government, Indian political figures, and Hindutva–aligned social media handlers circulated about the vandalism at Rabindranath Tagore’s ancestral home. Bangladesh Chief Adviser’s Press Wing, after fact-check, debunked the Indian claim and posted a statement on its verified Facebook page.

Without a fact-check, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) expressed concern over the incident. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal claimed that the attack was portrayed as a “systematic Islamist attack” or “terrorist act” against a symbol of Hindu heritage.

MEA spokesperson in his rhetoric on Bangladesh often states: “The attack falls in the broad pattern of systematic attempts made by extremists to erase the symbols of tolerance and eviscerate the syncretic culture and the cultural legacy of Bangladesh.”

Several Indian media outlets have circulated videos claiming that Hindus are being targeted by ‘Islamist forces’ in Bangladesh. Analysts say that while there have been attacks on minorities during the political unrest, the media is exaggerating the scale, says Qatar-based international TV network Al Jazeera.

South Asia witnessed a continuation of religious violence, fake news, and political messaging that mainly targeted Muslim minorities. In India, there were mob attacks, hate speeches by religious leaders, and forced deportations of Muslims to Bangladesh, wrote Mohammed Raihan in The Insighta, an analytical portal.

At the same time, some Indian media were alleged to spread false stories about events in Bangladesh, claiming attacks on Hindus, he wrote inThe Insighta. There is no hide and seek, India has huge discomfort and embarrassment about the political changeover in Bangladesh that took place on 5th August.

Developing events suggest that India considers the changeover as its ‘political defeat in Bangladesh’ and unleashing vengeful plots in hegemonic arrogance to destabilize the country to put back the government of its choice in power, writes Mohammad Abdur Razzak in a secular newspaper, The New Age, published from Dhaka.

Playing the Hindu card, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a message on his X (Twitter) handle, urged the chief adviser to Bangladesh’s interim government few days after Yunus was sworn in August last year to “ensure the safety and protection of the Hindus and all other minorities in Bangladesh”.

According to Indian media outlet The Wire published a short documentary titled “Being Hindu in Bangladesh is Not a Black and White Story,” which tells the personal story of Deepak Kumar Goswami, a well-known actor from Bangladesh who is a Hindu. He talks about what it’s really like to live as a Hindu in a Muslim majority country.

Deepak shows that life in Bangladesh for Hindus isn’t just good or bad – it’s more complex than what some Indian media shows. In the documentary, Deepak criticizes the Indian media for spreading propaganda after Hasina fled to India, questioning whether it truly supports Hindus or serves Hasina’s interests.

He rejects the portrayal of the July 2024 uprising as an Islamist movement, pointing out that Hindus, including himself, also opposed Hasina—a fact ignored by the Indian media.

Another bone of contention is the recent anti-immigrant crackdown in India. The crackdown ensued after the Pahalgam massacre by Islamic militants’ attack on tourists in Indian administered Kashmir.

Hundreds of Muslim migrants are forced into Bangladesh's porous borders. Many were found to be Indian citizens. Their crime, they speak Bangla and, most importantly, Muslims are eligible to the deported.

Indian ‘Godi Media’, within a few days after the fall of Hasina, quoting “reliable sources” inside Bangladesh, claimed a military coup in the country and Prof Yunus’ government is a façade.

When the Godi Media found the conspiracy theory of a military coup narrative is not credible, they quickly changed their claim that the Yunus government is governed by the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami.

Yunus addressed a group of researchers and academicians in New York last week. He flagged a piece of fake news claiming that the Gen Z (youths) who brought about change in Bangladesh are Taliban. “They even said I’m a Taliban too. I don’t have a beard. I just left it at home,” he laughed.

The Nobel laureate is a staunch secularist. The Grameen Bank, which he founded, has beneficiaries of 10.75 million (August 2025), with 97% of them being rural women. He has brought about the empowerment of women and supported them from sinking into poverty.

The person who has worked with millions of women over several decades and even got the rural women in the Grameen Bank as board members, is regularly slammed by the Indian media as being backed by the Islamists, Mullahs, and Muslim radicals. It is indeed a pity, remarked political historian and researcher Mohiuddin Ahmad.

First published in Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist based in Bangladesh and a media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders. He is the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and the Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleem.samad.1971@gmail.com>; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

India is Blowing Hot and Cold with Bangladesh

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Sat, 27 Sep 2025 17:08:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

India has multiple reasons for disliking Bangladesh. In the aftermath of the event of the ouster of all-weather friend Sheikh Hasina from power in August 2024. If we look into previous regimes, Delhi developed heightened relations with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1972-1975) and her daughter, Sheikh Hasina (1976-2001 and 2009-2024).

Why? The Awami League party was literally “owned” by the Sheikh’s family was tilted to India when their government was in power. The people did not like it, and thousands of critics, dissidents, opposition, and also journalists were severely punished by both the autocratic regimes.

Not only the Awami League, but also the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jatiya Party. When the military junta of liberation war veteran General Ziaur Rahman (1977-1981) and the other by General Hussain Muhammad Ershad (1982-1990) floated their parties and recruited politicians mostly from the former defunct Muslim League and pro-Maoist parties. Interestingly, the South Block in Delhi had love and hate relations with both the Rahman and Ershad, but both regimes were suspicious and careful of the giant neighbor.

India reciprocated ‘not-so-warm’ diplomatic relations, but each other’s leaders were on reciprocal official state visits to Delhi and Dhaka. Presently, Delhi is not happy with the sudden change of regime in Dhaka. The 36-day Monsoon Revolution street protest by Gen Z forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to quit and flee. She sought political asylum in India.

India has not been able to accept the change in Bangladesh because it “did not like” what the students did during the uprising last year. “We have problems with India right now because they disliked what the students have done,” remarked Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus, Chief Adviser of the Interim Government.

He was speaking at an event organized by the Asia Society and the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York last week, which was moderated by Dr Kyung-wha Kang, president and CEO of the Asia Society. He said India’s hosting of Hasina has created all sorts of problems in the country and is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of young people, and is not helping bilateral ties between the neighbors.

The United Nations human rights body (OHCHR) claimed that nearly 1,400 people, including students, daily wage earners, vendors, public transport drivers, and children. “This issue creates a lot of tension between India and Bangladesh. Also, lots of fake news is disseminated from the other side [of the border]. This is a very bad thing,” Yunus lamented while attending the UN General Assembly in New York.

He flagged a piece of fake news claiming that the youth who brought about change in Bangladesh are Taliban. “They even said I’m a Taliban too. I don’t have a beard. I just left it at home,” he quipped. Yunus said SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) is supposed to be a bloc of very close family members, and the idea was born in Bangladesh.

“You can invest in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is going to invest in your territory. That’s the whole idea of SAARC,” he said. “All of us benefit from that… This is what we should be doing.” Yunus said SAARC’s idea was to bring all the countries in South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) together so that young people can get in touch with each other.

The chief adviser said, “Our history allowed us to make that happen, but somehow it didn’t fit into the politics of someone’s country [not naming India], so it had to stop. We feel very sorry for that.” However, Yunus said Dhaka is willing to revitalize SAARC. “We want to make sure that we open it up and bring people [of South Asia] together. That is the only way to solve our issues.”

“I said, why don’t you look at neighbors, like Nepal, Bhutan, and also the seven northeast states of India. In the eastern part of Bangladesh, seven states don’t have any access to the ocean. These are landlocked regions,” he said, hinting at possible fields of economic cooperation. The Indian ‘Godi media’ are saber-rattling when Yunus mentioned that Bangladesh would give access to a new deep-seaport being built by the Japanese in the Bay of Bengal. So did the leaders of the radical Hindutva, ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), when Yunus spoke of giving access routes to landlocked northeast India states.

The Godi media and BJP stalwarts blamed Yunus for interfering in India and attempting to stir a separatist movement in the landlocked states, which will usher in China’s military presence in the conflict. He also mentioned Nepal and Bhutan. The countries welcomed the proposal, which will facilitate their exports through Bangladesh.

Earlier regional studies suggested that both Bangladesh and Northeast India need to scale up their multi-modal connectivity, which would not only help the region to raise its competitiveness but also narrow long-standing regional development gaps.

The port would immensely benefit economically and create jobs in Northeast Indian states, and Japan proposed a plan for road infrastructure for fast communication to the Bay of Bengal, and also developed backward linkage industries.

Japan has proposed developing an industrial hub in Bangladesh with supply chains to the landlocked northeast states of India, Nepal, and Bhutan beyond by developing a port and connectivity in the region, under the Bay of Bengal Industrial Growth Belt (BIG-B) initiative.

The connectivity will bring synergy in trade facilitation and build express corridors for the transshipment and transit of goods from northeast India to the Bangladesh port in Chattogram.

The former Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) Vision, focused particularly on emerging economies and developing countries in the Indo-Pacific region and territories vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters.

It comes after Kishida visited India in March 2023, where he touted the idea of a new industrial hub for the Bay of Bengal and Northeast India that could bolster development in the impoverished region of 300 million people.

After Kishida visited India, Japan approved $1.27 billion to Bangladesh for three infrastructure projects – including an enormous commercial port in the Bay, which will be equivalent to the Port of Colombo in Sri Lanka or the Port of Singapore in terms of water depths, said a JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) official in charge of the project.

After the Japanese Prime Minister’s official visit, top Japanese officials visited New Delhi, Guwahati (Assam), Agartala (Tripura), and in Dhaka (Bangladesh). When Japan proposed the port and the economic emancipation of the majoritarian ethnic communities in the Northeast in 2023, the Indians cheered, after Japanese top officials made presentations in the Indian cities.

Japan wants her physical presence in the Bay of Bengal. As prestigious Japanese media Nikkei Asia writes, Bangladesh’s ambitious deep-sea port promises a strategic anchor for Japan and India.

A mega seaport under construction is shaping up to be a strategic linchpin for Japan and India as the QUAD (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) partners (Australia, India, Japan, and the United States) aim to counter Chinese influence in the South China Sea.

The Red Sun, as Japan is branded, plans to build a Bengal – Northeast India industrial value chain in cooperation with India and Bangladesh to foster growth in the region.

A mega deep-sea port at Matarbari, in southeast Bangladesh waters, is expected to be completed in 2027. The complex will take a major load off of the country’s main Chattogram (formerly Chittagong) port and a trade gateway for northeast India, which would be less than 100 kilometers from the massive port facility.

Whatever the geopolitical strategy, the deep-sea port project has the potential to improve regional trade ties, boost investment, create jobs, and support infrastructural development, spurring economic growth for Bangladesh, Northeast India, Nepal, and Bhutan, as well as the surrounding areas of the Bay of Bengal.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, 27 September 2025

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist based in Bangladesh and a media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders. He is the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and the Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleem.samad.1971@gmail.com>; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

US Military Presence in Bangladesh Worries India

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 14:18:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

In 1996, Bangladesh agreed to the “war on terror” against the rogue Jihadist regime in Afghanistan, officially the Global War on Terrorism, a global military campaign initiated by the United States following the 11 September attacks in 2001, and is one of the most recent global conflicts spanning multiple wars.

The US military arrived for three joint military exercises with its counterpart, the Bangladesh military. The US officers checked into a Bangladesh Army-affiliated Radisson Blu Hotel in Chattogram (formerly Chittagong) on September 10 for an exercise in the coastal region of the south.

For the fourth year in a row, the Bangladesh Army and US Army Pacific conducted Exercise Tiger Lightning for preparedness on counterterrorism, peacekeeping, jungle operations, medical evacuations, and countering improvised explosive devices (IEDs), says the US Embassy in Dhaka on 20 July.

Since 2009, the ongoing exercise will feature patrol boat handling and small arms marksmanship, strengthening warfare diving and salvage, as well as the para-commandos’ ability to respond to crises.

In  the hallmarks of defense relationship between the two countries, the US built C-130 fleets that are critical in disaster response, airdrops, and air mobility operations. The exercise included Search and Rescue (SAR) and Aero-medical operations, further developing Bangladesh’s ability to respond to humanitarian disasters.

The United States, with Bangladesh’s Army and Navy, develop an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) capability for Bangladesh, and operated the new RQ-21 Blackjack system. The effort enabled Bangladesh to monitor its maritime domain, secure its borders, and conduct peacekeeping missions.

Whereas, hundreds of social media accounts loyal to the ousted regime of Sheikh Hasina burst into outrage, deep into conspiracy theories that the Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus Interim Government has opened the floodgate for “clandestine operation” to enable Bangladesh military forces to militarily strengthen the Myanmar rebels to oust the military junta in the capital Naypyidaw. The social media was abuzz that the US military officers had “secretly” arrived in Bangladesh and did not register their names at the hotel.

The second conspiracy theory, which was widely floating in social media and many suggests that the US military presence was to determine a suitable base which would make their presence felt in South Asia and also monitor South-East Asia. Well, the Bangladesh authority did not bother to counter the conspiracy theories that attempted to undermine the joint military exercise.

In August 2016, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, during a meeting with former Secretary of State John Kerry in Dhaka, expressed a “very clear” desire to cooperate with the U.S. “very, very closely” on fighting terrorism. Kerry announced the two countries had agreed to “additional steps by which our intelligence and law enforcement will work together to try to get ahead of this.”

Secretary of State, said the US and the West are deeply worried after evidence of the presence of Islamic State jihadists operating in Iraq and Syria has sleeping cells in “eight entities around the world, and one of them is in South Asia.” He deliberately did not mention the name of Afghanistan. He, however, disclosed that Islamic State extremists are in contact with some operatives in Bangladesh, and there was no argument about it from the government officials he met with here, including the prime minister.

Hasina’s government was blamed by scores of terrorism analysts and security experts for ‘having its head in the sand’ about such links, repeatedly terming the attacks as homegrown. Meanwhile, popular India Today media published a documentary titled: Strategic Drills In India’s Backyard: US Footprint In Bangladesh Rising.

Another media News Arena India on 15 September wrote in an article that India’s intelligence circle, the US troops’ arrival has fueled speculation amid a noticeable uptick in American military activity in Bangladesh following the fall of the Hasina regime. The same article was widely quoted on social media that the US military officers refrained from registering their names with the front desk and slipped into pre-booked rooms.

“The purpose of the exercise remains vague, with officials mentioning Cox’s Bazar as a likely location. The Bangladesh Army has largely remained cagey about the presence of US forces, apart from acknowledging formal collaborations such as Operation Pacific Angel and Tiger Lightning-2025,” wrote News Arena India without mentioning the source of information. The presence of C-130Js has reinforced speculation about the scope of US military activities in Bangladesh, etcetra, etcetra.

In the mid-60s, the radical left students to imbibe dissent against the military dictator General Ayub Khan of Pakistan said that he had leased Saint Martin’s island in the southeast tip of the country to the United States to build a military base to counter India.

The conspiracy theory of St. Martin given away to the Americans has cropped up several times since its independence in 1971. They were deliberately blamed for different regimes for facilitating inroads for America to counter the regional influence of India and China.

Bangladesh’s only coral island, Saint Martin, the Department of Environment (DoE) in 1999 declared the 8 Sq Km isles an “Ecologically Critical Area (ECA)”. It warned that the geo-class of a tiny island cannot be changed without the permission of the DoE. A British team of surveyors in 1900 included Saint Martin’s island as part of the British Raj in India and named it after a Christian priest, Saint Martin.

Green activists and environmentalists say the island is home to several globally endangered marine turtles and birds, including the rare Pacific reef-egret, red crab, dolphin, and vulnerable olive Ridley sea turtles, which are also on the verge of disappearance.

Professor Kawser Ahmed, dean of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Faculty of Dhaka University, in his article published in Ocean Science Journal in 2020, predicts that coral species will completely disappear by 2045.

Earlier, Syeda Rizwana Hasan, environment adviser to the Interim Government, doubted whether an ecologically threatened island would be suitable for any military purpose. Political historian and researcher Mohiuddin Ahmad, quoted in the largest circulated Bangla newspaper, Prothom Alo that he first heard in February 1971 about leasing Bhola’s Monpura island out to the USA.

The rumor took wings after the then fiery opposition leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had parley with the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Joseph Simpson Farland, on 28 February 1971 – a month before the genocidal campaign ‘Operation Searchlight’ launched by the Pakistan military, which sparked the liberation war.

Indian media quoting Hasina from a press conference in July 2023, she asked, “How did [opposition] BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party) come to power in 2001?”? She continued that they came to power by pledging to sell [natural] gas [to India]. Now do they want to sell the country [to the United States] or come to power by pledging to sell Saint Martin’s island,” she told loyalist journalists. Her words spread like wildfire and were injected into the minds and hearts of millions of supporters that Americans have an interest in the ‘critically endangered’ tiny island.

She blames BNP for negotiating with Washington, DC, to give away the ‘critically endangered’ coral island to America for a military establishment to watch over a huge swatch of the Bay of Bengal, which merges with the Indian Ocean in the far south. BNP countered her statement and said, “No country signs a deal with the opposition; it is signed with the government.”

On the other hand, the United States State Department’s former spokesperson Matthew Miller scoffed at the rumor centering on the island and the USA. In a press briefing in Washington, DC, he confidently said, “We have never engaged in any conversations about taking over Saint Martin’s island,” he remarked. Despite the denial by the US official, the loyalist of Hasina still blows the horn that the American military presence is interpreted as the establishment of a strategic naval base in the ocean of Bangladesh.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, 24 September 2025

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist based in Bangladesh and a media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders. He is the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and the Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleem.samad.1971@gmail.com>; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Nepal-India’s ‘Love & Hate’ Neighbor

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 11:47:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

India is in a diplomatic quagmire with its neighbors in a series of political crises of ‘youth quake’ by Gen Z (generation Z), which have struck Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal in South Asia.

South Block in New Delhi, before it could understand what was happening in Kathmandu, Nepal’s elected government, headed by Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, collapsed and fled to an unknown destination. India miscalculated its steps in response to the uprising among its neighbors. Delhi is having hiccups with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal joining the bandwagon, after its recent political turmoil.

For 14 months since becoming the prime minister of Nepal last July, Sharma Oli kept knocking on the door of South Block in New Delhi. This September, the door was supposed to swing open to let him in. His political mistake with its giant neighbor, according to New Delhi, the newly elected Prime Minister Sharma Oli made his first official visit to China, instead of her neighbor India.

China’s inroads into Nepal with mega projects, offers, and connectivity irked India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership. China’s massive infrastructure investments under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), including projects like the cross-border railway and road networks, are seen by Nepalese as tangible signs of development and economic opportunity, further enhancing China’s appeal over India.

“Oli knew his premiership would remain shaky without New Delhi’s backing. India, which has deep trade and cultural ties with landlocked Nepal, has traditionally been a big determinant of the longevity of governments in Kathmandu,” wrote The Diplomat news portal.

Alas, the planned visit of Sharma Oli to Delhi has been dented by a two-day youth-quake by Gen Z (Genji) street protest. Interestingly, China’s response to Gen Z to the current political developments appeared cautious and calculated, reflecting its broader regional strategic interests.

Finally, on 10 September, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson issued a statement saying, “China and #Nepal are each other’s traditional friends and neighbors. Hope the various sectors in Nepal will approach the domestic issues properly and restore order and stability in the country soon.”

After 2008, Beijing has carefully treaded with the Communist leadership in Nepal to deepen its diplomatic ties and goodwill in Nepal. The move has been viewed as a key element for strategic influence over the region. Leaders like Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prachanda did not hesitate to use the China card to stoke the nationalistic sentiments in Nepal.

Rishi Gupta, commentator on Global Affairs with India’s The Print portal that a day after the protests began in Nepal on 8 September, India stated the next day that it was “closely monitoring the developments in Nepal…(and) our thoughts and prayers are with the families and deceased. India also added that “as a close friend and neighbor, we hope that all concerned will exercise restraint.”

The same evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, “The violence in Nepal is heart-rending. I am anguished that many young people have lost their lives. The stability, peace, and prosperity of Nepal are of utmost importance to us. I humbly appeal to all my brothers and sisters in Nepal to support peace.”

In the same statement, India had urged that “issues on which there are differences should be resolved through dialogue in an atmosphere free from violence and intimidation and institutionalized in a manner that would enable broad-based ownership and acceptance,” as it was deemed as external interference. It would not be an exaggeration to say that small-state syndrome became an intense public mood in Nepal as it approached relations with India, especially after Nepal promulgated the constitution in 2015, wrote Gupta.

There was a divided crowd on social media about India’s approach, whether it was helpful and friendly or interventionist, but this came as no surprise, as the so-called border blockade of 2015 had already set the social media toolkit on India with hashtags like #BackoffIndia #GoBackIndia, wrote The Print.

For most who are watching Nepal closely, glimpses of the street protest and follow-up that unfolded in Kathmandu were reminiscent of the uprising that gripped Bangladesh in 2024 and Sri Lanka in 2022. In four years, three street protest movements showed how public anger against political corruption toppled the heads of government of Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, and led to their capitals.

The three South Asian countries are bedecked with corruption, nepotism, and favoritism by party leaders, lawmakers, and their family and relatives, who enjoyed the luxury and comfort from the perks from state exchequers, handsome commissions from government contracts, and sharks of bank loans.

Though Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are also India’s closest South Asian neighbors, Delhi’s relationship with Kathmandu is special because of historic people-to-people, economic, and strategic ties, wrote the BBC news portal. The protests in Nepal were initially seen by India’s political leadership as just young people upset at not being able to use social media. Delhi woke up when the government collapsed after the uprising escalated quickly.

On September 11, Kantipur, the country’s leading daily, reported that while Western media explored corruption, unemployment, and the social media ban as triggers, much of the Indian media pushed conspiracy theories – claiming either foreign powers like China and the US or a “deep state,” a conspiratorial term denoting bureaucracy and security forces, were behind the protest.

Nepal’s government has officially announced a total of 72 fatalities from the recent protests led by Gen Z. The total casualty of the nationwide Gen Z protests has reached 72. Newly appointed Prime Minister Karki of the caretaker government has declared that bereaved families of those killed in the protests will be compensated, while 191 still receiving treatment in hospitals will be treated for free.

The protesters killed during the Gen Z movement have been declared martyrs and cremated with due state honors. On 17 September, the nation paid tributes to the fallen protesters and declared the day a national holiday.

Viral videos on TikTok and Instagram have contrasted the lavish lifestyles of political families, with trends and hashtags #NepoKids #NepoBabies, #PoliticiansNepoBabyNepal involving designer clothes, foreign travel, and luxury cars, with the harsh realities faced by young people, including unemployment and forced migration.

Nepal is fraught with frequent political instability, and each prime minister’s tenure has lasted just a year or two since the new constitution came into effect in 2015. The country abolished its monarchy in 2006, after a violent uprising that forced its former king to give up his authoritarian rule, the American-based Associated Press (AP) writer said.

South Block and the ruling BJP are intensely watching political developments across the border, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi swiftly reacting to the unfolding events and writing his feelings on Twitter (X). “The violence in Nepal is heart-rending. I am anguished that many young people have lost their lives,” Modi wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.

The Gen Z youth leaders protested during a scheduled meeting with the country’s Indian trained military chief, Ashok Raj Sigdel, over why Indian media had been given clearance to attend the meeting at the military headquarters, where a planned dialogue was scheduled, while Nepali media were barred.

While selecting the possible candidates for the prime minister, the youth leaders struck names for the premiership, who are pro-Indian and have close ties with Delhi. What angered the Gen Z protesters was that the Indian television channels declared the protests they had joined were not about inequality but about restoring Nepal’s monarchy.

While right-wing television led the charge, newspapers and digital outlets also amplified the narrative. In the process, their coverage downplayed the protesters’ actual grievances, corruption, inequality, and economic hardship by focusing on the theme that was never central to the demonstrations.

Nepali youth demanding accountability versus Indian media, especially outlets close to the ruling BJP, eager to weave the protests into its own narrative, wrote an Indian media outlet.

Indian pro-establishment “Godi Media” was actively downplaying the Gen Z movement in Nepal. Fuelling the narrative are allegations from Indian broadcasters and politicians that rioters vandalized Nepal’s Pashupatinath temple, a revered Hindu site in the Himalayan nation, BBC reported.

“Some rioters, hiding within the crowd of protesters, attempted to vandalize the temple, and it was only after this incident that the army was deployed,” an anchor for the right-wing Zee News, a staunch ‘Godi Media’ television channel, said in a report featuring a clip of people climbing onto the temple’s gate and violently shaking it. KN Swami, a respected monk in the Pashupatinath temple, also posted clips on social media to refute claims it had been attacked by protesters.

Jivesh Mishra, a member of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in eastern Bihar state, which shares a border with Nepal, told reporters last week, “An attack on a temple is an attack on (the) Hindu faith.” Hundreds of social media posts have claimed without evidence that the protests were “instigated and funded” by “anti-Hindu forces and Islamists” to attack religious sites.

The French news agency, AFP fact-checkers, traced the footage to a religious ritual called Naxal Bhagwati Jatra, filmed weeks before the violence. Similarly, the Godi Media have been actively doing the same with political developments in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Other posts viewed thousands of times on Twitter (X), Instagram, Threads, and Facebook have compared the unrest in Nepal with protests in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country where a student-led revolt ousted long-time leader Sheikh Hasina, daughter of the founder of Bangladesh.

Why is India worried about the instability in Nepal? Delhi deems direct and indirect security threats to India’s interests. In the political crisis in Nepal, the 1,700-kilometre open border with India could be a security threat to the region. Political chaos and a breakdown of law and order can lead to a surge in cross-border smuggling, human trafficking, and an increase in the activities of anti-India elements, wrote the popular NDTV network’s opinion column.

The potential for a security vacuum in Nepal could be exploited by hostile actors, particularly Pakistan’s ISI, to foment trouble in India, cautioned opposition Congress lawmaker Shashi Tharoor, a popular writer and commentator.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, 17 November 2025

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist based in Bangladesh and a media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders. He is the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and the Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleem.samad.1971@gmail.com>; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

https://stratheia.com/nepal-indias-love-hate-neighbor/

Nepalese Protesters Cries 'Don't Mess With GenZ'

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 15:05:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

We know that the Nepal Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli has resigned and fled on a military helicopter to an unknown destination amid the nation reels from its worst two-day unrest in decades, and 19 people have died in the streets of the capital Kathmandu. The 73-year-old Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, known as K P Sharma Oli, leads a coalition government that includes the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) and the staunchly pro-Indian Nepali Congress.

Many South Asian political scientists and observers have noted that the people’s uprising against corrupt and autocratic governments has shadows that occurred in Sri Lanka (2022), then Bangladesh (2024), and now Nepal.

The curious question is, where will the people’s revolution strike next? The uprising will spark only where social media is curbed and corruption among politicians in alliance with bureaucracy and police administration becomes unbearable for the ‘aam janata’ (general public), says Dr Rakim Al Hasan, Executive Director of Centre For Partnership Initiative.

Nepal’s political legacy is no different from the South Asian nations. The country erupted into riot after a social media ban was clamped as an online anti-elite movement was gaining traction.

The Himalayan country is currently witnessing one of its most widespread youth uprisings in modern history, triggered by a government-imposed social-media ban and later followed by growing anger over corruption and nepotism. What sparked Nepal’s Gen Z protests and the rise of the ‘Nepo kid’ campaign?

The ban came just as a viral online movement targeting political elites and their children – dubbed “nepo kids” was gaining traction. Borrowing from the Hollywood term “nepo baby,” Nepali users began exposing the lavish lifestyles of politicians’ children, accusing them of misusing public funds.

Posts on TikTok and Reddit, some viewed over a million times, highlighted foreign trips, luxury purchases, and perceived entitlement, sparking outrage among young citizens. While the social-media shutdown served as the immediate catalyst, protesters say the deeper issue is systemic corruption, inequality, and discrimination.

The Kathmandu government argued it is not banning social media but trying to bring them in concurrence with the Nepali laws. The social media users in the Himalayan country challenged the constitution and traditional laws of the state.

The uprising broke out after the government last week blocked access to 26 platforms – including Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Alphabet’s YouTube, China’s Tencent, Snapchat, Pinterest, and X (formerly Twitter) following a directive requiring all social-media companies to register with the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

Thousands of young Nepali people, many in their 20s or even younger, got together to protest in the capital Kathmandu and other cities in the Himalayan country. Many of the protesters were students and joined the demonstrations in their school or college uniforms. The organizers called the protests “demonstrations by Gen Z”.

The government quickly lifted the ban and launched an investigation, but it is too little and too late. The agitating youths demanded the removal of political parties from power and the establishment of a civilian government. The youth representatives have urged during the dialogue with the state party and the Chief of Nepal Army Staff, Ashokraj Sigdel.

The army has urged the protesting youths to remain calm and hold peace talks, but said the youths that after Parliament has been dissolved. The army has been deployed since 10 September morning. The curfews remain in place as discontent continues to simmer.

The army has warned of strict action against vandalism, arson, looting, and violent activities in the name of agitation as punishable crimes. As a result, life in the valley is gradually returning to normal, and the situation has significantly calmed down.

Many of the youth protesters have voiced support for Kathmandu Mayor Balen Shah, a former popular rapper and engineer by profession, to lead the dialogue for peace and security, which covers issues such as forming a civilian government, dissolving parliament, and holding fresh elections.

Meanwhile, the chaotic city of Kathmandu has begun to be cleaned up after the violent protests. Locals and agitating youths are taking to the streets to clean up the mess after the street riots. Last week, Nepal’s government blocked access to several social media platforms after the companies missed the deadline to register under new regulations, aimed at cracking down on misuse.

A government notice directed the regulator, Nepal Telecommunications Authority, to deactivate unregistered social media. The services will be restored once the platforms comply with its order, the government said. Local media reported that the banned platforms include Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, Alphabet’s YouTube, China’s Tencent and Snapchat, Pinterest, and X. Blocking the platforms had hit content creators, influencers, and cut small businesses from reaching customers.

The government says it took the action after repeated warnings to the platforms to open offices in Nepal, a Cabinet decision last month setting a deadline, as well as a 17 August Supreme Court ruling that undermines Nepal’s open society, and also requiring them to register and pay the requisite taxes.

However, the Bill cited in the ban, ‘The Operation, Use, and Regulation of Social Media in Nepal’ has not yet been passed by Parliament. Some social media platforms, which were already paying taxes in Nepal even though they are not officially registered, have also been blocked.

The Regional Director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Beh Lih Yi said ‘Nepal’s sweeping ban on social media sets a dangerous precedent for press freedom. Blocking online news platforms vital to journalists will undermine reporting and the public’s right to information.’

The rights activists have said that while there is a need for the government to regulate extreme content and hate speech, officials appear to be more intent on clamping down on free speech and trying to force platforms to share the revenue.

Nepal’s youngsters say the protest is an expression of their widespread frustration over the social media ban. The widespread arson was sparked by the killing of at least 19 young protesters as they tried to storm the century-old old magnificent parliament building.

A peaceful rally by youth against corruption and nepotism by Nepal’s Gen Z (Generation Z) movement in Kathmandu escalated after the killings. With the prime minister and other ministers having fled the capital, the government not visible and the security forces in retreat, protesters have had the run of the three cities of Kathmandu Valley – Bhaktapur, Lalitpur, and Kathmandu.

As protests spread, police withdrew from guarding official buildings, and thousands of protesters entered the federal government secretariat at Singha Darbar, ransacking and setting fire to buildings and the Parliament building, homes of ministers, hotels and other properties.

Kathmandu Valley was shrouded in smoke under heavy monsoon clouds with a pungent smell in the capital. Many people in Nepal think corruption is rampant, and the government of Prime Minister Sharma Oli has been criticized by opponents for failing to deliver on its promises to tackle graft or make progress in addressing longstanding economic issues.

All members of the opposition RPP (Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) is a constitutional monarchist and Hindu nationalist political party in Nepal, and the RSP (Rastriya Swatantra Party, a National Independence Party) have resigned from parliament. The headquarters of all three main political parties were also set on fire.

Some of the protesters also want an end to federalism, which was also the demand of opposition parties like the RSP and the pro-monarchist RPP. Although the protests were sparked by Gen Z protesters, disparate groups, including monarchists, anti-federalists, disgruntled Maoists, dissidents from the mainstream parties, and others, have joined the protests.

One thing that united them is extreme frustration with the mainstream parties and their leaders, past and present, who have taken turns running and ruining the country. Nepal has struggled with political instability for decades and has seen 14 governments in 17 years.

Nepal’s people’s revolution in 1950–1951, called the Anti-Rana Movement, reduced the king to a figurehead. With support from India and Nepali Congress activists, the revolution ended the Rana autocracy.

The 1990 People’s Movement, a mass uprising, forced King Birendra to end the absolute monarchy. Nepal became a constitutional monarchy with multi-party democracy. The 2006 People’s Movement, after King Gyanendra seized direct power in 2005, ignited mass protests. In April 2006, the king was forced to restore parliament and hand power to the people.

This paved the way for the monarchy’s abolition in 2008, when Nepal became a federal democratic republic. Thus, the final revolution against the king was in 2006, and the monarchy was officially abolished in 2008. Once again, the revolt against corruption, nepotism, and inequality has gripped Nepal.

Nepal is not alone in regulating social media. Most of the dictatorial, autocratic, and totalitarian regimes, including China, ban most Western platforms, and Russia and Turkey regulate them and require platforms to locate their data servers in the country. The regimes in Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Afghanistan have shut down social media apps and blocked current affairs news. Gulf countries allow social media but keep tight control on dissent.

Nepal’s uprising is expected to bring freedom, but history warns. After the revolution and street protests, the countries have fallen back to the same old tradition of politics and governance. Meanwhile, neighboring India and China, the regional powers, are monitoring the unrest that toppled the Sharma Oli government due to potential implications for regional stability.

The GenZ movement in Nepal is entering a critical juncture in its transition to democracy. The task of restoring law and order, addressing youth-led reform demands, and navigating political transition, all under close regional scrutiny.

Himalayan GenZ protests toppled a failed political order but left deep scars of destruction, loss, and chaos. The real test now lies in whether the youth can transform their zeal for protest into the discipline of governance, wrote Nepal’s popular English daily The Republica.

First published in Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, 12 September 2025

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist based in Bangladesh and a media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders. He is the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and the Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleem.samad.1971@gmail.com>; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Why is Bangladesh-India Relations Cliff-Hanging?

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 06:16:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

Last week, Bangladesh stated that there are no barriers from Dhaka’s end to improve relations with New Delhi, but progress requires the cooperation of both sides, remarked Bangladesh’s Foreign Affairs Adviser Touhid Hossain.

Why has Bangladesh publicly declared a willingness to improve bilateral relations, and what does this reveal about the nature of the current impasse? Delhi and Dhaka often boast of a century-old heritage, tradition, and cultural relations. Suddenly, both countries have ceased flowery diplomatic jargon. A stark indicator that the relationship is sailing through a rough sea.

South Asia researcher Sohini Bose with an Indian based Observatory Research Foundation (ORF) said, Bangladesh resets its foreign policy post-Hasina, India faces a rising challenge – a friend turning uncertain and Pakistan gaining ground. She deliberately did not mention developing relations with China, the United States, and the European Union. It is understood why she is playing with the Pakistan card.

The bilateral relations only a year ago were passing through a ‘Golden Era’. The so-called relationship was limited to two persons (Sheikh Hasina and Narendra Modi) and the Awami League and Bharatiya Janata Party.

India has developed love and hate relations with its neighbors. Bilateral and regional relations are sailing smoothly with Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan, of course, with Bangladesh and Pakistan, which are often looked at with suspicion and distrust.

The Indian pundit wrote that Bangladesh and India are connected in multiple ways, extending beyond just the bilateral relationship between their governments. They share an enduring bond through their common history, culture, land, transboundary rivers, and adjacent maritime zones. Overjealous Indian leaders contemplate that Dhaka is getting closer to Islamabad and sticking close to New Delhi. Which is a half-truth!

The giant neighbor has indeed helped Bangladesh gain independence in 1971 from Pakistan. Time and again, the jealous leaders were intermittently reminded of India’s contribution to the independence struggle. India has provided shelter to ousted Sheikh Hasina, who is living in exile somewhere in Delhi. Like King Kong, Indian leaders should beat their chest and proudly claim hosting the most-wanted person of interest – Sheikh Hasina! Unfortunately, they are not doing it.

Foreign Adviser Touhid Hossain lamented that there was no update from India on the request for former Sheikh Hasina’s extradition to face the music of justice for crimes against humanity. “We [Bangladesh] wrote once, and updates will be shared if another request is sent,” Hossain said his government would continue to pursue Hasina’s extradition.

After Hasina fled her country in August 2024 after the collapse of her tyrannical regime following a mass uprising dubbed as Monsoon Revolution, Dhaka sent a diplomatic note to Delhi last December, formally requesting her extradition.

Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus, chief of the Interim Government, recently told an international media outlet that he may authorize the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for the trial of Sheikh Hasina and top officials of her government for committing crimes against humanity during her tenure (2009-2024) – especially the July-August revolution.

The trial in the ICJ would be based on a fact-finding investigation conducted by the Geneva-based United Nations human rights agency (OHCHR). The report has evidence of Hasina ordering his security forces to use excessive force and shoot and kill the street protesters. The fact-finding report claims nearly 1,400 people, mostly students, youths, vendors, day-laborers, public transport drivers, restaurant staff, and garment workers, during 36 days of the Monsoon Revolution.

Delhi remains conspicuously tight-lipped and gives no sign from the South Block in New Delhi of their mind. The Indian government made several remarks about the persecution of the Hindu population and urged protection and safety guarantees for the community. India also urged Bangladesh that the Interim Government should hold an exclusive and credible election in the upcoming national elections in February 2026.

The remark was made after the oldest party, Awami League, which inspired the independence of the country, the political activities were restricted, and its student wing, Chattra League, was banned for committing violence against the protesters during last year’s July-August street protest.

India has seen Bangladesh through the prism of Hasina. That was the reason Delhi is paying heavily, said Professor Sriradha Dutta of OP Jindal Global University in India. Satisfied with what India had received from Bangladesh. Delhi deliberately ignored the simmering discontent of the opposition, dissidents, critics, and rights groups, reflected in the media.

India turned a blind eye when Hasina ensured that no opposition contested elections and held sham elections in 2014, 2018, and 2024, according to independent election monitoring groups, reported in mainstream media. Obviously, India was always the first country to felicitate Hasina for being reelected in landslide victories, with full knowledge that the elections were fraudulent and were not free, fair, and inclusive.

When Hasina was elected for her fifth term through vote fraud, Modi did not hesitate to congratulate and shower blessings on her in January 2024. Several political scientists and political historians predicted that she would not be able to survive for another six months after the 2024 election. South Block was not reading the pulse of the people, who were bearing the brunt of the repressive regime.

Independent media, civil society, and rights groups had been beeping alarms over Hasina’s autocratic regime, which was monitored in Delhi – but largely disregarded. Sohani wrote in ORF that the Indian government gave lots of priority to the bonds of partnership with the former Awami League administration in Bangladesh, led by Sheikh Hasina.

Not only was this exhibited by their expanding portfolio of areas of cooperation, ranging from connectivity, security, to collaboration in public health, but also by their ability to continue nurturing bilateral ties in several domains, despite lingering contentious issues such as the Teesta Water sharing dispute, border killings of Bangladesh nationals, lopsided trade deficit, human trafficking, stop Hasina addressing on social media, which Dhaka interprets as jeopardizing the relations further.

A decade of this partnership had thus ushered in near-permanent amicability in the India-Bangladesh relationship, providing a strong foundation for New Delhi’s aspirations to ‘Act East’ by putting its ‘Neighborhood First’, stated Sohani. The overthrow of Hasina from power abruptly halted this partnership. Bangladesh’s new government’s foreign policy reflects uncertainty about India amidst struggles to secure its own legitimacy.

Both neighbors are suspicious, lack trust, and shed doubts on each other’s relationship. This has been further heightened by Indian Godi media disseminating anti-Bangladesh rhetoric. “Godi media” coined by Indian journalist Ravish Kumar, which describes the Indian media that are overtly biased and loyal to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The term comes from the Hindi word “godi,” meaning “lap,” and refers to the media’s sycophantic, “lapdog” behavior towards the government.

Apparently, India is the second-largest trading partner, one of the top 15 sources of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and a foremost development partner with a development portfolio of US$8 billion, says ORF. As India’s Minister for External Affairs, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, in a recent statement, “Bangladesh must decide what kind of ties it wants with India.”

First published in Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, 9 September 2025

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist based in Bangladesh and a media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders. He is the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and the Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleem.samad.1971@gmail.com>; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Indian Police Crackdown on Muslim Bangla-Speaking Migrants

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 12:11:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

Two impoverished families have been working as scrap pickers for over two decades in the suburb of New Delhi. Both families were detained, transported in harsh conditions, and pushed into Bangladesh in the dark hours. Police in Delhi claimed that they are Bangladeshi citizens and that their ancestors were from a village in the southern district of the country.

The ordeal of the two families surfaced after their families filed cases with the Delhi High Court and Kolkata High Court. The families complained that the Indian authorities do not know of their whereabouts in Bangladesh, and the families do not have any contact with them.

The petition said that last month, Sweety Bibi and her two sons, Korban Sheikh (16 years old) and Imam Sheikh (6 years old) and another family, Sonali Khatun, her husband, Danesh Sheikh and their son Sabbir Sheikh, were abducted, and police said they were deported to Bangladesh as they were Bangladesh citizens.

Later, the West Bengal police collected several documents to prove that the family’s ancestors’ history is from the state of West Bengal and that they are genuine Indian citizens.

A video shot inside Bangladesh, which went viral on social media, showed two women, one teenager and one male, who was seen in the footage. It could not be ascertained where in Bangladesh it was recorded. The woman, Sweety Bibi, described in the video how they were forcibly abducted by police and later pushed into a foreign country and were alleged to be émigrés from Bangladesh.

In the recent spate of crackdown against illegal immigrants, India, when persons speak Bangla (the official language of Bangladesh and also spoken in neighboring states of West Bengal and Tripura) and are Muslim, that person, in the eyes of the police, is a potential demographic threat to the country’s security. The authorities jump to the conclusion that the suspects are “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh.

All over India, such suspects in thousands were hauled and taken to different concentration camps. The detained persons are enduring untold miseries, agony and sufferings. They are tortured by law enforcement agencies. The encampments have poor sanitation, no running water and inadequate food.

Indian press, which habitually barks anti-Bangladesh rhetoric, hardly reported the incidents of the harassment and illegal confinement of Indian citizens, bracketed as “unauthorized immigrants” from Bangladesh. Most of them live in shanty slums and work as menial workers and have migrated from different places for a better future and financial solvency.

According to international media and rights organizations, they have been critical of such government-induced crackdown against the working class in India. Most do not have proper documents to prove their identity. Even though they had valid citizenship documents, they had those confiscated and were told that the documents were counterfeit.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York-based organization, said India forcibly expelled more than 1,500 Muslim men, women, and children to Bangladesh between 7 May and 15 June, quoting Bangladeshi authorities. The police, while detaining the suspects, speak of harrowing tales of being robbed of their cash and valuables, the poor people possessed. For the detained Muslims, the sky seems to have fallen over their head.

India is one of the few South Asia countries where secularism, equality and rights of citizens are guaranteed in the state constitution, but the government and law enforcement authorities are flouting the law with impunity during the arbitrary crackdown on illegal immigrants.

The suspects are forcibly boarded on a train or trucks and brought near the India-Bangladesh border. They are pushed through porous borders into Bangladesh. Such “push-in” as it is popularly said on both sides of the border has become a regular phenomenon of the Indian Border Security Forces (BSF).

Bangladesh is encircled by India on three sides by land, and has seen relations with New Delhi turn icy since a mass uprising in August last year toppled the autocratic government of Sheikh Hasina, an ally of India, who is living in exile somewhere in New Delhi.

Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry has repeatedly communicated with the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to abide by international laws for deporting illegal immigrants. The standard procedure would be to produce a list of names, photos, addresses in Bangladesh, and documents to prove they are from Bangladesh.

Bangladesh authorities would verify their citizenship and decide who could be sent back. Meanwhile, some Arab countries, Malaysia, South Korea, the United States and other countries have provided documents of those deported for illegally staying in their country and are undocumented. They are listed when their work permit and visas expired long ago, or they were involved in heinous crimes and given long-term prison sentences. The criminals are sent back to serve the rest of their imprisonment tenure in their home country.

Political historian and researcher Mohiuddin Ahmad aptly said thousands of senior and junior leaders of Awami League, which ruled Bangladesh for more than 15 years, have fled to India, but they are not arrested for illegally crossing the border to India without valid travel documents.

The Indian government has kept its eyes closed to exiled politicians. The political leaders are mostly living in Kolkata and New Delhi at the behest of the Indian authorities. The majority of the Awami League leaders are Muslims and speak Bangla, but they are exempted from the crackdown, Ahmad remarked.

South Block in New Delhi remains silent over the pressing issue. Every week, the Indian border police are pushing so-called unauthorized immigrants into Bangladesh. The Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) is not at all informed of the push-in. The operation is secretly conducted and in the cover of darkness by the BSF.

Despite the arbitrary deportation of “illegal immigrants” including Indian citizens, embargo on exports to India, moratorium on visas for Bangladesh nationals, and other pressing issues, Foreign Affairs Adviser Touhid Hossain last week reiterated that the interim government always wanted a good working relationship with India based on reciprocity and mutual respect. Our (Bangladesh) position remains unchanged,” Hossain said, noting that no one from the interim government ever said they do not want good relations with India.

Meanwhile, HRW in a strongly worded statement recently said India has pushed hundreds of ethnic Bangla-speaking Muslims into Bangladesh without due process, accusing the government of flouting rules and fuelling bias on religious lines.

The Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has long taken a hard-line stance on immigration, particularly those from neighboring Muslim-majority Bangladesh, with top authorities referring to them as “termites” and “infiltrators”.

The crackdown has sparked fear among India’s estimated 200 million Muslims, especially among those speaking Bangla, the HRW statement said. “India’s ruling BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is fuelling discrimination by arbitrarily expelling Bangla-speaking Muslims from the country, including Indian citizens,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia Director of HRW.

“The Indian government is putting thousands of vulnerable people at risk in apparent pursuit of unauthorized immigrants, but their actions reflect broader discriminatory policies against Muslims.” India has also been accused of forcibly deporting Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, with navy ships dropping them off the coast of the war-torn nation.

First published in Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, 29 July 2025

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders. Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@gmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Bangladesh’s “Mango Diplomacy” to Sweeten Relations With India

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 16:24:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladeshi authorities are aware that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a strict vegan, but he has a particular fondness for mangoes. Modi has a craving for mangoes of Bengal (now a territory of Bangladesh). He cuts mangoes himself when he consumes them as dessert. He once told an actor when the celebrity asked how he ate mangoes.

The Chief Adviser of the Interim Government, Prof. Muhammad Yunus, sent 1,000 kilograms (approximately one ton) of the most delicious mango variety, “Haribhanga,” to New Delhi last week.

The mangoes are expected to be shared with dignitaries from the Indian Prime Minister’s Office, diplomats, and other officials within the next couple of days as part of a friendly exchange between the two neighboring countries, wrote a private news service, United News of Bangladesh (UNB).

Yunus’ government has initiated ‘mango diplomacy’ with India, weeks after the Foreign Ministry said New Delhi was willing to discuss all issues with Dhaka in a “conducive” environment. Yunus has also sent 300 kg of mangoes each to the neighboring states of West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Tripura’s Chief Minister Manik Saha.

Bangladesh has a long-standing tradition of sending seasonal gifts, particularly mangoes, to the Indian PM and state leaders to reinforce cultural ties and regional diplomacy. This form of extending a gesture, often referred to as “mango diplomacy,” was also practiced under the previous administration of Sheikh Hasina, and it continues to serve as a symbol of goodwill and exchange, reports The Times of India.

Will the mango diplomacy likely thaw the strained relations after Delhi’s all-weather friend, Sheikh Hasina, was toppled and she sought refuge in a secure location, possibly in Delhi? The question among diplomatic circles is whether the mango diplomacy will reinforce cultural ties and regional diplomacy. Most of the observers are sceptical about the outcome of the bilateral talks.

Modi and Yunus last met in April on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC Summit in Bangkok, their first face-to-face meeting since the collapse of Bangladesh’s former autocratic regime. Prime Minister Modi reiterated India’s support for a democratic, stable, peaceful, progressive, and inclusive Bangladesh. He also underlined that India believed in a people-centric approach to the relationship, and highlighted the cooperation between the two countries over a long period of time that has delivered tangible benefits to people in both countries.

The practice of sending mangoes has existed since previous regimes. But the relations between Dhaka and New Delhi have been sour after former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted from power last year following massive student-led demonstrations. The Hasina government has close ties with New Delhi.

However, Bangladesh’s new caretaker government chose to court China and Pakistan, fanning regional instability. Beijing has been trying for years to spread its tentacles in the Indian subcontinent. Through arms deals and loans, China is rooting its influence in Pakistan and Bangladesh, aiming to align its interests with Beijing. Amid diplomatic unrest, Bangladesh’s “Mango Diplomacy”, a form of outreach, is seen as Dhaka’s move to sweeten ties with India.

Hours after sheltering Hasina, India has imposed a blanket moratorium on visa services to Bangladeshi nationals. The visa centers are manned by skeleton staff for emergency visa formalities, like healthcare, students studying in India, and those seeking visas for a third country having their visa office in Delhi.

The moratorium has brought the direct train, buses, and border crossing for Bangladesh to several Indian destinations to a standstill. Most flights between cities of Bangladesh and India have been significantly reduced due to the lack of visas. Earlier, thousands of Bangladesh nationals visited India every day for healthcare. Now, everything has almost stopped for the patients for medical checkups and surgery. The hotel occupancy in Kolkata, Bangalore, and Chennai has reached its lowest ebb. Restaurants no longer prepare Halal food in the absence of Bangladeshi customers.

Another category of tourists was on a shopping spree and buying an expensive dress for marriage celebrations. Whereas, Bangladesh missions in Indian capital and cities have continued to issue visas, and Indian journalists receive visas on a fast track. Well, the Agartala (Tripura State) and Kolkata (West Bengal) Bangladesh missions were attacked and vandalised, alleging that Bangladesh is not doing enough to protect the Hindus. The visa section was temporarily closed in fear of further attacks.

Despite repeated assurances from Bangladesh authorities that the perpetrators involved in the attacks on Hindus were arrested and hundreds of others are on the wanted list, the Indian media did not listen to the commitment against sectarian violence. The violence has drastically reduced. However, after a brief lull, the visa section resumed in Kolkata and Agartala’s Bangladesh missions.

In 2023, India hosted approximately 2.12 million tourists from Bangladesh, making them the largest group of foreign tourists visiting India. While Kolkata is a popular destination, other cities like Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur are also frequently visited by Bangladeshi travelers. Additionally, pilgrimage sites like Ajmer Sharif and locations in the Indian northeast, Kashmir, and Ladakh were popular destinations, according to a tourist site.

Ambassador Humayun Kabir explains that the mango diplomacy will not make much headway for a reconciliation very soon. Delhi believes that the conspiracy to overthrow Hasina was masterminded with the help of the United States and China to keep India under pressure in the new geopolitical phenomenon.

Indian conspiracy theory says the USA also brought Nobel laureate Prof Yunus to power after gathering moss under the rolling stone. The conspiratorial power lobbies brought India’s arch rivals, China and Pakistan, closer to Bangladesh. In South Asia, Dhaka angered Delhi when Yunus promised to hold the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit, even if India boycotts the event.

India officially boycotted the SAARC Summit scheduled to be held in Islamabad in November 2016. On Delhi’s instigation, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Afghanistan declined to participate, citing concerns about regional security and Pakistan’s alleged interference in their internal affairs with India. Since then, SAARC has remained dormant.

Ambassador Kabir understands that Delhi is likely to open a new chapter with Dhaka and develop the bilateral relations between the two neighboring countries, not to a new height. Delhi is waiting for the Yunus government to come to an end. A new political government will take responsibility after the much-hyped election scheduled in February next year. Let’s wait and see how Delhi reacts to the new political government, which overtly wants to develop friendship with China and wants Beijing to support their relationship.

First published in Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, 21 July 2025

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@gmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Is ULFA Separatist Still a Threat to Northeast India’s Sovereignty?

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 13:02:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

The United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), once the fiercest militants, had caused havoc in Assam, in Northeast India bordering Bangladesh. In the 1980s and 1990s, India was torn apart by a separatist movement by radicalised militants of Nagaland, Manipur, and Tripura, all bordering Bangladesh. The civil war caused deaths and forced migration for tens of thousands. Many more lost their near and dear ones in the insurrections. Thousands were victims of arbitrary detention, torture and false terrorism cases by state security agencies, while thousands more languished in prisons for years.

India blamed Bangladesh for providing shelter to separatist leaders, training camps, weapons and logistics. Dhaka was often blamed, and India claimed to have provided evidence for inciting the rebellions in the Northeast. Bangladesh, since 1975, has had military governments which were apparently hostile to India. Delhi also accused Dhaka of aiding, abetting and cross-border terrorism to separatist groups in Northeast Indian pursuing different approaches to self-determination, greater political autonomy and independence of their landlocked territory.

The other militant groups are the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN); the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB); Manipuri separatist groups, including the factions of People’s Liberation Army of Manipur (PLAM) and Tripura separatist groups, the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF).

Last week, a faction of the ULFA-Independent’s hideout in the dense hill forest of the Myanmar-China border was pounded with drone and missile attacks. ULFA-I has accused the Indian army of killing its leaders in the Myanmar camp of launching drone and missile strikes on its camps in Myanmar’s Sagaing Region, claiming the attacks killed three senior leaders and injured dozens.

The group claimed that Lieutenant General Nayan Medhi (alias Nayan Asom), a key strategist, was killed in an initial drone strike. Subsequent missile attacks, allegedly during Nayan Asom’s funeral, reportedly killed Brigadier Ganesh Lahon (alias Ganesh Asom) and Colonel Pradip Gogoi (alias Pradip Asom), with 19 cadres injured and several civilians wounded.

The Indian Army, however, has denied any involvement, raising questions about the veracity of the claims and the dynamics of insurgent activity along the volatile India-Myanmar border, French news agency AFP and Indian TV Zee News reported. Instead, the Indian security establishment has claimed that several heavily armed battle-hardened ethnic rebels of Myanmar were behind the attack on the Paresh Baruah camps.

In a series of statements, ULFA-I alleged that over 150 drones, reportedly of Israeli and French origin, targeted its Eastern Command Headquarters (ECHQ) in at least three sites shortly after midnight on July 14, the separatist group claimed. Paresh Baruah, the supremo of ULFA-I, condemned the strikes and vowed retaliation, alleging that the Myanmar Army was aware of the operation in advance.

The Indian Army swiftly rejected ULFA-I’s claims. Lieutenant Colonel Mahendra Rawat, PRO of the Defence Guwahati, told the media, “There are no inputs with the Indian Army on such an operation.” ULFA-I, a hard-line faction, was formed in 2012 by Paresh Baruah, formerly the military commander of the unified ULFA in the 1990s. He was a football player and was very popular as the goalkeeper of the Assam team.

During the Bangladesh liberation war in 1971, he was a young volunteer in refugee camps in Assam. During his volunteer tenure, he befriended several political and student leaders in exile in India. He also developed rapport with the Mukti Bahini officers, who defected from the Pakistan Army. When ULFA was formed in April 1979, Paresh Baruah liaised between the rogue Bangladesh Army officers, who had mostly served with the Mukti Bahini. He was able to negotiate with top brass in the Bangladeshi military.

Bangladesh’s spy agency, DGFI (Director General of Forces Intelligence), was deployed to provide logistics to ULFA. It was claimed in some documents that the DGFI was able to convince the Pakistan spy agency ISI, and also able to contact the Chinese Communist Party to extend military help.

The separatists intermittently received cargoes of Chinese-made AK-47s from several clandestine arms factories in South Asian countries. They were given light weapons, wireless equipment, explosives, and counterattack arsenals. Which is good enough to keep the Indian Army, the ruthless paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and other security forces at bay.

It’s undeniable that ULFA leaders operated from covert headquarters in the Bangladesh capital, Dhaka and were protected by the state security agency in that period. This was disclosed by the ULFA chairman, Arabinda Rajkhowa, in his biography after he quit the armed struggle and made peace with Indian authorities. He is presently living in a safe house in India.

The pro-talks ULFA signed a peace accord with the government in December 2023, and disbanded the militant outfit in January 2024, ending its 44-year hit-and-run guerrilla warfare. His biography depicts his entire security detail, including the minute details of the place where his children were studying in Dhaka.

Several names of security officers of Bangladesh military intelligence, who are now mostly retired or have migrated to the West, are mentioned in his biography. His biography even details how he, along with his comrades, was extradited to India by Bangladesh authorities. Indian media, however, had published and claimed that they were captured from the Bangladesh-Indian border, since their camps were mostly on the Assam-Bangladesh border. A local reporter exploring the northeast border with Assam and Arunachal had found several shelters of ULFA militants inside Bangladesh territory.

Similar forced deportations were carried out with the leaders of NLTF, NSCN, NDFB, PLAM and ATTF as their camps were dismantled, and they were forced to leave the territory in the first few years after Hasina returned to power in 2009. However, in 1986, when Sheikh Hasina became the prime minister, she failed to deport the separatist leaders due to the intransigent attitude of some powerful military officers and bureaucrats.

During the government of Begum Khaleda Zia (2001-2006), her party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), a close associate, moved the Home Affairs Ministry and the court of law to provide political asylum to the separatist leaders instead of deporting them to India.

The splinter group ULFA (I) has rejected peace talks, demands Assam’s sovereignty and vows to continue the armed struggle, while the mainstream ULFA, led by Arabinda Rajkhowa, has signed a peace accord in December 2023 with Delhi. The militant outfit was disbanded in January 2024, ending its 44-year hit-and-run guerrilla tactics. Baruah-led militant outfit, which operates from Myanmar soil and refers to the Indian Army as “colonial occupational forces”. Insurgent outfits of the Northeast have had a presence in Myanmar since the late eighties, taking advantage of the porous border and the ongoing ethnic conflict there.

Indian security agencies have repeatedly expressed concern over the use of Myanmar territory by militants for hit-and-run attacks in the Northeast. There have been instances of reported Indian military action against militants across the border on several occasions.

The Myanmar authorities are mum about the recent reported strikes by India, which either depicts a tacit nod by Yangon or an indifference due to their multiple troubles at home.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, 16 July 2025

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders. Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Bangladesh on The Election Train!

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Sat, 14 Jun 2025 16:09:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

After 18 months, the nation will go for an election in February 2026. Since the Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus took charge of the Interim Government last August, he faced several hiccups in running the administration. One of the challenges he faced was when his government announced a road map for a free, fair, and credible election. In this election, people would be able to express their wish to elect a party that would form a legitimate political government.

The other challenge was stabilizing the situation of law and order. Most of the police forces have fled their ranks in fear of retaliation by protesters for killing thousands of students and protesters. The understaffed police forces are inadequate to restore law and order in the country.

However, law enforcement has been supplemented by the Bangladesh Army in every city and town. Initiate the trial of leaders of Awami League, including former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, for crimes against humanity for ordering to opening fire upon thousands of protesters.

During the bloody July-August anti-government street protests known as the Monsoon Revolution, Hasina was forced to quit and flee to India, where she is living in exile for the second time in her political career. Meanwhile, in a typical political development, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP’s) supremo Tarique Rahman, acting Chairman, held a parley with visiting Prof Yunus in London, where he was living in exile.

The hour-long parley thawed a couple of crucial political discontentment with the new government. Yunus repeatedly said the election should be held before June next year. But BNP, a rightist democratic party, demanded that the election be held at the end of December. Or else there will political and economic crisis, which may cause a law and order situation.

Yunus is determined that the election should be held after the crucial reforms are agreed upon with the political parties. However, BNP and its like-minded fringe politics did not give any specific reason for demanding the election to be held at the end of this year. Political circles said that the high school final exam, the month of fasting in Ramadan from mid-February, Eid ul Fitr in mid-March 2026, the advent of monsoon, etc., were not favorable for a general election.

Earlier on the eve of Eid ul-Adha, Yunus announced that the election would be held in April 2026. Well, the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami’s chief, Dr. Shafiqur Rahman, has said the chief advisor’s announcement has reassured the nation of the transition to democracy. The National Citizens’ Party (NCP) stated that steps should be taken to implement the July Charter (Monsoon Revolution), and the proposed reforms; they have no objection to elections being held within the announced timeframe.

BNP rejected the election announcement and declared street protests against the government to hold polls by the end of December. BNP supremo Rahman, after the parley in London, agreed that the deadline for the political parties to commit to the reforms in the judiciary, the election commission, the bureaucracy, police administration, the anti-corruption commission, and others.

Yunus wants the political parties to agree to the reform proposals to ensure transparency, accountability, and public social responsibility of elected leaders. The politicians to keep their party supporters loyal to them, and ensure that the henchmen enjoy impunity for the crimes, they need to influence the police, judiciary, and civil administration.

Therefore, it is understood that the politicians oppose reforms. They have been arguing that the Interim Government does not have the jurisdiction to conduct any reforms. Like the howls of jackals, the parties want the elected parliament should endorse the reforms and make them public laws for the benefit of the people.

Meanwhile, BNP’s high command has refused to ally with Jamaat-e-Islami or any Islamist party. BNP is confident that it will win the majority to form a government. BNP also has also problem with the newly formed King’s party – the National Citizens Party (NCP) by the student leaders who have spearheaded the Monsoon Revolution, which toppled the iron lady Hasina last August.

The NCP blames BNP’s inherent weakness for failing to topple the autocratic regime, which ruled Bangladesh for more than 15 years. Hasina intermittently hunted and haunted the opposition. Her government arrested tens of thousands of BNP leaders, activists and supporters and threw them in prisons on terrorism charges, damaging government properties, and attacking police.

BNP and other opposition leaders were immobilized. The opposition was neutralized after several brutal crackdowns by the law enforcement agencies and henchmen of the ruling Awami League. The opposition was unable to organize effective anti-government street protests to block the elections, which were boycotted.

The elections of 2014, 2018, and 2024 were held sans the opposition and the poll results were doctored, according to national and international election observers, which echoed the media coverage of the election ballot box stuffing, henchmen taking possession of polling stations, and widespread vote buying.

Hasina never bothered to hold free, fair, and inclusive elections. She deliberately ignored the media feedback, human rights organizations’ statements, and the poll observers’ report. She took the senior journalists into her confidence with lucrative benefits. She split the journalists’ union among pro-government loyalists and pushed others to join the opposition union.

Hundreds of journalists faced legal harassment, intimidation and were jailed under repressive cybercrime laws. The draconian cyber laws targeted opposition, critics, dissidents and especially the “delinquent” journalists who refused to be loyal to Hasina.

The media landscape has changed. Most media cannot publish/broadcast news, which hurts the feelings of the student leaders of NCP. Often, they barge into the newsroom when they are dissatisfied with certain news outlets critiquing their source of funding for holding massive rallies and a lavish lifestyle.

In most cases, they intimidate news organizations to delete the story or headlines that are deemed inappropriate and tarnish their image as revolutionaries. Scores of journalists were terminated or asked to resign in the face of the NCP’s threats. They forced the National Press Club in Dhaka to cancel more than a hundred veteran journalists and senior members of the club.

Dr Rakib Al Hasan, Executive Director of the Center for Partnership Initiative, a research office, said NCP failed to gather moss from rolling stones. The new party does not believe in pluralism and secularism. They have been engaged in witch-hunting against professionals, and bureaucrats, including journalists, professors of state universities, and teachers of several educational institutions.

The television and stage actors were banned from shows. Several of the plays were postponed until the drama producers got rid of the actors. The student leaders have lost credibility among the mainstream journalists, intellectuals, and the military hierarchy, which still remains steadfast behind Prof Yunus, remarked Hasan.

What is disliked by the sympathizers of student leaders for appeasing Jamaat-e-Islami and other radicalized Islamic groups, who are cut off from the masses, said the young researcher.

It will be difficult for NCP to muster the support of the millions who also joined the Monsoon Revolution to vote for them in the upcoming election, which is now scheduled to be held eight months from now, predicts the private research organization.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, on 14 June 2025

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

ASEAN’s Missed Opportunity for Beleaguered Myanmar

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 12:13:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) once again failed Myanmar at the summit in Kuala Lumpur from 26 to 27 May 2025 with a “Peace Formula”, when the country plunged into a bloody civil war with “revolutionary” armed ethnic groups.

ASEAN is an intergovernmental organization of ten Southeast Asian countries: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Host Malaysia, as the current chairman of ASEAN, delivered a meaningless statement on Myanmar and offered no new approaches to dealing with the crisis in the country, which has been beleaguered by a military dictatorship since 2021.

Instead of dusting off their hands, the summit offered a toothless Five-Point Consensus (5PC) as a road map for addressing Myanmar’s tribulations. The ethnic rebels are more concerned with holding their ancestral territories and establishing regional autonomy under a constitutional government. None of the rebels has a military plan to capture Myanmar’s capital.

To topple the military regime in Naypyidaw and form a national democratic government, the rebel groups have placed the responsibility upon the National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow government in exile under the political inspiration of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The ousted leader is presently serving jail terms on charges of sedition.

Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, is besieged by ethnic rebels who have taken two-thirds of the country from the military junta led by General Min Aung Hlaing, who has ruled Myanmar as the State Administration Council (SAC) Chairman since seizing power in the February 2021 coup d’état. In July 2024, he wore presidential robes in July 2024.

To the Myanmarese, the obsession with the failed peace plan is beyond frustrating. They simply can’t help wondering why ASEAN leaders remain so delusional when it comes to this “consensus”, which has delivered nothing for Myanmar.

Since ASEAN adopted the 5PC in 2021, the junta has never honoured it. First and foremost, the consensus calls for the immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar. This step has never been implemented by the junta. Instead of ending military rule, the regime has rained bombs on its citizens and blocked essential supplies, including healthcare facilities, not to mention the continued atrocities like arson and massacres.

Over the past four years, more than 6,000 civilians have been killed by the military, including children, prompting the UN early this year to say that the junta had ramped up its violence against civilians to a level that was unprecedented in the four years since the generals launched their coup.

Rather than taking the junta’s total disregard for its plan as a blatant insult, ASEAN’s leadership doggedly clings to the 5PC as its “main reference to address the political crisis in Myanmar,” writes Hpone Myat in anti-establishment news portal The Irrawaddy. The news organization Irrawaddy, named after a yawning river in Myanmar, operates in exile in a neighbouring country for the safety and security of its staff.

Myanmar has become the most dangerous place for journalists after the recent sentencing of Than Htike Myint to five years in jail under Myanmar’s Counter Terrorism Law on 3 April. The military was holding 55 journalists in detention in June 2024, according to a report by the International Centre for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL).

ASEAN’s continued faith in the 5PC in the face of the regime’s repeated intransigence is incomprehensible. In the light of this, the people of Myanmar are not sure whether to praise the bloc for its “consistency” or feel sorry for its naivety in dealing with the most ruthless regime on earth. Apart from the statement, remarks from the bloc’s current chair, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, were out of context and deliberately did not touch base, as the military junta is sinking into a quicksand.

In April, Anwar met with junta chief Hlaing in Bangkok and held virtual talks with Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) in exile. Malaysian Premier Anwar Ibrahim should not have appeased Min Aung Hlaing, believing in the illusions that the General would restore peace in the country, riddled with civil strife. After a call from the ASEAN meeting in April, Hlaing promised a ceasefire by the Myanmar armed forces, Tatmadaw, and the ethnic rebels. His junta even signed an MOU with some rebels, but that ceasefire was broken within days.

Hlaing’s air force continued to bomb civilian areas, causing immense suffering, pain, and agony for the villagers. At the summit, he (Anwar) described those talks as “significant”, saying both sides were open to engagement while highlighting Gen Hlaing’s supposed willingness to engage in peace efforts despite dubbing NUG as a “terrorist organization”.

In his opening remarks to the summit in Kuala Lumpur, Anwar said ASEAN had been able to “move the needle forward” in its efforts to achieve an eventual resolution to the Myanmar crisis, adding that the steps may be small and the bridge may be fragile, but “even a fragile bridge is better than a widening gulf.”

There is not even a “fragile bridge”, given his dishonesty and insincerity. His willingness to engage in peace talks is merely fictional and a hollow promise; Myanmar’s generals have historically never been known for sincerely engaging in peace efforts. They only engage or join dialogue as a pretext to ease external pressures. No such talks have ever borne fruit. Ask any ethnic armed resistance organization or opposition politician in Myanmar, and they will enlighten you as to how historically untrustworthy the previous generals and Min Aung Hlaing are, laments Hpone Myat.

ASEAN members have univocally urged the regime in Naypyidaw to extend a temporary ceasefire and engage in peace talks with its rivals at the summit, but did not spell out a timeline. Instead, the ASEAN urged that negotiations were needed and that Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan would visit Naypyidaw in June regarding the mitigation of the crisis.

Furthermore, the regional leaders’ statement on an extended and expanded ceasefire in Myanmar can only be greeted with dismay. The leaders further called for “the sustained extension and nationwide expansion of the ceasefire in Myanmar,” but the reality is the ceasefire has never existed on the ground, as the junta has consistently violated the truce from the very start, wrote The Irrawaddy.

Instead of being unrealistic about the reality of present-day Myanmar, ASEAN should have adopted a serious resolution against the regime. Such moves would have put pressure on the junta by making it harder for it to survive, but also would have helped move the currently stalled resolution mechanism for Myanmar’s crisis forward. To make that happen, the bloc must first drop its empty rhetoric and take meaningful steps, concludes Hpone Myat.

Last week, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) raised concern over the deteriorating human rights situation and economic collapse in Myanmar, with violent military operations killing more civilians last year than in any year since the 2021 coup. The military operations have sparked an unfolding humanitarian crisis.

“The country has endured an increasingly catastrophic human rights crisis marked by unabated violence and atrocities that have affected every single aspect of life,” said Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. Myanmar’s economy has lost USD 93.9 billion over the last four years, with inflation surging and the kyat (local currency) losing 40 per cent of its value.

Over half the population now lives below the poverty line, facing food insecurity and soaring prices, which has worsened since the March 28 earthquake, according to the U.N. Possibly, ASEAN has lost all moral position to pressurise the military junta, since Justice for Myanmar accused 54 companies in Southeast Asian countries ASEAN of supplying the regime with funds, jet fuel and technology.

“ASEAN’s failure to address corporate complicity has allowed the [regime] to intensify its brutal campaign of terror that has killed thousands of civilians and displaced millions with total impunity,” said Yadanar Maung, spokesperson of Justice for Myanmar, while calling on the leaders of ASEAN to end their support to the regime in Naypyidaw.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan on 03 June 2025

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

India’s deport “illegal” Muslims into Bangladesh

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Sat, 31 May 2025 13:50:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

India is increasing diplomatic pressure on Bangladesh after the Pakistan-India conflict following the Pahalgam massacre of Hindu tourists.

It could not be ascertained whether the Pahalgam issue of unprovoked deportation has any connection with India’s Muslims targeted for speaking Bangla.

Incidentally, the Bangla language is widely spoken by 268 million people in the neighboring Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, and parts of Assam. Bangla is the official state language of Bangladesh.

Indian government, showing no diplomatic niceties, has continued to push out so-called illegal Bangladeshi migrants living in India for decades. They were targeted for two crimes. They are Muslims and they speak Bangla.

Pushed by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) through several porous borders with barbed-wire fences without any intimation to Bangladesh authorities or the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) in the last couple of weeks.

Nearly 1,053 individuals have been forced into Bangladesh since 7 May, and those pushed in were allegedly tortured and physically abused in India, according to a statement from Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB).

During the journey, they faced physical abuse, religious tropes, and were denied food and water, which was learnt from the victims.

Bangladesh pointed its fingers towards the Indian BSF for border abuse. India did not clarify the unprovoked push-in, nor did Delhi bother to inform the Bangladesh Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Indian border guards had pushed out several Indian nationals who are Muslims in the bordering Indian states of West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura. Many of the victims pushed into Bangladesh were living in various places in India.

They have been targeted because they have Muslim names and speak Bangla, thus they are potential targets of being “illegal” migrants.

The Indian authorities did not hesitate to coerce Indian nationals to admit they were from Bangladesh. Also, admit that they have families and relatives in this country.

This cruel issue came to the limelight after a lawyer filed a petition in the Assam state capital, Guwahati’s High Court, that two brothers, Abu Bokkor Siddique and Akbar Ali, were forcibly pushed into Bangladesh by BSF along with 14 others.

The lawyer said they were detained on 25 May and refused to provide the location where the brothers were detained. He argued that they were born in Assam, and everybody in their locality knew them as school teachers.

He sought an order by the High Court to locate the whereabouts of the missing brothers.

An Indian human rights organization, Citizens for Justice and Peace, accused law enforcement agencies of randomly detaining people with Muslim names and who speak Bangla from places in Assam State.

The Assam High Court asked the State government to inform the court of the whereabouts of the two brothers.

It would be an embarrassment for BSF to rescue the brothers from Bangladesh when they will have to admit that they were mistakenly deported and want them to be returned to the Indian authorities.

However, BSF never admitted that they had unofficially deported hundreds of “Bangladesh nationals” detained from various States of India.

“BGB remains on high alert and has intensified surveillance and patrols in sensitive border areas. However, during recent engagements, the neighboring authorities denied any such push-ins—denials that contradict facts and constitute both a violation of human rights and glaring falsehoods,” the senior official of BGB said.

A Bangladeshi woman alleged that BSF tied empty plastic bottles to her and her three daughters to keep them afloat, then pushed them into the Feni river along the Tripura border in the dark of night, in a chilling account of abuse at the border, as reported in the Daily Star, an independent daily.

Selina Begum, 41, said she and her three daughters floated in the water all night before being rescued by locals in Khagrachhari on 22 May.

“My children had no idea what was happening. We floated all night. None of us knows how to swim,” she lamented.

The family members said they were working as laborers in Haryana when Indian authorities detained them.

After holding them overnight, the authorities drove them to the border, robbed them of their money and phones, and then pushed them into the river.

What happened to this family is not an isolated case. Several Bangladeshi nationals have alleged that Indian authorities tortured the deportees before pushing them across the border.

A 45-year-old woman said she had been living in India for 10 years. On 10 May, she and her husband were detained and taken to a Delhi police station along with 46 others.

“They kept us in custody for the next three days without food or water. Then they drove us to the border and pushed us across the fence around 3:00 am,” said the sobbing woman.

Maj Gen Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui, director general of BGB, told The Daily Star that despite repeated protests conveyed through flag meetings and diplomatic channels, incidents of push-ins by BSF and other Indian agencies have regrettably continued.

Siddiqui noted that many of those pushed back were Bangladeshi nationals who had lived in India for years. Some of their children were born in India and held Indian documents, which were forcibly taken from them, he said.

“We have consistently stressed that such unilateral actions violate established repatriation procedures and bilateral norms. BGB continues to urge transparent, verifiable processes to address these cases in line with international standards,” he added.

Amid such illegal deportations, the BGB has ramped up patrols and heightened vigilance along the borders.

Amid troubled news on 7 May, five United Nations Refugee Agency – UNHCR (India) registered Rohingya Muslim refugees (who fled genocide in Myanmar) were also pushed in through the border after being forcibly relocated.

The five Rohingyas registered with UNHCR in India were detained by a BGB on 7 May near the border in northern Bangladesh. The border guards recovered from them UNHCR registration cards issued by the refugee agency’s New Delhi office.

The members of a Rohingya family said they fled Myanmar two years ago and had been living in a camp in Assam. Rohingya are Muslims, but they do not speak Bangla.

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry has called on India to immediately stop the recent influx of people across the border, warning that such actions pose risks to security and undermine mutual understanding.

In a letter sent on 8 May, the Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs raised concern over people being pushed into the country and urged New Delhi to adhere to established repatriation mechanisms, citing people with knowledge of proceedings.

The foreign ministry’s letter cautioned that such actions could jeopardize security and incite negative public sentiment.

The deportation violates existing bilateral frameworks, including the 1975 India-Bangladesh joint guidelines for border authorities, the 2011 Coordinated Border Management Plan (CBMP), and decisions made during director general-level talks between the BGB and BSF, according to a foreign ministry official.

The letter reiterated that Bangladesh would only accept individuals confirmed as Bangladeshi citizens and repatriated through official channels. Any deviation from this would harm mutual understanding between the two countries.

It also argued that any Rohingya individuals found within Indian territory should be returned to Myanmar, their country of origin, not to Bangladesh.

“For the sake of peace and stability along the Bangladesh–India border, such push-ins are unacceptable and should be avoided,” the letter said.

Dhaka further called for enhanced coordination between the Bangladesh and Indian border forces to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.

India has not responded to the letter of concern to Bangladesh about the forcible deportation of Bangla-speaking Muslims.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan on 31 May 2025

Prof Yunus did not abandon the ship in turbulent sea

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Thu, 29 May 2025 16:56:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

The Godi media (“embedded journalism” favoring the government) in India did not hesitate to claim that there was a power struggle after a faceoff with the COAS (Chief of Army Staff) over holding a general election by the end of this year.

Responsible Indian TV news channels based in New Delhi broke the news that Prof Muhammad Yunus had fired three chiefs—the army, navy, and air force. The power struggle backfired, and the military chief asked Yunus to step down. He urgently sought political support from the student leaders, who brought the Nobel peace laureate to power in early August last year.

Social media was abuzz with speculation that Prof Yunus had hinted at resigning when political parties negated the reforms initiated by his government and street protests on irrational demands, which clogged the capital’s main arteries, causing immense suffering to the commuters and access to healthcare.

His desire to resign was made public after BBC Bangla news portal quoted Nahid Islam, Convener of the fiery student-led National Citizens Party (NCP), as saying that the frontline student leaders were able to convince Yunus not to step down when the nation was in transition to democracy.

The current situation started to develop as political chaos and has been escalating, driven by protests, harsh rhetoric at rallies, and social media narratives.

A highly placed source said Prof Yunus remains firm on his position that he would step down if the current tension does not ease.

The chief adviser, Yunus, insists on having full authority to make decisions – authority he says was assured when he took charge, according to a highly placed source.

He has also questioned the emergence of obstacles, pointing out that his government had initially received a clear mandate to pursue reforms, try Awami League leaders, and hold the general election.

He discussed matters related to frequent road blockades over myriad demands, reforms, and other issues.

Meanwhile, Army Chief (COAS), General Waker-Uz-Zaman, said the election should take place by December this year. According to a source present at the officers’ address, “Bangladesh needs political stability. This is only possible through an elected government, and not by unelected decision-makers. ”

COAS wants its 27,000 troops deployed in 57 districts to return to the barracks after the parliamentary elections. The troops were visible in cities and towns to quell public lawlessness in the absence of police enforcement, since Yunus has been made Chief Adviser.

The Interim Government of Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus took the reins of the country of 172 million after Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic regime collapsed after the bloody street protests in July-August last year. She fled to Delhi and has been living in exile in India.

Hasina, an iron lady, ruled the country for 15 years with repressive laws, she introduced. Not to speak of opposition, critics, and dissidents, even the journalists and independent media were not spared. They were punished, harassed, intimidated, and imprisoned with repressive cybersecurity laws.

In a series of crackdowns, she kept tens of thousands of opposition members in prisons for months and years, accusing them of terrorism to ensure that they did not interfere with the governing of her regime.

Yunus’s resignation will plunge the nation into a political abyss and turmoil. It will be difficult to bring the country back on track. There is no alternative to Prof Yunus, who is a democrat, moderate, liberal, and secular, said Dr Rakib Al Hasan, head of a think-tank.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has been demanding that the Interim Government announce an election road map. The party made lots of noise in street rallies that the election should be held by next December.

Meanwhile, Adviser Syeda Rizwana Hasan said the present government is firm on carrying out three responsibilities. The election is the only agenda. She reiterated her government’s desire that the next general election will be held between this December and next June in 2026.

Second is reforms in the judiciary, the election commission, the civil administration, the police, the education sector, women’s equity issues, and to promote anti-corruption practices.

The third was the trial of those Awami League leaders (including former ministers, members of parliament, and senior politicians for crimes against humanity and corruption), police, and bureaucrats who had been accomplices to the autocratic regime.

When journalists asked Rizwana whether they were under any pressure, she said, “For us, the only pressure is whether we can perform [these duties].

Political observers say that the gap between Yunus and the mainstream political parties on the agreement of the reforms has widened. The divide is growing between the regime and the BNP, the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, and the student-led NCP.

However, the parties seem cautious in making official statements. Although individual politicians have made various statements, the parties have not yet made any statement.

Political analysts believe that Professor Yunus has two openings. He can either quit or decide to hold elections that would win the confidence of the parties and stakeholders. There are also various kinds of discussions with different parties, including the Jamaat and the NCP. Jamaat’s Ameer Shafiqur Rahman on social media suggested calling an all-party meeting to resolve the stalemate.

The Nobel laureate envisioned that reforms should be the first priority of his government, before holding the elections. The impediment has been the politicians. The political leaders argue that reforms should be formulated in the parliament, not the unelected government.

It’s true that the Interim Government does not have the legitimacy to adopt the reforms and cannot yoke the political parties to agree to it.

Sources said that Yunus is frustrated with the traditional political parties that have been responsible for failing the country for decades. None of the political parties, despite repeated political commitment in more than three decades, has succeeded in initiating any reforms in the crucial sectors.

The politicians, for their interest, hate to reform the judiciary, civil administration, police administration, anti-corruption, and establish an independent election commission.

These reforms would take a heavy toll on their political career. Earlier, the politicians had politicized the judiciary, police, and civil administration in their favor, especially in their constituencies.

Writer and political analyst Mohiuddin Ahmad told BBC Bangla news portal, “BNP, Jamaat, and NCP, these three parties now have an overarching influence on the Interim Government. Tensions have increased between the three parties. As a result, there is a division in politics.”

At the same time, Mohiuddin Ahmad said that the chief advisor lacks the skills to handle the political situation. Overall, the government is not able to function and implement decisions. This stalemate has deepened the crisis, and the government is facing challenges. Ahmed said that if the government now heads towards elections, the parties, including the BNP, will increase cooperation with the government. He believes that it is a way out of the crisis.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, on 29 May 2025

Nepal: ‘Eyes of Buddha’ watch over India’s evil

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Sat, 24 May 2025 17:00:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

The tourist season for Indians begins in the month of June. To beat the summer heat, they visit Nepal, despite the monsoon season, they prefer religious tourism. For tens of thousands of Indians pouring into Nepal for pilgrimage pleasure and extreme sports, the nights are very cool, which they enjoy the most.

Day after day, the Indians go from one mountain to another mountain, from one Hindu temple to another Buddhist pagoda, offering flowers and incense for spiritual gain and well-being of their families and businesses.

While in the capital Kathmandu, picturesque Pokhara, Nagarkot and elsewhere, most of the hotels, restaurants, rental vehicles, taxis and tour operators often refuse to accept Indian currency Rupees (IRs).

They explain that Indian Rupees is no more an official exchangeable currency, which is not well understood. Well, tourist can pay bills to hotels, taxis, and restaurant in US Dollars, Euro, Japanese Yen, British Pound and Chinese Yuan. However, the money changer or money exchange kiosks accept IRs at the rate of 1.5 per cent exchange rate in Nepali Rupees (NRs).

India and Nepal has century old love and hate relationship. Nepal a landlocked country in the Himalayan range is interdependent on India for imports.

Recently, despite the scornful eye of India, Nepal dared to open up and neighboring China made inroads into once a Hindu Kingdom.

In recent times, Nepal has gradually moved from India’s influence towards its arch rival China. The new ‘all weather friend’ has made significant investments in infrastructure in terms of aid and loans.

China’s involvement in Nepal’s infrastructure projects through its controversial Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) poses a threat to Nepal’s role as a buffer state between India and China.

India’s engagement with Nepal is limited to defense cooperation, disaster management, infrastructure development, water resources cooperation, education and cultural exchange, which a Kathmandu based trekking operator Prabesh Banjara said.

However, the challenge with India is with the Peace and Friendship Treaty signed in 1950, which guaranteed Nepali citizens free movement across the border and employment opportunities in India. However, many perceive this treaty as unequal and imposed by India.

The porous and poorly guarded border between India and Nepal is a security threat. It is known that the border allows the underworld mafia to exploit it for smuggling weapons, ammunition, trained members and fake currency, which poses a significant security risk to India.

Nepal also has territorial disputes with India. Kalapani at the India-Nepal boundary remains a disputed territory and unresolved. Nepal claims these territories as part of its own, while India argues that it has inherited them from British colonialists.

The trust between India and Nepal has weakened over time due to India’s slow implementation of projects. Some Nepalese ethnic groups feel that India interferes too much in Nepal’s politics and undermines their political independence, leading to a dislike for India.

The Nepalis love to hate India. It seems that the Nepalese, which cuts across all sections of the people, has not forgotten the nightmarish “economic blockade” by India in March 1989.

After enduring more than a year of extreme hardship, Nepal has learnt a bitter lesson: the rest of the world wouldn’t come to their aid when they were bullied by India. The blockade inadvertently hastened the restoration of democracy, but it did not nuke India-Nepal relations any less rocky. India did not extend landlocked Nepali trade and transit treaties, wrote CK Lal in a prestigious newspaper, the Nepal Times.

Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy writes in Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a Delhi based think-tank and the neighborhood has undergone shifts since the beginning of the millennium. By the end of the decade, the democratic transition in Bhutan, political instability in Nepal, the Maldives, and Bangladesh, and civil war in Sri Lanka had posed dilemmas and new challenges to India.

Narendra Modi’s government in India offered an opportunity for an emerging China to make inroads in these countries through economic assistance and investments. Most of these projects were later institutionalized and categorized under Beijing’s flagship BRI.

ORF writes that the policy balances coercion and inducement, although the former (India) have become more subtle in the years since the policy was initiated.

While earlier coercion measures included alleged blockades in Nepal and military posturing against the Maldives, the focus has now shifted mainly towards granting and denying access to Indian markets and assistance. There is a growing understanding that the use of coercive measures and becoming involved in neighbors’ domestic politics would only drive the South Asian neighbors away from India and further come closer to China.

India believes that interdependencies will counter Chinese influence in the region, strengthen its security, and further its interests.

ORF study also highlights crucial challenges and missed opportunities in India’s policy. First, India has not been able to counter its negative perceptions, as it is still viewed as an interventionist power.

Second, India’s security-oriented outlook for the region, including offering alternatives to China and pushing back against China through diplomatic means, has continued to foster suspicion towards India’s intentions.

It is clear from his Divyopdesh (Divine Sayings) that Nepal’s great unifier, a Gurka King Prithvi Narayan Shah, didn’t quite trust the big neighbor to the south.

At the level of the nation-state, Nepal has a litany of injustices it has suffered from high-handed Indians, wrote CK Lal.

There is a strong impression in Nepali minds that they have got the short end of the stick in almost every border river project-from Kosi and Gandaki in the past to Pancheshwar in recent times.

All Himalayan rivers originating in Nepal drain into the Ganges. When Indians try to tame some of these rivers, the trouble is transferred upstream, and submergence takes place in Nepali territory, the Laxmanpur Barrage being the most recent example.

A hotelier in Pokhara said, the Chinese invested multimillion dollars in building a new Pokhara International Airport, which has yet to begin operation.

India has threatens that any international airlines which has plans flights to picturesque Pokhara would not be given authorization for over-flights to the airport. “It is pity that India envy’s that the airport was built by her arch enemy China,” said the hotelier.

A private airline in Bangladesh requested Nepal to introduce flights to Kathmandu and Pokhara. Kathmandu’s Triubhuvan International Airport is crowded by scores of international flights and unable to provide a slot for the Bangladeshi airlines.

Pokhara, the second destination, has been blocked by Indian’s arrogant policy. The flight will have to make fly Indian air space to reach Pokhara. Beleaguered Pokhara International Airport is only serving to domestic flights to Nepali private airlines. What a waste of a mega infrastructure investment!

Politicians like to repeat that the love-hate relationship between Nepal and India is “age-old” and has stood the test of time, says CK Lal.

In a piece of advice, he said the Indian government should engage constructively with the new leadership in Nepal and work towards enhancing cooperation in various areas. This will benefit India’s long-term interests.

The Eye of Buddha or “Wisdom Eye” in the heart of Kathmandu represents the enlightened perception of reality and the nature of existence. The eyes are traditionally watching towards the south – India. The eyes protect Nepal from the evil.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, on 24 May 2025

Which side will Bangladesh opt for in the India-Pakistan conflict?

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Thu, 08 May 2025 11:46:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

After the air strikes in Kashmir, when a full-scale conflict erupts between Pakistan and India, what should be the official stance of Bangladesh?

In 53 years, Bangladesh has not waged any war with its neighbors, Myanmar and India. Other South Asian countries are hundreds of kilometers away. Therefore, there has not been any issue with these countries.

No denying, Bangladesh-India, Bangladesh-Myanmar had engaged in border skirmishes and were quickly resolved at the border guards force level.

Bangladesh’s military is not a fighting force. Accordingly they are trained as a defensive force. The military is being prepared for peace-keeping missions under the United Nations deployment in countries troubled by militancy and rogue warlords.

Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan are significant troop contributors to UN peacekeeping missions, with Bangladesh and India consistently ranking among the top three globally.

Bangladesh has a strong history of contributing to UN peacekeeping, with 6,772 peacekeepers deployed in 58 missions across 40 countries since 1988. They are currently among the top troop-contributing nations.

A few days ago, The Economic Times, an Indian publication picked up an irrelevant content, from a social media post by a former Bangladesh military officer and close aide of Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus has suggested that Dhaka should collaborate with China to occupy India’s northeastern states if it attacks Pakistan in response to the Pahalgam terror attack.

Moments later, the Interim Government distanced itself from Major General (R) ALM Fazlur Rahman's remarks on his social media account.

Distancing itself from the former army officer’s remarks, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a media release said, “The comments do not reflect the position or policies of the government of Bangladesh, and as such, the government neither endorses nor supports such rhetoric in any form or manner.”

By the way, China has never fought a war except for border clashes with 14 neighbors that it shares a border with, including India. China has border disputes with Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan in South Asia.

Abhijeet Sen wrote for Godi Media, india.com, that in the case of a conflict, it will be interesting to see how the neighboring countries of India, such as China, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, Bangladesh, and Bhutan, will react and choose sides.

Sen believe that Bangladesh would fish in murky water during the Indo-Pak conflict and will take an opportunity to invade North East India with the military support of mighty China. He is forgetting that the Seven Sisters have recently ended their decades-old separatist insurgency by several ethnic groups.

Bangladesh is literally a homogeneous nation having language nationalism as a binding factor. They possess a unique culture, tradition, heritage, and history. Most importantly, the majoritarian are Muslims.

The North East Indian states have hundreds of languages spoken by ethnic communities and are divided among Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, animist identity and a negligible Muslim population.

Bangladesh military adventurism in the Northeast would be suicidal in an unknown hill-forest terrain, which would jeopardize the geopolitical landscape of the region.

Nevertheless, the former ethnic combatants trained in military-grade weapons would violently resist the occupation.

The nation has witnessed brutality during the nine-month independence war in 1971. An estimated 3 million were martyred, one million became war refugees, 500,000 were victims of rape as weapon of war and another 3.5 million were internally displaced.

The social media are flooded with nationalistic rhetoric, which goes against the spirit of the liberation war of 1971. The post reminds the audience that Bangladesh is a pacifist nation and pursues a ‘no war’ policy.

Afroja Shoma, a teacher of Media Studies at a private university, posted on Facebook: We are tomatoes, not India/Pakistan lovers or haters.

Political activist Hasnat Quaiyum, a member of Rastra Songskar Andolon (Movement for Reforms of the Country), urged that Bangladesh, under any excuse, should get involved in the Indo-Pak war.

Nevertheless, the Bangladesh constitution outlines specific provisions regarding war and peace, emphasizing the renunciation of force in international relations and prioritizing peaceful resolutions.

Article 63 states that war cannot be declared or the country participate in war without the Parliament’s assent. Furthermore, Article 25 mandates that the state’s foreign policy be based on the principles of renouncing force, supporting the right of self-determination, and upholding the right of oppressed people to struggle against imperialism and colonialism.

However, Article 25 also supports international solidarity with oppressed peoples in their struggle against imperialism and colonialism.

Finally, the constitution implicitly prioritizes peaceful resolutions to conflicts, as evidenced by the renunciation of force and the emphasis on international solidarity and support for self-determination.

Bangladesh must prepare carefully for all possible scenarios while remaining steadfastly neutral and committed to peace. At the same time, it is in the collective interest of the region that India and Pakistan recognize the futility of further escalation and work toward resolving their differences through peaceful means. The future prosperity and stability of South Asia depend on it, writes Mir Mostafizur Rahaman in the Financial Express, published from Dhaka.

Bangladesh authorities, before speaking their mind, are feeling the pinch in their shoes. The Dhaka stock market witnessed a major decline this morning (7 May) due to the India-Pakistan war. The main index fell by more than 70 points in the first 10 minutes of trading. The index fell by more than 50 points in the first five minutes. The downward trend continues.

Ramisa Rob is the Geopolitical Insights Editor at The Daily Star, writes: Needless to say, both nations must urgently engage in de-escalation. But the political reality of de-escalating the current volatile situation between India and Pakistan is much easier said than done. There’s little precedent that the nuclear-armed nations would spike a hot war; however, the short- and long-term stability in South Asia after the deadly Pahalgam attacks appears bleaker than ever before.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, on 8 May 2025

Bangladesh: ‘humanitarian corridor’ for Myanmarese

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Sun, 04 May 2025 12:00:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

Political parties from different shades of right, left, centrists, and Islamists are disturbed to hear from the media that Bangladesh has agreed to establish a ‘humanitarian corridor’ for the hungry people of war-torn Rakhine State in Myanmar.

The media in the country, quoting Foreign Affairs Ministry officials, have published sketchy information on the so-called humanitarian corridor. The Interim Government has yet to spell out details of the plan, which has raised suspicion which is now mixed with conspiracy theories.

The United Nations wants to dispatch food, medical supplies and other essentials to Rakhine, where silent famine persists.

The United Nation Development Program (UNDP) in an assessment report released in November 2024, painted a grave situation in the Rakhine state. It said the people caught in the civil war are experiencing a near famine and proposed that immediate food, medical aid, agriculture inputs, construction materials and other essentials need urgent attention from the international aid agencies.

UNDP report stated that Rakhine is on the verge of an unprecedented disaster due to a combination of interlinked issues. Restrictions on goods entering Rakhine, both internationally and domestically, have led to a severe lack of income, hyperinflation, and significantly reduced domestic food production. Essential services and a social safety net are almost non-existent, leaving an already vulnerable population at risk of collapse in the coming months.

The report shows that Rakhine’s economy has become almost dysfunctional. Critical sectors such as trade, agriculture, and construction have halted. Export-oriented, agro-based livelihoods are disappearing as markets become inaccessible due to blockades by the junta.

UN warns that Rakhine faces the imminent threat of acute famine. The worst victims of a lack of food are millions of internally displaced persons (IDPs), including Rohingyas.

In the last couple of months, a fresh influx of Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh has added to the already 1.2 million languishing in overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar, in Southeast Bangladesh.

However, there is no specific assessment of the number of IDPs in Rakhine, as they spread over the forests, hills and banks on the riverfront. The IDPs do not live in permanent shelters. They live in makeshift camps. The worst victims of internal displacement are children, women and elderly persons. They are suffering from severe malnutrition, communicable diseases and the absence of healthcare.

UN wants to address an unfolding humanitarian crisis in Rakhine and said it is only Bangladesh, its immediate neighbor separated by a kilometer-wide Naf River can save the hungry people, coupled with the absence of healthcare that has jeopardized their lives and living.

UN officials believe that Bangladesh is a trusted country which could extend help in facilitating supplies of food, medical and other essentials.

The United States Army Pacific (USARPAC) stationed in Hawaii is supposed to provide logistics and security for the IDPs in Rakhine state.

It is reported that the US military will be deployed for the logistics at the corridor at Silkhali, a small river port. The site has been secured by the Bangladesh Army, a no go for the civilians. The army would only facilitate logistics for the UN operation, said a senior government official, who is privy to the corridor.

UNDP report says that internal rice production is declining due to a lack of supplies of seeds, fertilizers, severe weather, and a rise in the number of IDPs that could no longer engage in agricultural production after the civil war erupted and repeatedly relocating to safer places has further exacerbated the miseries.

The UN estimates that with the near-total halt of trade, over 2 million people are at risk of starvation.

Before leaving Dhaka after a visit to Cox’s Bazar Rohingya camps, in mid-March, Guterres said he had discussed with Bangladesh authorities the possibilities of a humanitarian corridor would connect inside Myanmar as a means of creating conditions for Rohingya repatriation to Rakhine with the rebel Arakan Army which has captured except for few places resisted by the Myanmar military troops.

He said it would, however, require the “authorization and the cooperation of the parties to the conflict” in Rakhine, where the Myanmar junta is fighting the rebels, which has further caused frustration, pain and agony for the IDPs.

On the other hand, Tarique Rahman, the supremo of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), said from his London office, cautioned the Interim Government that such a decision can only be taken by the parliament.

Presently, there is no parliament, and the upcoming election is scheduled for the first half of 2026, after the Ramadan and Eid holidays. Therefore, the hungry people in Rakhine will have to wait for at least a year until an election is held in Bangladesh and a parliament begins to function.

Meanwhile, top US officials visiting Bangladesh a fortnight ago held secret meetings in Bangladesh with hybrid representatives of the United League of Arakan (ULA), a political wing of AA and Chin National Front (CNF), the political umbrella of Chin National Army.

The Chin National Army is a Chin ethnic armed organization in Myanmar. The armed wing of the Chin National Front (CNF) was founded on 20 March 1988.

The CNA and ULA are members of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), a coalition of opposition groups that aims to establish a federal system in Myanmar or achieve levels of autonomy and peace among the country’s various ethnic minorities.

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest and accused of sedition, is incommunicado. The former senior leaders of her party who could evade arrest and have gone underground safely are earnestly working with the ethnic rebels under the banner of UNFC.

Bangladesh Foreign Adviser Touhid Hossain told journalists that the Interim Government agreed in principle with the UN proposal on the corridor, but certain conditions must be met for its implementation.

A day later, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir slammed the interim government for making such a move without consulting the political parties.

“An interim government has no authority to make such a policy decision,” reads the statement by President Mohammad Shah Alam and General Secretary Ruhin Hossain Prince of the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB).

The CPB questioned that the West’s sudden interest in the Rohingya issue was “part of a broader imperialist conspiracy”.

The Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami’s Ameer (chief), Shafiqur Rahman said the humanitarian corridor requests that the government make the issue transparent to the nation because it might involve many security issues.

Radical Islamic platform Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh’s fiery leader, Secretary General Mamunul Haque, opposing the move, said, “Imperialist powers are trying to implement their agenda by using Bangladesh. As a patriotic force, Hefazat-e-Islam does not support this in any way.”

In response to the concerns of the political party leaders regarding the humanitarian corridor being premature, said Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to the Chief Advisor Prof Muhammad Yunus.

To pacify the political parties, the government quickly said nothing had been finalized regarding the corridor. But said that the government would be willing to provide logistic support should there be UN-led humanitarian support to the state of Rakhine, said Khalilur Rahman, the National Security Adviser in charge of Rohingya issues, told French news agency AFP.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, 4 May 2025

What is the Arakan Army doing in Bangladesh?

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Sat, 03 May 2025 05:16:00 +0000

The open display of the guerrillas with the logo on their uniform inside a sovereign state has sparked serious debate, especially as the Arakan Army continues to be accused by an international rights NGO

SALEEM SAMAD

Several videos have surfaced on social media recently. The video and posts with photos in social media show that the rebel Arakan Army, which swept Rakhine State from the Myanmar military junta, were inside Bangladesh territory to celebrate South East Asia’s most popular “Songkran Water Festival”.

A thousand-year-old traditional water-sprinkling festival celebrating the Buddhist New Year is widely celebrated across South and Southeast Asia, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, parts of Northeast India and parts of Vietnam from April 11-15 and features a mix of traditional ceremonies and raucous water fights.

Songkran is recognised by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity, further highlighting its importance.

The festival draws hordes of tourists from around the world, eager to experience the vibrant atmosphere and water-splashing fun.

The festival is also organised by a visible Buddhist population of Marma and Rakhine ethnic communities in southeast Bangladesh bordering troubled Myanmar.

The Rohingya refugees are scared of the presence of the Arakan Army (AA). There are reasons for the Rohingyas who fled for safety and security, the “textbook ethnic cleansing” according to a probe report by the United Nations Human Rights Agency (OHCHR) published in Geneva.

Myanmar’s treatment of its Muslim Rohingya minority appears to be a “textbook example” of ethnic cleansing, the top OHCHR official has said.

The 1.4 million refugees are languishing in squalid camps in Kutupalong, the world’s largest refugee shelter. Almost one kilometre wide Naf river separates the two neighbours, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

When AA swept through the hills and forests, villages and towns, fighting against the brutal Myanmar military junta, the guerrillas also committed atrocities against the Rohingyas.

The Rohingyas, mostly Muslims, fled Myanmar after the 2017 state-sponsored genocide by Tatmadaw, the military force and paramilitary. The atrocities and persecution have caused a fresh influx of 113,000 Rohingyas to cross into Bangladesh, according to UN agencies in Cox’s Bazar.

Mg Aung Hla Shwe, a concerned Rohingya refugee, posted a video on Facebook showing that the AA was very well inside Bangladesh. A less than a minute video on a festival ground where the flags of Bangladesh and United League of Arakan (ULA), a political wing of AA, were seen fluttering at Remakri Mukh, Bandarban district, near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.

In another video posted on YouTube by a Rohingya refugee, the AA was dancing at the “Water Festival and Concert” and said the venue of the event is 10 km inside Bangladesh. The video post argues that the event was held when the paramilitary Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) were spectators. No intervention from local authorities or border security forces is seen in the video.

A worried refugee writes: “Our so-called tiger 'BGB' is present there as spectators. Very Shocking!” “This is not just a festival—it looks like a show of force,” one social media user posted. “How can a foreign armed group operate publicly inside our borders?”

The open display of the guerrillas with the logo on their uniform inside a sovereign state has sparked serious debate, especially as the AA continues to be accused by an international rights NGO, Fortify Rights, after an investigation of several accusations came to their attention. Fortify Rights lamented grave human rights violations against the Rohingya population in Rakhine State by the AA.

Those who are concerned about security have termed the video “deeply alarming,” noting the strategic sensitivity of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region. The incident has raised serious concerns over the state of border vigilance and oversight by the BGB.

“Allowing any armed group—especially one accused of ethnic cleansing and persecution—to parade logos inside a neighbouring country is unacceptable,” said a regional security researcher. “This is a breach of sovereignty and an erosion of trust in border management.”

The Government of Bangladesh has not issued an official statement. However, government sources indicate that high-level discussions are underway regarding the footage and the broader implications for cross-border diplomacy and internal security. Public outrage continues to build, with citizens demanding a full investigation, stricter border control measures, and clear policies on the activities of foreign non-state actors within Bangladeshi territory.Rohingya community said: “We fled [from] them—now they’re here?”

For Rohingya refugees temporarily residing in Bangladesh, the presence of AA members within the country has triggered fresh anxiety and fear. Many in the camps view the AA not only as a rebel force but as one of the primary perpetrators of current abuses in Maungdaw and Buthidaung. “We ran from them. Now we see them walking freely in Bangladesh while we remain locked in refugee camps,” said a young Rohingya teacher from Camp 11.

“The AA has forcibly evicted our families, destroyed our villages, and imposed harsh restrictions. If they appear in Bangladesh without resistance, it puts us in danger,” said a community elder from Camp 3. The government’s indifference regarding the gringos from across the border on the Songkran festival with the Rakhine Buddhist community has a strong diplomatic and geo-political significance.

Recently, the UN Development Agency has released a report which paints a grave situation in the Rakhine state, which is experiencing a near famine and proposes that immediate food, medical aid and other essential needs urgent attention from the international aid agencies. The UNDP report states that Rakhine is on the verge of an unprecedented disaster due to a combination of interlinked issues. Restrictions on goods entering Rakhine, both internationally and domestically, have led to a severe lack of income, hyperinflation, and significantly reduced domestic food production. Essential services and a social safety net are almost non-existent, leaving an already vulnerable population at risk of collapse in the coming months.

The report shows that Rakhine’s economy has become almost dysfunctional. Critical sectors such as trade, agriculture, and construction are at a standstill. Export-oriented, agro-based livelihoods are disappearing as markets become inaccessible due to blockades by the junta.

UN warns that Rakhine faces the imminent threat of acute famine. The worst victims of a lack of food are millions of internally displaced persons (IDPs), including Rohingyas. Internal rice production is declining due to a lack of supplies of seeds, fertilisers, severe weather, and a rise in IDP who can no longer farm due to the civil war. The UNDP estimates that with the near-total halt of trade, over 2 million people are at risk of starvation.

When UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited the camps and had Iftar (food for breaking the fast in Ramadan) with the refugees, he told the Bangladesh authorities that a “humanitarian corridor” needed to be opened to reach the hungry people. The government has agreed in principle to the humanitarian corridor. In a series of parleys, the formalities and logistics are still being discussed with senior government bureaucrats, UN officials and the Bangladesh Army.

It is also reported that the United States Army Pacific (USARPAC) has been deployed for logistics at the humanitarian corridor at Silkhali, a small commercial river port.

Highly placed sources said that the mission is to support a US-backed proxy war in Rakhine State against the Myanmar military junta. The clandestine mission will provide weapons and training to AA and its ally, CNF (Chin National Front), battle-hardened guerrillas.

The deal brokered by the Americans would subsequently help repatriate a few hundred thousand Rohingya, and they would return home and settle down. The international aid agencies would provide rehabilitation for Rohingya refugees.

Myanmar is staunchly anti-US and anti-West. This diplomacy has pushed Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar, to develop strategic and military alliances with China and Russia. On the other hand, America, the European Union, as well as the United Nations have imposed numerous economic and diplomatic sanctions against Myanmar’s government, which has significantly broken the economic backbone of the country. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, head of the Myanmar military junta, is facing an international arrest warrant issued in November 2024 by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, for crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya Muslims.

The primary objective of the US proxy war is to capture the most wanted war criminals, including General Hlaing and six other Myanmar senior military officials responsible for the genocide against the Rohingya people, to stand trial in the ICC. However, the political parties, right, left, and Islamists have erupted in fury. They argued that the corridor was an excuse for the American troops to engage in a proxy war for which the country was not prepared.

To pacify the political parties, the government quickly said that nothing had been finalised regarding the humanitarian corridor. However, Khalilur Rahman, the government's adviser on Rohingya issues, told French news agency AFP that the government would be willing to provide logistic support should there be UN-led humanitarian support to the state of Rakhine.

First published in the International Affairs Review, New Delhi, India, on 3 May 2025

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist based in Bangladesh and a media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders (@RSF.ORG). He is the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and the Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Pahalgam fallout scratches Bangladesh

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 05:35:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

The deadly massacre of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir erupted a fresh crisis between Pakistan and India, the two nuke-armed neighbors. The sectarian terrorists or Islamic jihadists deliberately targeted the Hindus only.

India has accused Pakistan of supporting “cross-border terrorism” after the murderers carried out the most evil attack on civilians in contested Muslim-majority Kashmir.

However, amid an escalation of tension between India and Pakistan, the regional tension has spilt over to Bangladesh.

Hours after the barbaric atrocities in Kashmir, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, postponed his scheduled visit to Bangladesh on April 27-28.

“Owing to unforeseen circumstances,” Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan cannot undertake the visit to Bangladesh.

However, the official statement says that fresh dates will be announced through mutual consultations.

Bangladesh officials said the first-ever visit of the Pakistani Foreign Minister in 25 years would have heightened the weak bilateral relations between Bangladesh and Pakistan.

A few more official delegations were supposed to visit each other’s capitals for the augmentation of trade, commerce, industries, investment, communication, agriculture, foreign affairs, home affairs and others.

It seems that such parleys would be delayed as the crisis has shaken the government of Pakistan after the worst carnage since the Pulwama attack in 2019.

The direct flight from Karachi-Dhaka by Fly Jinnah airline has been postponed indefinitely, said an official in Dhaka.

The fights would not commence unless the overflights over India are withdrawn, said the official.

The reason explained that the skies for overflights of Pakistan airlines to most South Asian east-bound destinations have been grounded for months to come.

The Pakistani fight for Indian capital and the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, has been stalled.

In an arbitrary decision by jealous bigwigs in Islamabad and New Delhi, scores of Indian airlines' flights over Pakistan have been shut, and rerouting the flight paths is causing immense suffering for the passengers who were booked mostly for westbound destinations.

Meanwhile, over 1,000 Bangladeshi immigrants, including women and children, were detained in a crackdown in India’s Gujarat days after the most horrible mass execution of civilians in recent times.

Efforts for the detained Bangladesh nationals in Gujarat are underway for their deportation, Minister of State for Home Harsh Sanghavi told Indian media.

He said arrangements were made “to complete all the procedures for their deportation [to Bangladesh] as soon as possible”.

The minister, without a proper investigation, jumped to the conclusion that most of these people are involved with drug cartels and human trafficking, and two out of the four Bangladeshis arrested recently worked in sleeper cells of Al Qaeda. “A probe will be conducted into these Bangladeshis’ background and activities in Gujarat,” the junior minister stated.

Foreign Adviser Touhid Hossain, briefing journalists at the Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the ongoing tensions between the two rival neighbors, India and Pakistan, should be resolved through dialogue.

“Our position is very clear. We want peace in South Asia. We are aware of the longstanding rivalry between Pakistan and India. We would expect the two countries would resolve the problem through dialogue,” he said.

He reiterated that “We [Bangladesh] have good relations with both India and Pakistan.”

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan on 29 April 2025

Will Bangladesh join US-backed proxy war with Myanmar junta?

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 09:27:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

In recent times, there has been a gargantuan development in Myanmar (formerly Burma). Large swatches of the Rakhine state have been occupied by the rebel Arakan Army (AA) with a political objective of confederalism of the ethnic Rakhine community.

The Rakhine state in northern Myanmar borders 270 kilometers of Bangladesh. The battle-hardened foot soldiers of AA political objective is to achieve regional autonomy of the ethnic Rakhine community.

The AA, fighting since 2014, have seized control of 13 of the 17 townships in Rakhine State, including all townships along the border with Bangladesh. However, the state capital, Sittwe, and the port city of Kyaukpyu remain under the control of the Myanmar military junta.

Founded in April 2009, the AA is the military wing of the United League of Arakan (ULA). It is currently led by Commander-in-Chief, Major General Twan Mrat Naing. It is the military wing of the Rakhine ethnic people in Rakhine state, where they are the majority.

The majority are Buddhists and a mix of Christian and animistic tribes (describes the belief that natural objects and phenomena, such as plants, animals, rocks, and the weather, have souls or spirits).

The Rakhine seek greater autonomy from Myanmar’s government and want to restore the sovereignty of the Arakan people. It was declared a terrorist organization in 2020 by Myanmar, and again by the military junta in 2024, headed by a 69-year-old General Min Aung Hlaing, who has ruled Myanmar with an iron hand as the Chairman of the State Administration Council since seizing power in the February 2021 coup d’état. He assumed his position as President in July 2024.

Millions of ethnic Rakhine are victims of forced displacement due to the conflict and onslaught of the government forces, and another 1.2 million ethnic Rohingya Muslims are languishing in crowded camps in Cox’s Bazar in southeast Bangladesh.

The displaced Rakhine community are starving because of want food and do not have cash to buy food.

There is an unconfirmed report that a consignment of food from the international food aid has been clandestinely sent to the beleaguered Rakhine state.

The internally displaced refugees are demanding more food aid for their survival. Food and water supplies have been blocked by the Myanmar junta to regions held by the rebels.

The AA and rebel China National Army have reached out to Bangladesh for food aid and to reopen trade between the two countries. Bangladesh has not officially come up with a decision for food aid and trade.

Earlier on the government had said that they cannot hold talks with AA, as they are not a legitimate authority representing Myanmar. But, last week the Adviser, Tauhid Hossain, for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs said Bangladesh may hold dialogue with AA for a number of pressing agendas, including border security, fresh influx of Rohingya refugees and other crucial issues.

The nascent Interim Government is in a dilemma as to whether Bangladesh should okay the “Silkhali Corridor” proposed by the Americans to provide food and logistics to keep the people of Rakhine state, or to continue with the challenge against the military junta in Naypyidaw, the new capital of Myanmar.

For military and strategic development, a team of military strategists has identified Silkhali as a supply hub for operations in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Well, no construction has yet begun, but top military visits (including Bangladesh Army COAS General Waker-uz-Zaman) confirm a positive nod for the site, which is in proximity to the conflict zone.

Silkhali is a revenue village, 30 kilometer north of Teknaf, near the Naf River, which separates Myanmar and Bangladesh. The corridor is presumed for the planned Rohingya repatriation once the operation begins.

The site is adjacent to the Bangladesh Army’s artillery field firing range (used for Turkish field guns and anti-tank guided missile – ATGM’s mortars). The coastal location is ideal for artillery testing and covert logistics movement, and has a thick forest cover often visited by elephant herds.

A massive logistics hub near Teknaf is under construction for supply movement. Meanwhile, the Cox’s Bazar airport is being upgraded for Turkish UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) operations for the Silkhali Corridor.

Recently, three US officials, Susan Stevenson (Charge d’Affaires based in Naypyidaw, Nicole Chulick (Deputy Assistant Secretary, South Central Asia) and Andrew Herrup (Deputy Assistant Secretary, East Asia-Pacific) flew into Dhaka. It is not clear whether they have visited Silkhali.

Sources privy to the development said the US diplomats held secret parleys in Dhaka with representatives of the Arakan Army and the Chin National Front (CNF).

The AA and CNF refused to ally with the jihadist Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) as a condition for the secret meeting, the source said.

Their refusal led to the recent arrest of ARSA supremo Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi from the fringe of the capital Dhaka. He is accused of waging deadly 2017 attacks that led to a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar and forced 750,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh.

It could not be ascertained which agency ensured the safe passage for the Myanmar rebels to Dhaka and return to their secret headquarters in Rakhine and Chin states.

However, a senior diplomat with the US embassy in Dhaka denied such meetings with Myanmar rebels. He also said he does not know whether any dialogue with the rebels is planned to finalise logistics support for the supply of food aid.

Well, the plan for logistics and supply to Rakhine state will not include the Bangladesh Army’s role in the US-backed operation.

Bangladesh government of Prof Muhammad Yunus is strict in ensuring that the army’s 10th, 17th, and 24th Divisions will not get involved in any combat role except for facilitating logistics.

The United States Army Pacific (USARPAC) has been deployed for the proxy war and logistics at the Silkhali Corridor.

Highly placed sources said that the mission is to support a US-backed proxy war in Rakhine state against the Myanmar military junta. The mission will provide weapons, training to AA and CNF guerrillas, food and other supplies.

Myanmar is staunchly anti-US and anti-West. This diplomacy has pushed Naypyidaw to develop strategic and military alliances with China and Russia. On the other hand, America, the European Union, as well as the United Nations have imposed several economic and diplomatic sanctions against Myanmar.

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, head of the Myanmar military junta, is facing an international arrest warrant issued in November 2024 by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, for crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya Muslims.

At least 6,700 Rohingya, including at least 730 children under the age of five, were killed in the month after the violence broke out in 2017, according to medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Amnesty International says the Myanmar military also raped and abused Rohingya women and girls.

The primary objective of the US proxy war is to capture the most wanted war criminals, especially General Hlaing and six other Myanmar senior military officials responsible for the genocide against the Rohingya people, to stand trial in the ICC.

Washington is actively working with the National Unity Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (NUG), under the leadership of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, currently imprisoned in Yangon (formerly Rangoon) for sedition. NUG has been able to ally to share power and bury differences and frictions with most of the ethnic rebel groups that took up weapons for confederalism and have overrun two-thirds of the territories once held by the junta.

First published in the Strathieia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, on 25 April 2025

Bangladesh’s sudden claim of pre-1971 assets jolts Pakistan

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 12:39:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

On the eve of Pakistan Foreign Secretary Amna Baloch’s official visit to the Foreign Office Consultation (FOC) in the capital, Dhaka, the Interim Government of Prof Muhammad Yunus has prepared US $4.52 billion in financial claims from Pakistan authorities, comprising its fair share of undivided Pakistan’s pre-1971 assets, including aid money, provident funds, and savings instruments.

The FOC meeting of diplomatic engagement, held after 15 years of hiatus, between Dhaka and Islamabad, seeks to normalize bilateral relations.

The relations between the two South Asian countries have never been warm since the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. Pakistan President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto visited Bangladesh in 1974 with a promise to restore the tattered relations. In 1985, President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq visited Bangladesh, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (1989) and President Pervez Musharraf (2002).

On the other hand, Bangladesh’s first President, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, attended the Lahore OIC Summit in 1974. Later, President H.M. Ershad visited Islamabad (1986), and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visited Pakistan (1998). The relationship failed to attain heights. Instead, the ties got entangled in a stalemate, caused by mistrust, suspicion, and a lack of diplomatic understanding.

However, relations slightly normalized under the military regimes of General Ziaur Rahman (1976-1992) and General Hussain Muhammad Ershad (1993-1990) with Pakistan. Both the Generals graduated from Kakul Pakistan Military Academy and had several course mates who were at the helms of affairs in Rawalpindi military headquarters.

At the FOC meeting, Bangladesh formally demanded $4.52 billion from Pakistan as its share of pre-1971 assets, along with a formal apology for war crimes committed against Bangladeshis by the marauding Pakistan military, said Foreign Secretary Jashim Uddin.

Pakistan’s delegation, led by its Foreign Secretary, Amna Baloch, assured Bangladesh officials of “remaining engaged” on the issues of settling $4.52 billion owed to Bangladesh and making an apology for the Pakistani war crimes committed in 1971.

However, after the collapse of the autocrat Sheikh Hasina’s regime last August, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus have twice had parleys – on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September last year and at the D-8 summit in Cairo in December.

Since then, Bangladesh and Pakistan have eased the visa regime for both nationals of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Both countries are showing keen interest in boosting trade, said an official who is privy to the FOC, adding that Pakistan also wants to enhance cultural exchanges and establish direct air connectivity.

Bangladesh High Commissioner to Pakistan Iqbal Hussain Khan told journalists in Dhaka that a Pakistani airline – Fly Jinnah has secured approval for direct flights between Dhaka and Karachi, while Air Sial, another private one, has applied for permission to operate flights. No official and private Bangladesh airlines expressed their desire to fly Dhaka-Karachi flights.

Pakistan exported products like cotton, sugar, rice, and wheat in FY 2023–24. Bangladesh exported $61.98 million to Pakistan and imported goods worth $627.8 million.

As Pakistan serves as a gateway for goods to Afghanistan, Dhaka can explore the potentiality of trading premium quality goods to and from the landlocked country through Pakistan.

The last FOC in 2015 covered sensitive issues, which remain unresolved. However, officials stress these should not hinder current engagement.

Meanwhile, Indian Modi Media writes that the Bangladesh-Pakistan FOC meeting is a big threat for India as Pakistan and Bangladesh decide to come closer.

Nivedita Dash writes on India.com that after the fall of Sheikh Hasina, relations between Bangladesh and Pakistan are continuously deepening. Yunus government supported by pro-Pakistan fundamentalists has completely opened the doors of Dhaka to Islamabad.

There is a threat to regional stability and security issues will be jeopardized, with the two South Asian countries coming close and closer.

Her article dipped in a sauce of lies and more lies, further claims that “During the 15-year rule of Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh, Dhaka had completely cut off ties with Pakistan, but the interim government led by Mohammad Yunus has rolled out the red carpet for Pakistan. Since then, Islamabad has completely intensified its activities in Dhaka.”

Like India, Hasina has never cut ties with Pakistan nor intended to sever relations. Well, both Dhaka and Islamabad lowered their diplomatic status and there were no High Commissioner in each other’s capitals for quite some time.

Two diplomats, one each from Dhaka and Islamabad were declared persona non grata.

On the diplomatic front, Hasina had announced a moratorium on visas for Pakistan nationals, except for official visits to Bangladesh. Pakistan also reciprocated. This impacted on direct flights from Karachi-Dhaka route and PIA flights were stalled until now for lack of passengers.

The row over lowering diplomatic ties sparked after Pakistan’s parliament adopted a resolution condemning Bangladesh for the trials of those Islamist leaders, who were henchmen of Pakistan occupation forces and had raised armed militia and committed crimes against humanity in Bangladesh.

The parliament resolution read that those war criminals hanged in Bangladesh had sacrificed their lives for the sake of the unity of Pakistan and were regarded as martyrs.

Nivedita Dash is also worried that Pakistan’s army and its spy agency ISI (Inter-Service Intelligence) have become active in Bangladesh. Along with this, Pakistan is now also trying to increase its trade presence with Bangladesh.

The claim includes $200m foreign aid sent to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) after the 1970 Bhola Cyclone, which was deliberately diverted to Lahore during independence war in 1971.

The Bhola Cyclone was a catastrophic tropical cyclone that struck a coastal region in November 1970. It is considered the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded, with an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 deaths.

The foreign aid deposited with the Dhaka branch of the State Bank of Pakistan was siphoned in 1971 to its bank’s Lahore branch, Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials stated.

Bangladesh officials argued at the FOC that comprising its fair share of undivided Pakistan’s pre-1971 assets, including aid money, provident funds, and savings instruments.

The financial claims do not include reparation for an untold humanitarian crisis caused by war crimes, when ten million war refugees who took shelter in neighboring India and rape as a weapon of war was employed during the brutal birth of Bangladesh in 1971.

Some categories of those affected in the war are still being compensated through modest monthly doles.

Similarly, hundreds of Bangla-speaking government employees who had been stationed in West Pakistan were later repatriated home in 1973-74. On their return, they discovered that their provident fund balances and savings instruments accrued were never refunded by Pakistan. These financial losses are part of the broader US $4.52 billion claim.

The Foreign Ministry officials said Bangladesh has consistently sought its rightful share for the return of the US $200 million in cyclone aid that was illegally misappropriated at the peak of the liberation war in 1971.

According to foreign ministry records, based on population alone, Bangladesh was entitled to 56 per cent of those assets. If contributions to foreign exchange earnings are considered, the share stands at 54 per cent, and by any parity principle, Bangladesh should be entitled to at least 50 per cent.

A post-war assessment prepared by the Bangladesh Planning Commission on 16 December 1971 estimated that West Pakistan had withheld Bangladesh Taka (BDT) 9 million (Pakistan Rupees 20.76 million) in provident fund deposits belonging to East Pakistani civil servants.

Similarly, BDT 15.7 million (Rupees 36.26 million) held in the Rupali Bank’s (formerly Muslim Commercial Bank) Karachi branch during the war was never returned. Pakistan later converted this amount into shares and informed Muslim Commercial Bank – unfortunately, the bank never responded and money was never transferred.

Adding to the grievance, the Bangladesh government honored the obligations of various pre-independence instruments sold by the Pakistani government – including defense savings certificates and income tax bonds – effectively paying debts that it believes Pakistan should have settled.

A report titled “Statement of Bangladesh Bank Claims Receivable from State Bank of Pakistan and Government of Pakistan” lays out a detailed breakdown.

As of 16 December 1971, the total value of the currency in circulation was Rupees 8.71 million, at least half of which Bangladesh owes. Pakistan’s bank sectors alone owe Bangladesh, Rupees 56 million.

The Bangladesh government also accepted liability of BDT 213.8 million (Rupees 493.50 million) of some of Pakistan’s central government and provincial government debt securities, claims which Dhaka has lodged.

These include BDT 140.7 million (Rupee 324.77 million) in central government loans, BDT 27.7 million (Rupee 63.94 million) in East Pakistan government loans, BDT 11.5 million (Rupee 26.55 million) in West Pakistan government loans, BDT 24.6 million (Rupee 56.79 million) in savings certificates issued against international trading unit investments, and BDT 0.65 million (Rupee 1,500 million) in Savings Certificates linked to Pakistani Prize Bonds.

It is understood that Islamabad will review the claim of Bangladesh US$4.52 and hold further parleys to resolve the debt issue. Bangladesh had waited for 54 years to speak up, it will take another several years for Pakistan to make up its mind and relay its decision on the financial claims.

Meanwhile, according to data from the State Bank of Pakistan, Pakistan’s reserves stood at $15.75 billion, reports BBC news portal.

That is, Pakistan will have to spend more than a quarter of its reserves to meet Bangladesh’s demands, BBC concluded.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan on 18 April 2025

https://stratheia.com/bangladeshs-sudden-claim-of-pre-1971-assets-jolts-pakistan/

Who’s Afraid of Feminist Writer Taslima Nasrin?

noreply@blogger.com (Bangladesh Watchdog) — Sun, 13 Apr 2025 09:07:00 +0000

SALEEM SAMAD

The traditional month-long book fair ended last February. The book fair commemorates the fallen heroes who sacrificed their lives on 21 February 1952 to establish Bangla (or Bengali) as the mother language.

Presently, the day is observed worldwide as International Mothers Language Day, declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

However, the threats of Islamic extremists and radicalised Muslims have not been contained by law enforcement agencies. Each year, a book stall or free-thinker writers, poets and bloggers were attacked.

At least two writers, Humayun Azad, a teacher of Dhaka University and an exiled free-thinker and popular science writer, Avijit Roy were hacked to death jihadist. Attackers killed a US-Bangladeshi blogger whose writings on religion angered Islamist hardliners. Roy, an atheist who advocated secularism and religious freedom, was attacked as he walked out of the book fair with his wife. She was also grievously hurt in the attack.

The Islamists had accused them of blasphemy, meaning hurting the Muslims for critiquing the Quran, the prophet Muhammad, revered by Muslims and the existence of Allah.

Anyway, at Dhaka the book fair is held in the Dhaka University campus, the incident took place in the evening at the stall of the publisher Sabyasachi Prokashoni.

The incident unfolded on the 10th day of the fair, the angry crowd of “Towhidi Janata” from the Madrassa (Islamic schools) stormed the Sabyasachi Prokashoni and demanded that Taslima’s books should be removed. Police shut down a stall at the ‘Amar Ekushey Boi Mela’ (book fair) following an altercation over books by a feminist writer. Later, police went to the spot and covered the stall with a tarpaulin and only one was arrested. After a temporary shutdown, it has been reopened.

The Sabyasachi stall has been at the centre of discussion for some time, when multiple posts on social media called for the demolition of a book stall at the book fair, alleging that the publisher was promoting atheism. Prof Mohammad Azam, director general of Bangla Academy, said the police had closed down the bookstall to maintain law and order.

The Chief Adviser of the Interim Government, Prof Muhammad Yunus, has condemned the recent mob attack on the bookstall, calling it an affront to the rights of Bangladeshi citizens and the country’s laws.

In a statement, he denounced the violence, emphasising that it goes against the open-minded spirit of the book fair, which honours the language martyrs of 21 February 1952.

Taslima Nasrin condemned the government’s alleged support for extremists and the attack on her publisher. However, the book is available for sale online.

The government ordered the police and the Bangla Academy to investigate the incident and bring the culprits to book. S8xty-three years-old Taslima is a prolific writer, physician, feminist, secular humanist and activist on religious freedom. The writer is known for her writings on the oppression of women and criticism of women’s rights in Islamic laws. Two of her books Lajja (Shame) and Amar Meyebela (My Girlhood), the first volume of her autobiography, were banned in Bangladesh.

Nasrin was forced out of her country because of her controversial writings, which many Muslims felt discredited Islam. Her plight was often compared to that of Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses (1988). Taslima was physically attacked while giving autographs to hundreds of fans by the Muslim extremists at the book fair in 1992. The protesters vandalised the bookstall that objected to her writings. She was asked by the book fair committee not to visit the fair anymore. The writer was again attacked in August 2007 in Hyderabad while attending an event on the Telugu translation of one of her novels, Shodh. She was physically assaulted on the podium led by legislators from the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, an Indian Islamist political party.

Earlier, she was invited to inaugurate her book in Mumbai, India. However, the Islamic extremists launched a campaign against her and declared that they would burn her alive if she arrived in Mumbai. She cancelled her trip to Mumbai. Contrary to Muslim practice, she wore her hair short and smoked cigarettes, and she eschewed traditional Muslim dress. Her writing and behaviour enraged and offended conservative Sunni Muslims. The writer was forced to go into exile after Mullahs and extremist Muslims issued a Fatwa (religious decree) in 1993 declaring prize money for her head and demanding the authorities arrest her for blasphemy and insults to Islam. She immediately went into hiding. After a High Court order to travel abroad, she fled the country and lived briefly in Sweden, Germany, France and the United States.

In a similar incident, popular young poet Daud Haider in 1973, two years after the brutal birth of Bangladesh, wrote a poem which angered the Islamists. Thousands of Mullahs poured into the street and demanded death for the apostate.

The countrywide street protests by the Islamists accused him of blasphemy for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who advocated for zero tolerance of Islamic extremism, had arrested the poet to keep the Mullahs in good humour. He was tortured in custody and then forced into exile. The Islamists who attacked him and even killed one of his cousins were never punished.

Daud was sheltered in India for some time, like the much more famous Taslima Nasreen, quietly protected by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government. And later he was given asylum in Germany. Like Taslima, Daud never dared to return to Bangladesh.

Taslima came to the international limelight after her book Lajja (Shame) was published in different languages and Time, Vogue and several other magazines put her on their cover.

Her documentary novel Lajja, which is a protest against the torture of the Hindu community of Bangladesh, was published. She wrote withering diatribes against the oppression of women and the Islamic code. She described the Muslims of East Bengal are radicalised, misogynist and male-chauvinist.

Taslima has won many awards, including Ananda Puroshkar, an Indian literary award; the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought from the European Parliament; the Kurt Tuckholsky award from Swedish PEN; a human rights prize from the French government; and a humanist award from the International Humanist and Ethical Union. This interview took place in France in early 2000.

She moved to Kolkata, India, to live near her home – Bangladesh. Later, she was shocked when the West Bengal authorities expelled her. Authorities in Bangladesh until now have refused to reissue her passport despite her applying for her passport at the Bangladesh missions abroad.

First published in International Affairs Review, New Delhi, India on 12 April 2025

The author is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. He is also a media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders and recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter (X): @saleemsamad