With the recent removal of Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina from power, questions are swirling about whether global regime change actors played a role in her ouster.

Although the immediate catalyst for her downfall was widespread anger over the jobs quota system, the US and other Western powers had signalled their disapproval of Hasina openly ahead of the January elections, which she ultimately won.

As the US employed its usual “defence of democracy” rhetoric to criticise Hasina and pressured her to meet the demands of the Opposition, which is predominantly composed of Islamists and extremists hostile to democratic values, Hasina made an intriguing revelation. She alleged that a Western power is conspiring to establish a Christian state in this region, similar to East Timor.

While Hasina did not elaborate any further, leaders of her party, the Awami League, later told Swarajya that what Hasina meant was that an independent ‘Zo’ state, comprising areas of Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Mizoram, inhabited by the Kuki-Chin-Mizo people is being incubated by a Western power.

“Like East Timor, they will carve out a Christian country, taking parts of Bangladesh and Myanmar with a base in the Bay of Bengal,” Hasina had said.

She had not mentioned that the project — of creating a Christian country — also includes parts of North East India, but that would have been an “unintentional omission” on her part, Awami League leaders told Swarajya.

The Kuki-Chin-Mizo people have, in recent years, started calling themselves collectively as ‘Zo’ people. They are also aspiring for ‘Zogam’, or a homeland for the Zo people, comprising large parts of the Chin state of Myanmar, the Indian state of Mizoram, and Kuki-inhabited areas of Manipur, and the Bandarban district and adjoining areas of Bangladesh’s Chittagong division.

All these areas are contiguous to each other and, except for Mizoram, are experiencing militancy by Kuki-Chin terror groups.

The Chinland Joint Defence Committee — a joint body formed by the Chin National Army (CNA), Chinland Defence Force (CDF), and the Chin National Defence Force (CNDF) — is waging a deadly armed struggle against the Myanmar junta.

In Bangladesh’s Bandarban district and surrounding areas of Chittagong division, the Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF) has carried out acts of terror in recent months.

Kuki militants under the banners of the Kuki National Army (KNA), Kuki National Front (KNF), and Kuki Liberation Army (KLA) have been carrying out killings, kidnappings, and extortions in Manipur, and are closely involved in the ongoing ethnic strife in the northeastern state.

The Kukis are demanding a separate state for themselves, carved out of the Kuki-dominated hill districts of Manipur.

Interestingly, almost all the ‘Zo’ people — Kukis, Chins, and Mizos, who claim common ethnicity — are Christians. Christian missionaries started alluring and converting them during British rule, and continued to do so even after the British left the subcontinent.

Most of the ‘Zo’ people are Protestants and evangelical. Also, they are an exclusive community — Mizoram is a stark example of this exclusivity — and harbour the dream of living together in a unified Zo homeland.

The Mizoram-based Zo Reunification Organisation (ZRO), whose primary goal is the unification of all Zo-inhabited areas in the three countries, enjoys widespread support in Mizoram.

The unification demand is endorsed by the ruling Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) in Mizoram, the opposition Mizo National Front (MNF), and even the state unit of the Congress.

This demand, say intelligence sources in India and Bangladesh, is being instigated by Church bodies, especially the Baptist Church, which has its home base in the United States of America (US).

Church organisations in the US are said to be linked closely with intelligence agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Hence, say top sources in Indian and Bangladeshi intelligence agencies, it is quite obvious that the US is pursuing a long-term project of encouraging the formation of a Christian state comprising contiguous areas of Myanmar, Bangladesh, and India and inhabited by the ‘Zo’ people.

At the time, Hasina also referred to the earlier US demand for setting up an air base in Bangladesh’s St Martin’s Island — a small island in the northeastern part of the Bay of Bengal and also the southernmost tip of Bangladesh.

Though the US recently denied making such a demand, a joint-director-ranked officer of Bangladesh’s National Security Intelligence (NSI) — the country’s principal civilian intelligence outfit — had told Swarajya that this request comes up quite often in private bilateral talks between leaders and top officials of the two countries.

The former Bangladeshi premier said at the meeting in Dhaka that she was made an offer by a ‘white man’: that her transition to power for the fourth consecutive term will be smooth and without any interference by Western powers if she agreed to allow the US to set up an air base in the island. She said she turned down the offer.

Just months after she spoke out about the alleged Western conspiracy to establish a new Christian nation in the region, Hasina has been deposed and exiled.

This turn of events has only strengthened the belief among her allies and supporters that Western powers were intent on regime change in Bangladesh.