Fallen Bangladeshi leader crafting a comeback from India, leveraging false Indian media claims that Hindus were mainly targeted in recent violence
Bangladesh’s recently ousted leader, Sheikh Hasina, has sought refuge in India, her closest foreign ally. Reports indicate that her efforts to win asylum in the UK, Canada, and the US failed, meaning she will likely stay in India for the foreseeable future.
Her son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, has stated that the fallen leader has no intention of leaving India, and it appears that she is now strategizing a counter-offensive in response to the uprising that toppled her long rule.
So far, Hasina’s approach seems to involve aligning with India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Hindutva supporters, potentially dangling greater political influence for India in Bangladesh should she reclaim power.
To understand what’s at stake, it’s essential to grasp the relationship dynamics at play. The Indian government has consistently acted as a protector of Hasina and her Awami League, transforming India and Bangladesh diplomacy into a patron-client relationship reminiscent of Russia and Belarus.
In 2014, Hasina effectively secured an election victory even before the vote took place, with the main opposition BNP boycotting the polls.
In 2018, Hasina’s Awami League secured another highly disputed election victory with an astonishingly high margin of nearly 95%, reminiscent of North Korea. This win was tainted by unprecedented electoral fraud, orchestrated by government officials and law enforcement to favor the ruling party.
Despite widespread international condemnation of the election as a sham, the BJP-led Indian government was the first to congratulate Hasina, providing crucial international support that reinforced her regime. The Indian establishment, it is widely believed, was fully aware of the blatant vote-rigging that took place at the time.
As the 2024 election drew near, Western powers began to pressure Sheikh Hasina to hold a free and fair election. However, Delhi, acting on Hasina’s behalf, reportedly managed to mitigate any potential backlash from these powers, especially the US, allowing another flawed election to proceed.
The depth of the relationship was further highlighted in 2022 when then-foreign minister A K Momen revealed that he had urged India to do everything possible to keep the Awami League in power.
Awami League parliamentary candidates even campaigned as “Delhi’s Candidate,” openly acknowledging their dependence on Indian support. Currently, Hasina’s son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, is reportedly urging India to pressure the interim government to hold elections within 90 days.
Hasina’s sudden ouster sent shockwaves through the Indian political establishment. For several days, Bangladesh was left without a functioning government, and in this power vacuum, widespread anarchy erupted.
Over the past 15 years, the Awami League had turned its party offices and police stations into centers of repression, extortion and corruption.
As chaos ensued, local communities, fed up with years of abuse, decided to take matters into their own hands. Hundreds of police stations and party offices were set on fire and Awami League leaders were killed in the violence.
Since the mobs targeted both Hindu and Muslim leaders from the Awami League, it raises the question of whether these attacks were motivated by religious identity or political affiliation.
The broader trend indicates that Awami League affiliation was the main factor behind the attacks. BJP-aligned media in India quickly obscured this distinction, largely overlooking the Muslim victims within the Awami League and framing the violence as an assault on religious minorities.
This portrayal cast Hindu leaders and activists as victims of religious persecution, diverting attention from the underlying political context of the unrest.
In response to the rising violence, swift measures were taken to protect minority homes and temples. While these actions could be viewed as civic duty, there’s also a strategic angle: some might have recognized that the Awami League and its BJP-aligned media could exploit the narrative of minority victimization to undermine and destabilize any post-Hasina government.
Misinformation and doctored video clips are spreading rapidly, fueling false narratives. For example, fires in restaurants and markets are being falsely reported as temples set ablaze while disturbing footage of mobs lynching Muslim Awami League leaders is being misrepresented as violence against Hindus.
In one case, when former Bangladesh cricket captain Mashrafe Mortaza’s house was burned due to his connection with the Awami League in a disputed election, Indian media inaccurately reported it as an attack on cricketer Liton Das because of his religion.
Similarly, a fire that spread from Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s residence to the home of Rahul Anand, a member of the band Joler Gaan, was misrepresented despite Anand’s clarification that it was an accident.
Independent fact-checkers like Boom, Dismisslab, and AFP are working hard to counteract the surge of fake news from India, but they face an uphill struggle; for each piece of misinformation they correct, numerous others quickly spread on social media.
This criticism often fails to account for the fact that the Awami League government had elevated Mujibur Rahman to near-mythical status, with statues and murals throughout the country akin to the fairy tale personality cult built around the Kim clan in North Korea.
Overall, BJP-leaning media in India is seizing this opportunity to energize their support base after the party’s worst electoral performance in a decade.
Hasina’s son Sajeeb has been making regular appearances on Indian media, echoing BJP talking points by placing blame on phantom enemies like Pakistan’s ISI and America’s CIA. He has also actively pushed the narrative of violence against Hindus in his TV appearances.
In Bangladesh, the Awami League seems to be exploiting a contrived issue. In Sylhet, reports indicate that Awami League leaders have staged false flag attacks on Hindu communities.
Additionally, party leaders and members of its student wing, the Bangladesh Chhatra League, are organizing protest rallies portraying Hindu victims who were actually killed by Hasina’s security forces as victims of the current interim government.
These rallies have also adopted the “Jai Shri Ram” (“Glory to Lord Rama”) chant associated with the BJP’s Hindutva movement but unfamiliar to the Hindu community in Bangladesh. Govinda Pramanik, leader of the Hindu Grand Alliance, has already accused the Awami League of manipulating the Hindu population to regain power.
In response to these media narratives, prominent right-wing Indian MP Subramanian Swamy has suggested the annexation of northern parts of Bangladesh.
In a YouTube video, he proposed that the Indian military should surround Bangladesh’s borders and carry out a military operation to restore Hasina to power.
Hasina has been a staunch ally of India and current support for her might be seen as a way to reciprocate that loyalty. However, this approach risks damaging long-term diplomatic relations between India and Bangladesh and their peoples.
On a positive note, many reasonable voices within India recognize the broader consequences of such support and are expressing strong solidarity with the Bangladeshi people, calling for a more balanced and principled approach to a volatile situation that could yet see many more twists and turns.
Taukir Aziz is an economic, financial and political analyst specializing in Bangladesh’s political economy and financial sector, and where the two intersect.