A July/August 2024 student-led mass uprising ended the decade and a half rule of the Hasina government in Bangladesh, a government that India backed and in exchange extracted one-sided concessions, costing Bangladesh at multiple levels – political, commercial and economic. Thus, the sudden and unforeseen fall of Hasina, who has since fled to India where she currently lives under the protection of the Indian government, has come as a big shock to India.
A perturbed India
Loss of their protégé in Bangladesh seems to have perturbed if not angered India, its government, and a section of the media so much that bad-mouthing of Bangladesh’s Interim government (IG) led by the Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and more generally, Bangladesh has become their core passion and the only visible tool of engagement with their neighbour.
India’s vilification of Bangladesh and its Interim Government seems to be predicated upon and nurtured by two interlinked narratives – first, the minorities (especially Hindus) are being persecuted because of their religion by the extremists in Bangladesh; and second, the student-led movement was not a popular uprising but a military-backed “coup”.
It is obvious that the intent of these two narratives, which are false, is to de-legitimize and de-stabilize the IG that was borne out of the people’s uprising.
To India’s dismay, they are making these false accusations against Bangladesh and its Interim Government at a time when IG led by Prof. has been fully legitimized if not supported by the United Nations, the EU, the US and indeed, the world.
“Rhetorical adduction”
India, caught by surprise of the July-August uprising, now seems to be on a mission of “Making the Real” through a process of “Rhetorical adduction” – a process by which “states try to raise support for their position first by constructing an argument in which a particular action represents part of an argument, and then by performing that action to make the argument seem more convincing”. (Joseph O’Mahoney, 2017). In other words, “rhetorical adduction’ is more than a simple battle of narratives – it involves taking action to make the argument more convincing and linking the action to a policy.
In recent times, India’s project of “Making the Real” seems to have entered a new phase.
The initial rhetorics by some Indian media outlets are now buttressed by the country’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statement following the arrest of a former ISKCON leader by the Bangladeshi law enforcing agency.
Until recently, the Indian MEA had generally refrained from issuing statements or avoided responding to questions related to Bangladesh’s internal affairs. However, this has changed since the ISKON incident. The MEA atypically issued a statement following the arrest of a former ISKCON leader in Bangladesh. In the regular media brief, the MEA spokesperson also expressed concern at the “surge of extremist rhetoric, increasing incidents of violence and provocation” in Bangladesh – somewhat aligning MEA’s position to what some section of Indian media was propagating following Bangladesh’s July-August uprising.
The MEA statement has now emboldened India’s mainstream media and the ultra-nationalist groups to bandwagon a similar narrative. They will try to establish MEA’s “wrong decision” concerning the July-August uprising in Bangladesh.
India’s scheme of “rhetorical adduction” toward Bangladesh, tends to fit and fuel two larger narratives. First, India’s “wrong decision” to remain ambiguous about Bangladesh’s student-led uprising seems to fit into what Ajit Doval once said: “I don’t always take right decision, I just take decision and work really hard to make that decision right.”
Second, it tends to fuel the ultra-nationalist narrative of an “undivided India.” In May 2023, India placed a mural-map depicting Akhand Bharat (undivided India), a pet theme of ultra-Hindu nationalists, first articulated by Radha Kumud Mookerji in 1944, in its newly inaugurated Parliament building. It was followed by a tweet “The resolve is clear. Akhand Bharat” by India’s Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi. The map includes territories of present-day Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh and promoted reactions, including the placement of the “Greater Nepal” mural by the mayor of Kathmandu.
The recent Hindu nationalists chanting in the streets of Kolkata demanding to annex some bordering districts of Bangladesh may inspire a similar pipe dream in Bangladesh, if not the idea of placing a map of “undivided Bengal” in any public location. If anything, the unprecedented attacks on Bangladesh’s deputy high commission first in Kolkata, West Bengal and more recently, the Consular office in Agartala, Tripura – are in clear violations of the Vienna Convention, reflecting a reality, a new low in India/Bangladesh relations.
Some informed Indian analysts and commentators have, in the recent past, criticized and questioned the MEA approach describing India’s foreign policy towards Bangladesh as putting “all eggs in one [read Sheikh Hasina’s] basket.” They recommended taking a people-centric instead of a regime-centric approach in the conduct of foreign policy, which has been missing vis-à-vis India/Bangladesh relations during the last decade and a half of Hasina’s India-tilted rule.
Sadly, and presumably induced by the MEA’s rhetorical abduction such limited but staid criticism of India’s regime-centric over people-centric policy has now taken the back seat.
It will not be surprising to see vocal contributions by some Bangladeshi/West Bengal “commentators” supporting MEA’s narrative, raising the tension further between the two neighbours once regarded by India as a “model for bilateral relationship in the region and beyond.”
The path ahead for Bangladesh
So, where do we go from here? The way forward to fight the false narrative is largely in the hands of Bangladeshi polity.
First, the Bangladeshi polity needs to have absolute national unity on the issue of sovereignty and political independence.
The political divide based on the party we support or align ourselves with needs to be kept aside, especially in these trying times when the country’s sovereignty and dignity are under attack. Some of our hesitation and rhetorical expression to accept that the July-Aug uprising reflected a genuine people’s aspiration and was not imposed on us by external actors plays in the hands of India’s false narrative and their mission of de-legitimizing the government and subsequent isolation. The time to accept the truth and unite under it is now.
Second, to secure national unity, we need to initiate – though a bit late – a truth and reconciliation process. This would facilitate creating a space for those who are patriot at heart but are struggling to accept the truth due to their past affiliations or alignments to get the opportunity to reflect and remedy mistakes and unite for the cause of the country. The “cancel culture” through media trials can be reduced if we establish a due process for truth and reconciliation.
Third, and most importantly, the military needs to avoid falling into the trap of India’s mission of “Making the Real” while remaining firm and fixed in their “in aid to civil power” role to bring stability and security. Any attempt or provocation to deviate from this path would be disingenuous and counterproductive for long-term national unity and interest.
In sum, India’s “rhetorical adduction” leading to policy change largely lies in the susceptibility and value of the audience that India aims to adduce. For now, India seems to have targeted the U.S. audience and some sections of the American polity including President-elect Trump who seem to have fallen prey to the Indian false narratives on Bangladesh, at least temporarily. Even though there are strong Indian lobbyists within and outside the U.S. establishment India’s falsehood may not last that long especially if the IG and Bangladesh civil society make concerted efforts to educate the U.S. of the facts on the ground so the U.S. knows that if India’s actions based on false premises destabilise Bangladesh, the geopolitical repercussions would be anything but favourable to the U.S. This gives Bangladesh some crucial time to act on the three ‘way outs’ listed above.
One promising sign is that our domestic polity, including the military, has rejected the Indian narrative and backs the IG fully. This is evidenced by, not just the statements of the grieving father of Advocate Saiful Islam, allegedly slain by the followers of a former ISKCON leader calling for calm and unity but also the Army Chief’s pledge during a rare interview with Reuters: “I will stand beside him [Prof Yunus]. Come what may. So that he can accomplish his mission.”
For India, addressing the fractured South Asian solidarity urgently needs her to dispense the mindset that South Asia’s problem is India’s problem and India’s internal problem is not South Asia’s problem – to paraphrase Dr Jaishankar’s famous quote in the European Context. And revitalizing the SAARC would be a wise step towards that direction.