ISBN: 9789394915916 Edition: First
Year of Publication: 2024 KW Publishers Hardback 270 pp Rs. 1410
By Ghulam Suhrawardi 10 April 2024
Pinak Chakravarty is a visiting fellow of the Observer Research Foundation’s (ORF) Regional Studies Initiative. ORF presents itself as an independent global think tank based in Delhi, India. It has branches in Chennai, Mumbai, and Kolkata. In this regard, it is also important to mention that Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Group, a key ally of Modi and his sectarian BJP political party, is one of ORF’s key backers.
Among his many important credentials, one of Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty’s key milestones is serving as Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh from 2007 to 2009. After Bangladesh, Mr. Chakravarty served as India’s Ambassador to Thailand (2010 to 2011). Toward the end of his diplomatic career, Mr. Chakravarty served as Special Secretary (Public Diplomacy) in Delhi before being appointed Secretary (Economic Relations) in the MEA. He retired from service in September 2013.
Mr. Chakravarty is a regular contributor to newspapers, journals, and books.
Pinak Chakravarty served in Bangladesh at a crucial time when several dramatic events took place, the time, an election year, when the country witnessed a de facto military coup and take-over in the guise of a care-taker government. Many argue, and not without justification, that Mr. Chakravarty and the country that he represented did not have a cozy relationship with the departing BNP and might have played on behalf of his government in the takeover and the inner workings of the transitional military government.
The then Foreign Minister and later, India’s President Pranab Mukherjee in his book The Coalition Years, stated that he had a close relationship with the then opposition leader, Sheikh Hasina of Awami League and that, if Hasina returned to power, he assured the then coup leader, General Moyeen U Ahmed, the Bangladesh army Chief and leader of the coup who initially took both Begum Khaleda Zia, the departing Prime Minister and Shiekh Hasina on corruption charges, that he would ensure no harm is done to the Chief.
The 2008 election, which several observers had claimed was “free but not fair,” brought Sheikh Hasina to power in 2009 and has remained in power ever since. Three more elections have followed since 2009, all of which were rigged, and many suspect with Indian help.
This is the backdrop of Pinak Chakravarty’s presence and the role he might have played then, as the High Commissioner of India in Bangladesh, at a time when Mr. Pranab Mukherjee was India’s Foreign Minister who by his own admission played a key role in the internal affairs of Bangladesh at the time. This makes Mr. Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty’s book, Transformation: Emergence of Bangladesh and Evolution of India-Bangladesh Ties, an interesting, if not a curious reading.
In his book, Mr. Chakravarty summarized the domestic development in Bangladesh and its impact on bilateral ties. He traces the history of Bengal, the Partition, and the birth of Bangladesh as a new nation in the subcontinent. He also discussed the political turmoil that ensued with the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first President of the independent nation – Mujib inspired the liberation struggle and is popularly called Bangabandhu (Friend of Bengal), who is also the father of the nation.
The book covers the period he served as the High Commissioner of India in Bangladesh, 2007-2009 when Bangladesh was embroiled in a number of crises, including political intervention by the military, the conflict between secularism and Islamist nationalism (this coincided with West-initiated Islamophobia), the ethnic separatist Chakma revolt in South East of Bangladesh, and communal tensions, risking Bangladesh’s democratic journey, and sustaining the amazing economic recovery that Bangladesh had by then achieved and was transforming itself from “international Basket Case” to a miracle economy.
The Book duly acknowledges these political and economic dynamics and discusses the complex India/Bangladesh relations at great length and in particular, the book pays glowing tribute to Prime Minister PM Sheikh Hasina’s remarkable contributions to transforming and strengthening Bangladesh/India relations and, arguing that with yet another 5-year term (thanks to rigged elections and India’s blessings she has already served 3-terms since 2009), she will guide and cement further Bangladesh’s future policies and ties with India. The book’s twelve chapters mainly delve into India’s interests and perspectives of the India-Bangladesh ties.
The book was launched on March 28, 2024, at the meeting room of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) that included an interactive session in which several speakers, including the former Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh, Mr. Shahidul Haque, participated.
While recounting his own experiences in Bangladesh and the vital role India played in shaping the politics of Bangladesh, Mr. Chakravarty explains how these Indian interventions that occurred during 2007-2009 that secured and entrenched the Hasina government that served India’s interest are paying dividends even now. For example, Mr. Chakravarty elaborated on how India’s intervention in Bangladesh’s most recent elections, held on January 7, 2023, staved off America’s insistence on and demand for free and fair elections. Indeed, thanks to India’s forceful intervention, the overactive US Ambassador Peter Hass, who enthusiastically canvassed for a free and fair election and supported, albeit indirectly, the opposition’s demand for a non-party caretaker government to hold elections, was eventually subdued and silenced, and his and opposition’s demand for a caretaker government was never met.
The January 7, 2023 elections were held under the supervision of the government which the opposition boycotted the election with the result that the ruling party has “won” yet another election as they have been since 2009, turning Bangladesh into a virtual one-party authoritarian system with all the paraphernalia of democracy and as could be expected an India-compliant state.
In the context of the above, when someone asked Mr. Chakravarty during the book launch whether the absence of opposition in the election had not challenged its legitimacy, he answered, “..if the opposition does not participate in the election, it does not negate the winner, the Awami League …and it is not fair to blame the winning party”, while carefully avoiding the context that dissuaded the opposition from participating.
Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty’s behind-the-scenes role during the critical military transition government of Bangladesh’s pre-2009 election is a point of contention with opposition leaders. The group also questions Indian President (then Foreign Minister) Pranab Mukherjee’s role in influencing the takeover by their favorite in Bangladesh, the compliant Awami League, whose leader Shiekh Hasina once publicly claimed, “India can never pay back the favors I have given.”
The opposition parties in Bangladesh feel, and quite rightly, that thanks to the role India played via the then-Indian High Commissioner in Bangladesh, Mr. Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, Bangladesh has since transformed itself from a sovereign state to a virtual vassal state of the state that among other things have put India’s interest above those Bangladesh, the priority and shoved democracy in Bangladesh into oblivion.
People in Bangladesh are angry at India, which in recent times has given rise to a “Boycott India” movement where people are being encouraged to stop buying Indian products, and it is working.
As a matter of fact, if Mr. Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty’s book has done one favor to the people of Bangladesh, it would be that their suspicion that India’s not-so-invisible hands have been active since 2007 and counting in manipulating and catapulting a government of their choice which in the process has entrenched India in Bangladesh, economically and politically has been revealed adequately and eloquently.