Another Anti-India Wave Sweeps Bangladesh – The Diplomat

On June 10, hundreds of individuals marched in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, to protest derogatory feedback made by two officers of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) about Prophet Muhammad. Indignant protesters urged Muslim-majority nations to chop ties with India and boycott its merchandise until the 2 have been punished for defaming Prophet Muhammad.

In contrast to the governments of different Muslim-majority international locations, Bangladesh’s Awami League authorities has remained silent on the offensive feedback made by the BJP leaders.

“To start with, that is an exterior challenge [for Bangladesh]. That is the problem of India, not of Bangladesh. We don’t should say something,” Bangladesh’ Minister of Data Hasan Mahmud mentioned.

The Hasina authorities’s silence on the controversial challenge has angered Bangladesh’s Islamists, who’ve urged the federal government to protest formally.

The mass protests in Bangladesh in opposition to the offensive feedback of BJP leaders sign one other surge in anti-India sentiment in Bangladesh.

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Comparable protests erupted when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Bangladesh in March 2021 to take part within the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of its independence. Many Islamist events protested his go to resulting from his actions and insurance policies which are marginalizing Muslims in India. The protests, which turned violent killed at the least 4 and injured 40 others.

Traditionally, India and Bangladesh have loved heat relations. India supported Bangladesh’s battle for liberation from Pakistan and supplied thousands and thousands of Bangladeshis with sanctuary throughout the conflict. Many nonetheless really feel gratitude for India’s help in 1971.

Nonetheless, there are others who imagine that India helped Bangladesh to additional its personal curiosity; to weaken and break up Pakistan. A mirrored image of this pondering is discovered within the narratives of the extremist group, Ansar Al Islam, based on which Bangladesh’s conflict for independence was an Indian plot to weaken the Muslim place in South Asia.

Though India helped Bangladesh emerge an impartial nation, anti-India sentiment started to develop inside years of its liberation. In 1976, protests erupted in Bangladesh over the problem of the sharing of the waters of the River Ganges, a transboundary river that flows from India to Bangladesh.

Bangladeshi political scientists have drawn consideration to India’s “problematic relations with all its rapid neighbors (besides tiny Maldives).” India’s neighbors “like to hate India,” Taj Hashmi, a professor of safety research wrote in Each day Star, and identified that “Bangladesh isn’t an exception on this regard.” “For all the proper and improper causes, many pro-independence, liberal, secular and left-oriented Bangladeshis turned anti-Indian, not lengthy after the Liberation. They imputed the post-Liberation socio-economic and political crises [facing Bangladesh] to India’s colonial designs and ambitions.”

There are a number of points that bother India-Bangladesh bilateral relations. Foremost amongst these are long-running disputes over the sharing of waters of the Teesta and Tipaimukh. Some analysts described the dispute over the sharing of the Teesta’s waters as “a protracted struggling inflicted by India.”

One other challenge, which has impacted Bangladesh’s notion of India are the killings of Bangladeshi nationals by Indian border guards. In July 2019, Bangladesh’s residence minister knowledgeable parliament that 294 Bangladeshis had been killed by India’s Border Safety Pressure within the previous decade. This has resulted in India shedding Bangladeshi goodwill.

Other than these festering bilateral points, India’s alleged interference within the inside affairs of Bangladesh is stirring anger. India allegedly “armed, skilled and sheltered hundreds of Shanti Bahini guerrillas to bleed Bangladesh” for twenty years as much as the late Nineties.

A number of individuals who I interviewed for my doctoral analysis between 2017 and 2019 mentioned that occasions in India have an effect on individuals in Bangladesh. Violent protests in Bangladesh over Modi’s discriminatory insurance policies and legal guidelines concentrating on Muslims and the more moderen offensive feedback about Islam are examples of such impression.

Regardless of the mass protests to the BJP authorities’s anti-Muslim insurance policies and actions, the Bangladesh authorities has been silent.

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With Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina scheduled to go to India in July this 12 months, it’s possible that the federal government is reluctant to ruffle feathers in Delhi forward of that go to. Moreover, her authorities is below stress from the U.S. and Japan to carry free and truthful elections which are scheduled for 2023. She might be seeking to India for help on the matter.