It is obvious that the campaign of India-out or boycott India won’t be successful in Bangladesh. The reason for this is the high preference for Indian goods among the masses mainly due to the quality and affordable price of the Indian products. But the people who initiated this campaign through social media did not give a solution to the entire population of the country that how to cook without the Indian spices, onions from India, make finished cloths without Indian cotton, they only advised the people to avoid Indian branded products.
The social media influencers also advised the people not to visit India for medical tourism, as that is also a kind helping India economically. The whole thing started after the Awami League again came to power and the opposition kept on repeating their rhetoric that India has again helped Hasina Govt. to get into power and it is destroying democracy in Bangladesh. The most astonishing fact is the widespread support the campaign (at least through social media) by the masses, indicates something very serious. One may also say that a big section of the people always had anti-India feelings.
The support from the masses reached such a level that even the opposition parties like BNP were a kind of bound to join it officially and even one of their leaders publicly burnt his Kashmiri Shawl in public. Since then, the matter has been heavily discussed in the mainstream media and the anti-India statements are openly and very profoundly given. Importantly, no one (or no expert) could explain both on social media and on mainstream media that how India is helping Awami League to win elections and where is the proof?? It looks like that starting from the rickshaw-wala to eminent lawyers to politicians in Bangladesh is aware that India is destroying their democracy and India is against Bangladesh but nobody states HOW. As if, a big section of public is always ready for bashing India whenever they get an opportunity.
On the other hand, the largest opposition party BNP has shied away from contesting elections, as per them, the ruling party had the plans to sabotage the elections and there was no point in fighting an election. The party even before the elections asked for formation of an interim government to conduct the elections. But BNP must remember that they also denied such concept, when it was in power. And, a political party speaking on democracy and not participating in elections indicates that either it does not believe in the power of public opinion or it has not yet understood the very principles of democracy.
Rather it has chosen an easy way of fuelling popular anti-India sentiments among the masses and to be in public memory. The BNP should also remember that during their rule, Bangladesh had become safe-haven for anti-India insurgent groups and a huge consignment of arms and ammunitions (ready to be used by anti-India insurgent groups) was captured and it was Shaikh Hasina who had destroyed all the insurgent camps and she also ensured that the soil of Bangladesh is not used for anti-India activities anymore. This means, the BNP also could have done it however, they nurtured or helped anti-India groups who worked under their nose. BNP has always been pro Pakistan and pro-China, so it is obvious that India will be least preferred, though the nation is surrounded by India.
The intellectuals of Bangladesh has been objecting about a few things for decades, regarding the proper distribution of Ganga water, settlement of the issue related to Tista river water, killing of its citizen at the border areas by BSF and now, issues related to India getting more benefits than Bangladesh for easy transit of Indian goods transported to Northeast India through Bangladesh. It is also true that there are and there will be some issues with countries sharing huge borders. River water sharing is a real challenge between the two nations. But as far as the killing of people by BSF is concerned, people of Bangladesh must know this, as per the BSF this is due to illegal immigrations. Northeast India and the state of West Bengal has been facing the big problem of illegal influx of people from Bangladesh (both Hindus and Muslims).
The mass migration into India since Bangladesh's independence has led to the creation of anti-foreigner movements, social tensions in Northeast India and creations of accords, acts and rules for identifying the illegal migrants. In Northeast Indian states the fast demographic change could easily be understood with a large number of Bengali speaking population. The Hindu migration started from 1947 (year of partition of India) as it was East Pakistan and then during the military regime in Bangladesh it is understandable that Hindus felt insecure and came to India but how come the Bengali speaking Muslim population increased in such large numbers in Northeast India, causing huge social issues where the ethnic people of these states started to become almost a minority.
The reasons for migration of Muslims are economic in nature. In recent years implementation of NRC or National Registrar for Citizenship (applicable for both Hindu and Muslims) only for the state of Assam is self-explanatory. Importantly, Government of India assured Hasina Government that this is an internal matter of India and nobody will be deported to Bangladesh as a result of NRC. Then in a major breakthrough both the governments resolved the long pending land boundary agreement and the enclaves were exchanged, here Bangladesh got more land and India had to take more people, as the people living in these enclaves were given a choice.
During Covid situation, India supplied a big lot of free vaccines to Bangladesh when its own people were not fully vaccinated. In recent past, as per the government details, Bilateral trade has crossed remarkable level with the duty-free access given by India to Bangladesh for all items except 25. Two border haats are already operational with a few more on the anvil along the India-Bangladesh border. Investment by Indian companies (Airtel, CEAT, Marico etc.) in Bangladesh continues to grow with the signing of bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection agreement. For the first time in their post-independence history, India and Bangladesh have established inter-grid connectivity for the flow of bulk power from India to Bangladesh. A 400 KV line constructed by Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd and Power Grid Company of Bangladesh in the Eastern sector – Baharampur in India to Bheramara in Bangladesh with the load capacity of 500 MW has been established.
India has always stood by Bangladesh in its hour of need with aid and economic assistance to help it cope with natural disasters and floods. To express India's sympathy at the loss of lives and destruction as a result of cyclone 'Sidr' which hit the Bangladesh coastal areas in November 2007, the then External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee visited Bangladesh in December 2007. He also visited the cyclone-hit areas and expressed India's sympathy to the affected people of Bangladesh in their hour of need. Prior to the visit, India had declared an elaborate aid package. Aid worth over Taka 250 crore (over US $ 37 million), including supply of relief materials consisting of medicines, tents, blankets, ready-to-eat meals, portable water-purifiers, 1,000 MT of skimmed milk powder and 40,000 MT of rice was handed over to Bangladesh.
The Government of India also worked with the Government of Bangladesh for rehabilitation of ten cyclone-affected villages in the southern part of Bangladesh. India has also completed and handed over 2,800 core shelters in the affected villages in Bagerhat district in southern Bangladesh. Similarly, 2800 solar lamps have also been handed over to the beneficiaries of these core shelter houses. Similarly, Taka 230 million in the form of relief goods comprising clothing, water purification equipment and dry food was also supplied to Bangladesh after 1991 cyclone, which killed more than 1,35,000 Bangladeshi nationals. The Government of India has also been providing grant assistance to Bangladesh for various infrastructure projects including, construction of Akhaura-Agartala rail link, dredging of inland waterways in Bangladesh and construction of India- Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline.
Several intellectuals in Bangladesh has also been reacting on the Citizenship Amendment Act or the CAA terming it to be anti-Muslim but they must understand that this act is about giving citizenship and not about taking back anyone’s citizenship. It states about giving citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Christians, who migrated to India from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh (who are minorities in these nations), as the subcontinent was partitioned on the basis of religion. Therefore, this has nothing to do with Indian Muslims also who are already citizens of India.
This is of course a matter of political debate in India but Bangladesh and Pakistan has nothing to comment on it, who now has almost negligible minority population. Rather Bangladesh should introspect that how the minority population in the country has declined, which was about 30% at the time of partition, above 15% in free Bangladesh and is now below 8%, whereas, the minority population in India has increased from time to time.
Many social media influencers and the experts in TV debates do not discuss about all these aspects and are misleading the masses. These debates hardly have any Indian representation to put the Indian perspective. There were elements in Bangladesh, albeit to a limited extent, that supported Pakistan and were very anti-India, which led to the partition of India in 1947, it seems that the ghost of the two-nation theory of the 40s is still playing its part.
Boddhisatya Tarafdar: History Researcher & Geopolitical Observer from Kolkata
(Opinions and writings expressed in the Point-Counterpoint section are the sole responsibility of the author and are not associated with the editorial policy of Barta24.com)