India's capacity to influence Sheikh Hasina is at an all-time low since 'Iron Lady' sees a Chinese veto in UN Security Council more useful than Indian support
Bangladesh’s parliamentary elections, scheduled for January 7, poses an existential challenge to the ruling Awami League and the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). It provides a window of opportunity to the leading Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, whose registration was cancelled by the Election Commission and whose appeal to restore it failed due to a determined legal challenge by lawyer Barrister Tania Amir, representing liberal Islamic groups.
But despite that failure, the Jamaat has secretly put together four secret hit groups (Azam Squad, Raojan Squad, Al Hazrat Squad and Jamatul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya) for extensive violence and managed to come up with a covert Kashmir-style United Jihad Council, say Bangladesh and Indian intelligence officials. This makes it attractive to all concerned interested in mayhem politics (Awami League if it wants to create a situation to justify Emergency, BNP if it has to go for big time violence to oust the Awami League, the US for similar reasons, and obviously Pakistan and hardliners in the Islamic world).
For India, the binary of only two possible electoral outcomes – Awami League or the BNP-Jamaat coalition – limits space for manoeuvre, not the least because its strategic partner, the US, appears determined to oust Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League from power. This leaves New Delhi with the prospect of an Islamist coalition in Dhaka.
Hasina accused the first BJP government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee of backing the BNP-Jamaat coalition and bringing down her government through a RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) operation six years ago but India's experience with her bete noire Khaleda Zia (prime minister between 2001-2006) was less than happy due to terror strikes in eastern and north-eastern India by Bangladesh-based Islamist radicals or ethnic separatists.
India's concerns
Hasina has firmly addressed India's security and connectivity concerns through tough counterterrorism and transit and coastal shipping agreements that help the Indian mainland to connect easily to the northeast. But that started to change course over Indian failures to settle the river water sharing treaties and to keep up the show of distance from a right-wing Hindutva party.
So, although India is clearly unwilling to hedge its bets with BNP, it is clearly uncomfortable with Hasina's recent failure to check the rising power of a strong Islamist lobby in the Awami League shepherded by Hasina's adviser Salman F Rahman and information minister Hasan Mahmud. They have managed to corner maximum electoral nominations in the party, easing out known pro-Indian personalities strongly wedded to the legacy of the 1971 Liberation War.
The choice of a relative non-entity like Salauddin Chuppu (backed by Salman Rahman's Beximco and Masood's S Alam group) as president over the India-backed Liberation war veteran and former industry minister Amir Hossain Amu is a case in point.
Some 69 of the 300 Awami League candidates recently allotted party ticket have a history of activism in Islamist parties like the Jamaat while 48 are businesspersons with strong trade links to China.
Rahman’s clout
The buzz in Dhaka is that this group of lawmakers who might get elected in a possibly controversial (read manipulated) election will pitch for Salman Rahman as deputy prime minister and his cronies in all key ministries – a point strongly driven home when Rahman, and not finance minister Mostafa "Lotus" Kamal, attended the Global Economic Policy Forum in Delhi recently.
Party insiders say Rahman has complete control over Prime Minister Hasina and is often referred to as de facto prime minister, not the least because the prime minister’s son, Sajeed Wajed Joy, shares strong business partnership with the Rahmans. Their flagship company Beximco and its subsidiaries put out huge paid advertisements for observing Pakistan Independence Day on August 14, trampling over Bangladeshi sensibilities over the 1971 genocide.
Hasina may have pleased powers in Delhi by concluding a power purchase agreement with the Adanis that Bangladesh business circles say has been done at grossly inflated rates, but India's national security and diplomatic establishment are clearly worried over the future outlook of having to back a trusted ally increasingly turning towards China for external support to ward off US pressures and Islamists for domestic political manoeuvres.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, India becomes increasingly unpopular with Bangladeshis over Hasina, who the people blame for denying them a fair election in 2013-2014 and 2018-2019 and for mind-boggling corruption and uncontrollable price rise. At the same time, New Delhi gets increasingly marginalised in Hasina's decision-making priorities.
India’s shadow
India's capacity to influence Hasina is at an all-time low. This is because the "Iron Lady" sees a Chinese veto in the UN Security Council more useful than promised Indian support to get back to power, what with New Delhi facing US pressure over an FBI indictment over an alleged murder attempt of Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. New Delhi's ability to influence Hasina is directly linked to India's influence within the Awami League – if India's preferred ones are eased out systematically in Dhaka, it has fewer people in her cabinet to block, for example, the Chinese near-total penetration of Bangladesh's telecom and infrastructure sector (projects such the Chinese-funded dregding of Teesta river), which has serious ramifications for India.
With the US backing the Islamist coalition to intensify its street agitations to topple Hasina and simultaneously pressuring India to get Hasina to step down and with both Delhi and Dhaka caught in panic and confusion, it is clearly round one to Washington in the battle for Dhaka. Both Beijing and Delhi are on the defensive and strangely finding themselves on the same page over a key regional issue.
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