Modi’s tweet and Bangladesh’s relation with India

DECEMBER 16 is a day of enormous pride and joy for the people of Bangladesh. They celebrate it as a red-letter day. On this day in 1971, Pakistan’s genocidal army surrendered to the joint command of the Indian armed forces and the Bangladesh Mukti Bahini that liberated Bangladesh as an independent and sovereign country and ended the enormous sufferings of the people of Bangladesh. The Pakistan army, before surrendering, killed hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children and drove 10 million Bangladeshis into India for fear of their lives.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi who uses Twitter for getting his message to Indians posted on his Twitter feed a message to mark December 16 in a manner that has been a direct snub at Bangladesh’s most important historical day and the people of Bangladesh. His tweet read: ‘On Vijay Diwas we recall the unwavering courage of our armed forces that resulted in a decisive victory for our nation in the 1971 war. On this special Vijay Diwas, had the honour of lighting the “Swarnim Vijay Mashaal” at the National War Memorial.’

The tweet ignored the following facts. First, December 16 marks the surrender of the eastern command of the Pakistan armed forces to the joint command of the Indian and Bangladesh forces, also called the Mitra Bahini. Second, Bangladesh was the main theatre of the 1971 India-Pakistan war. Third, the surrender ceremony also marked Bangladesh’s Victory Day as it liberated Bangladesh and established it as an independent and sovereign country. Finally, December 16, 1971 also ended Bangladesh’s nine-month war of liberation during which Mukti Bahini fought the occupation forces of Pakistan and the people of Bangladesh suffered one of the worst artificial calamities and tragedies in modern history.

The 1971 India-Pakistan war was also fought in what was then West Pakistan but that war also came to an end with the surrender of the 93,000 Pakistanis, military and civilian, in Bangladesh. The Indian prime minister’s tweet was, nevertheless, in denial of the more relevant context of the war that the events that occurred in and about Bangladesh were more relevant to the third India-Pakistan war. Therefore, the Indian prime minister’s tweet that was in complete denial of the relevance of December 16 to Bangladesh has rightfully raised the eyebrows of the people of Bangladesh. It was an incomplete and misleading narrative of the 1971 India-Pakistan war. It was also a narrative that hurt the people of Bangladesh as one of the most insensitive acts coming from New Delhi since Bangladesh’s independence.

The Indian prime minister was, no doubt, aware of the history of the Bangladesh liberation war and what it meant to its people when he posted the tweet. His insensitive tweet has, therefore, also raised questions about his intent in Bangladesh. He was, of course, well within his rights to honour and glorify the action of the Indian armed forces many of whose brave soldiers were killed in the war with Pakistan out of which Bangladesh was born. Nevertheless, the Indians did not earn that victory over Pakistan in Bangladesh alone; they did so because of the bravery of the Mukti Bahini that started the war on March 26, 1971.

India supported and helped Mukti Bahini and guided it closely from the start of Bangladesh’s war of liberation. The latter, in turn, weakened Pakistan’s occupation army and pushed it to the brink of defeat. India formally joined hands with Mukti Bahini in the end of November 1971 and formed the Mukti Bahini-Indian armed forces joint command or Mitra Bahini that fought together and defeated the Pakistan army. Bangladeshis, nevertheless, believe that Mukti Bahini, with the country united behind it like a monolith, would have defeated the Pakistan army eventually if it was left to fight alone but on a longer timeframe than the nine months it did with the Indian army’s support. That would have spared the country from the divisiveness that has become the country’s most difficult political problem ever since it became independent.

Major Indian newspapers also covered December 16 this year in the same way as prime minister Narendra Modi’s tweet, ignoring the contribution of Mukti Bahini and the people of Bangladesh in the defeat of the Pakistan army. They highlighted and glorified the role of the Indian armed forces, denying history. Pakistanis started the war on December 3, 1971 in West Pakistan by launching airstrikes on 11 airbases there for a ceasefire at the UN to work out an exit from Bangladesh where defeat was staring them in their face. The Indians pre-empted that move. They forced Pakistan to surrender in Bangladesh where Mukti Bahini and the people of Bangladesh created the conditions for their surrender through their nine-month war of liberation.

Narendra Modi’s tweet and the coverage of the Indian media of 16 December this year are significant. Perhaps, India now wants to establish that Bangladesh became independent in 1971 because of its intervention alone to undermine the role of Mukti Bahini and the contributions of the people of Bangladesh which would be a gross distortion of history. Perhaps, these developments reflect the current strains in Bangladesh-India relations where India’s influence in Bangladesh is on the declining trajectory while significantly that of China, on the upward trajectory, a lot of it is not obvious because China conducts bilateral relations at the macro level.

Narendra Modi and Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina held their virtual summit a day after the Indian prime minister’s insensitive tweet. The summit was mundane both on the agenda and the outcome even after giving due consideration that it was held with the pandemic raging in both the countries. India showed no interest in discussing the most important issue from Bangladesh’s side, namely the sharing of the waters of the common rivers, in particular the Teesta deal that India has kept pending since 2011.

India again assured Bangladesh that it would deliver the Teesta deal soon, for the umpteenth time. Sheikh Hasina assured India on coming to power in January 2009 that Bangladesh would not allow Indian secessionists such as ULFA to use its territory as a sanctuary for attacks in India’s northeastern states. She also gave India land transit to connect mainland India with its northeast, renamed connectivity to tide over sensitivities in Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina did not tie these major concessions to reciprocity. She gave it at great political risk with the vision to bring about a paradigm shift in Bangladesh-India relations, no doubt, hoping as the bigger and much more powerful neighbour India would move positively on issues of interests to Bangladesh, namely on water sharing, trade and border killings.

Sheikh Hasina personally ensured that both the concessions that she gave India were implemented, particularly the security assurance and they have been. Thus India’s promise of ‘soon’ again on the Teesta deal may allude to the fact that it may no longer be serious about keeping the promise. Perhaps, India is focusing on the ‘China factor’ in Bangladesh’s politics and unhappy about it; perhaps, the Indian prime minister’s insensitive tweet and the Indian media’s denial of the significance of December 16 to Bangladesh reflect the fact that India is moving away from the history of 1971 because of Bangladesh’s move towards China.

Then, there is the issue of Hindutva and its importance to Narendra Modi’s BJP-led government. There are also two major state elections coming in the second quarter of the next year, in West Bengal and Assam, where Bangladesh and its overwhelmingly Muslim majority will figure as fodder for the BJP’s Hindu fundamentalist base. All these developing factors do not augur well for Bangladesh-India relations. They point to a major shift in the offing where China will become a major factor. The Indian prime minister’s tweet may have signaled the shift.

This article was first published in New Age.

"December 16, 1971, is more than a date—it symbolizes the resilience of a nation, the bravery of Mukti Bahini, and the collective sacrifices of the people of Bangladesh in their pursuit of independence and sovereignty."

Image credit: মঈনুল, CC BY-SA 3.0