BJP’s Assam, W. Bengal wins may impact India-B’desh ties

It remains to be seen whether the Prime Minister will be able to keep a tight leash on the more radical elements of his party and base

Veteran politician Dinesh Trivedi’s crucial assignment as New Delhi’s man in Dhaka to improve recently fragile Indo-Bangladesh ties just got more challenging. He could be severely handicapped by the recent poll outcome in Assam and West Bengal, both bordering Bangladesh, further consolidating the BJP’s stranglehold on the north-eastern state and sweeping to power for the first time in the only remaining Opposition citadel in the East.

Normally, this should not have disrupted tentative efforts by the Modi government and the newly elected BNP administration to make a fresh diplomatic start repairing a relationship badly damaged in the post-Hasina period. But the BJP victories in both states were largely fuelled by Hindu consolidation against large Muslim minorities, many of them considered Bangladeshi infiltrators.

The problem was aggravated by the inflammatory anti-Bangladesh rhetoric spouted by the two top BJP leaders in Assam and Bengal, Himanta Biswas Sharma and Subhendu Adhikari, respectively. Sharma has already provoked the new Bangladesh government led by Atiqur Rehman by shooting his mouth off in recent weeks in an interview with the ABP news channel.

“We like it when India-Bangladesh relations are not good,” Sarma said during the interview. “Because when relations are good, the Indian government also does not want to push back [undocumented migrants]. Therefore, people of Assam feel good when there is a hostile atmosphere between India and Bangladesh…When there is a friendly atmosphere, all things become loose.”

Not surprisingly, the BNP government took public umbrage at the Assam chief minister’s incendiary remarks rubbishing the improvement of bilateral ties. Significantly, the new administration merely summoned the acting Indian High Commissioner and made an official protest but did not make a major issue underlining the keenness of Dhaka to keep relations with New Delhi on an even keel. It is not known whether Sarma was taken to task by either the Prime Minister or the Home Minister. 

Bengal’s BJP star and new Chief Minister, Shubhendu Adhikari, has, like Sarma, persistently campaigned to deport Muslim minorities across the border. His most controversial remark about Bangladesh came while demonstrating outside the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission office in Calcutta some months ago, protesting against atrocities on Hindus in Bangladesh.

“These people must be taught a lesson just like Israel taught Gaza. Our 100 crore Hindus and the government working for Hindus must teach them a lesson just like we taught Pakistan a lesson with Operation Sindoor,” shrieked an agitated Adhikhari, Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly. The shocking remarks drew condemnation from leaders and the media in both Bangladesh and India. 

More importantly, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who had a few years ago threatened to “throw out termites from Bangladesh”, made a significant remark that could impact the slowly healing Indo-Bangladesh ties. According to India Today, Shah, while congratulating Adhikari on becoming Chief Minister, declared, “The BJP’s victory in Bengal is not an expansion of our organisation or validation of ideology but about national security,” referring to the influx of Bangladeshi illegal immigrants.

There is also a volatile situation in districts on both sides of the border in West Bengal and Assam. As many as 17 parliamentary constituencies that were won by the overtly communal anti-Indian Jamaat in the February Bangladesh elections are directly adjacent to 26 assembly constituencies swept by the BJP in the Bengal elections.

The Jamaat, which won the vast majority of its record 70 seats in this year’s election in districts bordering West Bengal and Assam, had, through its Islamist youth wing Chatra Shivir, spearheaded the anti-Indian and communal prong of the students’ movement against Begum Hasina that ousted her from power two years ago and forced her to flee to India. It is also suspected of instigating violence and destruction against Hindu minority families and their homes in that country. 

Although the BNP managed to score a runaway victory in February, thwarting the Jamaat’s chances of seizing power in Dhaka, its emergence as the principal opposition party with strongholds across the border with India makes it a potent force on the ground. The party remains not only an Islamist organisation but also has covert and overt links to domestic and global jihadist groups like Ansarullah Bangla and Jamaat-ul-Mujahiddin Bangladesh. It is also supposed to have facilitated Pakistan-backed terror groups, like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, to expand their networks in Bangladesh, building sleeper cells, funding conduits, and covert operational bases. 

Unfortunately, on the other side of the border, local BJP hotheads and their extremist outfits like the Bajrang Dal are pumped up by their complete sweep of the border districts based on a communally charged campaign against Bangladeshi infiltrators that their leaders claim are as many as 15 million. It may be difficult for the BJP authorities at the state or central levels to squash the hopes of Hindus living next to the border after promising to push supposed Bangladeshi illegals they have so long demonised.

While a double-engine BJP government in Calcutta may well facilitate better policing on the border and possibly the erection of a proper fence to stop any further infiltration, the much more serious problem is how to resolve with Bangladesh the alleged infiltrators who are already here.

Bangladesh has already clearly warned that it would firmly respond to what it described as “any such push in operations” in a statement by its foreign minister, Khalilur Rehman, before leaving for China. He also said that he would be discussing with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, not just further developing their close bilateral relationship but also seeking his country’s participation in the pending Teesta River water sharing agreement between India and Bangladesh. Currently, the new Bangladeshi rulers are boosted with simultaneous support from Beijing, Washington, and Islamabad, so New Delhi clearly has a huge stake in keeping Dhaka happy.

It remains to be seen in a world of immense political and economic turmoil where India is struggling to keep afloat whether the Prime Minister will be able to keep a tight leash on the more radical elements of his party and base. It will be a tough choice between the demands of geopolitical strategy and his party’s core domestic agenda to consolidate political power among the Hindu majority through a communal bogey.

AJOY BOSE