Excellent Relations With Bangladesh Demand Tolerant Societies
Saeed
Naqvi
We have grown accustomed to
receiving greeting cards at the end of the year. That is why BJP stalwart Murli
Manohar Joshi’s beautifully inscribed New Year greetings marked April 14, the
first of Baishakh, always registered with me as no more than an eccentric
attachment to his pre historic agenda. But this year, upon my return from
Dhaka, when I found his annual greetings awaiting me in my office, it had a
meaning, a context – my abiding differences with him notwithstanding. I suspect,
he himself will find celebrations in Dhaka an eye opener.
Celebrating “Pahela Baishakh”,
the New Year, earlier this month in Dhaka was pure enchantment – exquisitely
choreographed dance, music, in chorus by hundreds in colourful kurtas and the
stately sari which, in Bangladesh, is the popular garb. And all in Ramna Park, the
vast maidan in the heart of Dhaka – masks of birds, animals, carnival like, in
a “Mangal Shobhjatra”, peace procession.
That the price of Hilsa,
Bangladesh’s national fish, shoots through the ceiling during this season is
sufficient evidence that Pahela Baishakh feasts continue in homes across the
country.
We found ourselves in the
residence of Mahfuz Anam, celebrated editor of Daily Star. Attendance at his
Pahela Baishakh party is in inverse proportion to his difficulties with Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina. But neither he nor Shaheen, his gracious wife, look any
the worse for the 84 cases Awami League workers have slapped on him across the
country’s 56 districts for a “crime” gaining regional popularity – “sedition”. Obviously,
the Anams are harassed, but much more worried should be the Prime Minister.
There is a growing perception of rising intolerance.
There was no trace of anxiety
on the face of Anam’s wife as she stood at the entrance welcoming guests. She had
a strip of “bindis” in her hand – which she put, with diligent care, on the
forehead of every woman who was without a bindi. Artists, writers, dancers,
senior bureaucrats and a cross section of the diplomatic corps, including the
US ambassador, elegant in a Dhaka sari – and a bindi.
Second track professionals
addicted to Pakistani hospitality must look eastwards for greater gastronomical
celebration – in Kolkata and Dhaka. Pakistanis almost make a statement with red
meat. Bengal, on both sides of the border, is blessed with its range of fish
and the cuisine handed down from Matia Burj outside Kolkata where the last
Nawab of Awadh, Wajid Ali Shah, was exiled in 1856 for 31 years. The sub
continent’s best biryani is available both in Kolkata and Dhaka.
The basic conflict in
Bangladesh is between modernism and Islamism. Bunched together as Jamaat e
Islami and Khaleda Zia’s BNP, the Islamists constitute about 30 percent of the
country living in an “Islamic” past, divorced from the magic of Pahela Baishakh.
On the eve of the festivities, clerics with Jamaat support, issued a “fatwa” declaring
Baishakh festivities as “haram” or impure.
It must never be forgotten
that in 30, out of its 45 years as a nation, Bangladesh has been under some
form of Army rule. During the remaining
15, BNP’s Khaleda Zia and Awami League’s Sheikh Hasina have been routinely quarrelling.
Who can blame an exasperated elite, indeed, the political class, dreaming up a
scheme which came to be known as the “Minus 2 formula”. It required the two
ladies to live in exile. Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus was considered as a
possible Prime Minister but the plan never took off.
Given Hasina’s temperament, the
upshot is quite predictable: Yunus’ name is like a red rag to the regime. That
is where Anam’s current troubles began. At the Daily Star’s 25th
anniversary celebrations, Awami League Ministers walked out as soon as Yunus
got up to speak. Bits of Anam’s interview were seized upon by Hasina’s son
Sajeeb Wazed, a Bangladeshi American, parked in Washington.
“Sedition” he screamed. Awami
League storm troopers ran to the courts.
The Anam controversy had not
quite subsided when newspapers carry a front page photograph of 81 year old
Shafiq Rehman, one of the country’s most respected journalists, being escorted
to the courts by policemen. His guilt? He plotted to have Sajeeb killed in the
US.
Never have India-Bangladesh
relations been better. Militant camps in the North East have been closed. There
is relative tranquility on the migrant issue and business between the two
countries is booming. Only the Chinese are doing better. Anil Ambani and the
Adanis are expected in Dhaka to sign $6 billion deals. There is much much more
in the pipeline including the water sharing issue.
The future depends on
durability of the secular edifice. Here is a superb relationship shaping up,
quite in contrast to the unfortunate one with Pakistan. But how secure can
secularism and democracy be if the regime is sliding into intolerance and one party
authoritarianism? What can New Delhi do? Does it see itself embarrassingly as
someone in a glass house?
It is a delicate relationship.
Slightest pressure and up goes the chorus: high handed. Release the pressure
and it is taken for license. Murmurs are rising against one billion dollars
worth of beef migration stopped by India. “It hurts the poor on both sides.” This
becomes a tool in the hands of Islamist to target the evolving “special
relationship”. Complaints rise to a crescendo at India “throwing its weight” in
world cricket. “In our 15 year history as a test playing nation, we have not
been invited to play a single test match in India”. I spent the best part of an
evening being harangued on a “no ball” controversy I knew nothing about. Apparently
during a match in Australia, Virat Kohli was caught in the deep but umpire declared
it a no ball despite protests by Bangladesh players. I rubbed my eyes as the
incident was cited as India’s “hegemonic ways”.
“Le saans bhi ahista ki
nazuk hai bahut kaam!”
(Breathe very gently because
the task at hand is of utmost delicacy)
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