Rifat Rashid is one of the leading lights of the Bangladesh student movement which dramatically overthrew the Sheikh Hasina regime. The movement has been widely projected as spontaneous, and the students heading it as secular.
But in a photo from a few years ago, Rifat is seen proudly holding up a placard which says, ‘I am Shibir’ in front of Dhaka university’s iconic Raju Memorial sculpture.
Islami Chhatra Shibir is the student wing of Jamaat.
As Hasina ran her undoubtedly ruthless writ for 15 years as Prime Minister, rabidly Islamist and until lately proscribed organisations like Jamaat-i-Islami and Hizb-ut Tahrir grew their mushrooms in the dark. In 2013, Jamaat had about 6,000 rukn or registered members. Now, in 2024, coming out of a prolonged ban, it has an estimated 27,000.
So confident is Jamaat today that its head or amir Shafiqul Rahman mocked the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), its old ally, in a recent public rally.
“Should we go with the BNP,” Rahman asked his supporters, smilingly pre-empting the resounding “no” that came in reply.
Jamaat has plans to rule Bangladesh on its own, without the help of the BNP or Awami League (AL). Its cadre and sympathisers have infiltrated institutions from the Supreme Court bar association to the army.
Many in the current Bangladesh army brass are reluctant to help the current caretaker government headed by Muhammad Yunus navigate power smoothly and are waiting for it to fail. That section will be fine with Jamaat coming to power.
Militant organisations like Hizb-ut Tahrir apparently have plants even in the student leadership. It is having a free run in the absence of police, who are frightened to even be seen in uniform, and a hands-off Army.
Then there is Hefazat-e Islam, an Islamist umbrella which many say is bigger than even Jamaat. Hasina flirted with it and extended favours just to counterbalance Jamaat. Hefazat runs thousands of qaumi madrassas or religious schools, which are another fertile breeding ground of extremism.
Ansarullah Bangla Team, a local Al Qaeda branch which was behind the killing of nearly half-a-dozen bloggers and a high-profile bank heist, is back in play. Its chief, Jasimuddin Rahmani, was released from jail, after the people’s ‘coup’ to a hero’s welcome.
Unsurprisingly, Hindus and other minorities are bearing the brunt of the Islamists’ dance of triumph. Reports say Hindus have been attacked in nearly 300 locations across 50 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts.
By putting all its eggs into Sheikh Hasina’s basket, India blundered. It kept looking at Bangladesh from the prism of Muktijuddho, or the 1971 Liberation War in which India helped Bangladesh get freedom from Pakistan. Today’s Bangladeshi youth, born in the 1990s or later, have very little connection with that epochal event. And the Hasina regime managed to kill whatever respect they may have gleaned from textbooks, statues and memorials by wanton strong-arming, human rights abuses, and corruption at the highest levels.
In spite of Sheikh Hasina’s rising unpopularity, India did not cultivate her rivals or push for reforms and change within the Awami League. It is unclear whether India has either moles within Jamaat or a strong line with its leadership.
So, questions arise.
Is India ready to live with this explosive situation next door?
Is it ready to have an Afghanistan on its eastern border?
Mind you, tracking a Taliban terrorist down in India would be far easier than busting Bangladesh sleeper cells. They look like most east Indians, and they share one of India’s most widely spoken languages: Bengali.
India needs to open talks with every powerful stakeholder in Bangladesh post-haste. Most importantly, it needs to engage both the BNP and the AL. It needs to draw out a post-Sheikh Hasina scenario in Awami League, because the family is unlikely to come even close to being elected in the next decade or more.
India also now needs to hold its nose and open channels with Jamaat. It is disastrous statecraft to not engage with hardcore Islamists in a Muslim-majority country, however secular and democratic things may seem at a particular moment.
India also needs friends in the Bangladesh army. One cannot dismiss the chances of military rule in the near future.
Bangladesh is right now like a hot, green, explosive slush. What shape it will settle in nobody can tell for certain. India needs to learn from its mistakes and regain some control. Else its neighbour will send over a poison pudding sooner than later.
Abhijit Majumder is a senior journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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