Bangladesh will be another front, unless Taliban is smashed

Rohit Bansal

Will the smashing victory of Ms Khaleda Zia eventually boil down to an alliance of India-baiters smacking their lips in Bangladesh and Pakistan? The question has repercussions on our polito-economic, and diplomatic interests on our eastern front. The answer will take some time to come, and when it will, it will come from our western front. Here’s how.

Ms Zia calls her victory as one of “Allah and Islam”. At least two of her four coalition partners are hand-in-glove with terrorist organisations and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), and hired recruits of Osama bin Laden. One of them, the Jamait-e-Islami, shares the same violent motivations, and even more, with its namesake in Pakistan, as also the Al Qaeda.

Indeed, a stupefied Ms Hassina isn’t just being a bad loser, when she complains that yesterday’s terrorists are using the name of Allah to foster a ruinous agenda. Of course, no one will hear her, now that Ms Zia has left her with just a handful of seats in the 300-member Jatiya Sangsad. If she stays away from the House, one may not even hear that much of her. But that is another story.

On the strategic side, Ms Zia hasn’t opened her cards, as to whether she will implement her pre-election bluster against India. Whatever be her ultimate decision, there is, and there shall be no dearth of pressure on her to heighten a closer relationship with the “pan-Islamic” elements in the ISI and hip shooters within Pakistan’s military junta. By implication, she will be advised “give it back” to India, a la Pakistan, by way of training camps, asylums, hired mercenaries from Afghanistan, shared intelligence, and continued funding from the ISI.

Indeed, her coalition partners may want Ms Zia to formally re-christen Bangladesh into an Islamic Republic, in deference to the fact that 82 per cent population is Muslim, and that the Jamait itself now controls an unprecedented 16 parliamentary seats. If she does drop the official tag of secularism, the implications are ominous enough: More support to ISI training camps along our north-eastern states, benign neglect to the crossing over of migrants into Assam, more ethnic violence, and repeats of shocking provocation that Bangladeshi Rangers inflicted on unsuspecting Indian Border Security Force jawans earlier this year.

A word on the intellectual convictions of these India-baiters in Bangladesh. Ms Zia represents the middle and upper classes of Bangladeshi society, she has support of the army, in fact, she is treated as “one of us”, unlike Ms Hassina who drew most of her support base among the poorer elements of society. This elite continues to foster deep socio-ideological commonality with their counterparts in Pakistan.

This home truth wasn’t lost to Ms Hassina totally. It may be recalled that even she, as a last ditch effort, adopted a shrill, anti-India rhetoric in her electoral campaigns.But against the wave of Islamic fervour and anti-incumbency, pretty predictable now in our region, she was swept away. Towards her last weeks in power, she reportedly began to shudder even at the mention of India, so what if in her heart of hearts, she believed in the need for better Indo-Bangladesh relations.

Ms Hassina went to the extent of stalling any deal with India on Bangladesh’s huge gas reserves just to “pre-empt” the charge of sell out. Through backroom channels she would say that Bangladesh would get this issue back on track when she returns for another five-year term. In this process, Ms Hassina failed to oblige American business interests represented by infrastructure providers like Unocal.

Now that Ms Zia is the supreme leader on our eastern border, the best bet is to therefore tell her that gas is her chance to repeat her political success on the economic front. After all, she too will face an anti-incumbency factor in some years, unless she addresses the economic horrors staring her country. Given her political compulsions vis-a-vis her coalition partners, we can encourage her to sell this within her country as a deal with prosperity, America, and India, in that order. Our fears are not just with Ms Zia’s coalition partners. Even her last cabinet had no dearth of India-baiters. So, one doesn’t know whether the cabinet this time will be open to a deal, even if the US is packaged as a principal player.

There may be, after all, a rising anger against US itself, after what it may have to do to Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden, to satiate its own political compulsions at home. But the way Gen Musharraf has turned against the Taliban, and sundry “jehadi” elements of the super-rabid variety, lends hope that if the US really wants it, Ms Zia might put business relationships and capital flow on the forefront. Especially so, if the Bush Administration tastes some success in its concert against “jehadis”, state agencies and sponsors of terrorism, and the clerics who egg them on. The one common class that is represent pan-Islamic conviction.

Another thing we could warn Ms Zia and her advisors, through Track 2, if need be, is that intelligence agencies and fundamentalist elements will give her a completely hostile feedback to any economic deal with the US and India. But going by Ms Hasina’s fate, is there a substitute to economic growth? Also, important is moulding political opinion here in India that we are not out to make a “killing” on Bangladesh gas, but an equitable arrangement, instead. That will help the moderates in Dhaka save face. We must also tell Ms Zia in no uncertain terms that Bangladesh is not our only option. For one, some progress, it is reliably learnt, has been made with Myanmar to get us alternate transportational access.

We could also tell her that the fact that she rides such an overwhelming mandate today is her one big chance to usher a new business climate for her belleagured nation. There is no way she should let this opportunity go by. Ficci, CII and chambers of American industry could be encouraged to do their bit to create this mood.

All said, our future relationship with Bangladesh hinges on an externality. It gets better, only if a more moderate Pakistan emerges out of ‘Operation Enduring Justice’.