By N. P. Upadhyaya
Kathmandu: Bangladesh is in the world news for a variety of political reasons.
This South Asian nation has of late drawn the attention of the international media as some events of high political importance have recently taken place in this country which is likely to set a new trend in South Asian politics by changing the old traditional set up with the new one wherein China may dominate the approaching days, months and years.
To begin with, a Bangladeshi research scholar, Zainal Abedin on June 26/2020 made a fervent appeal to a select group of South Asian nations wherein he suggested the formation of an alliance against the Indian Spy Agency the RAW which has been poking its nose in the internal affairs of these nations to the extent that his country was being taken as a “proxy state of India”.
Zainal Abedin proposes that Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Maldives should form an alliance against the expansionist and the mother of the RAW agency which is fascist India.
This explains Zainal’s summary hatred against India though he understands very much that his country was created with the overt and covert support of the Indian establishment during the days of the Iron lady of South Asia-Mrs. Indira Gandhi who was murdered by her Sikh security bodyguard, Beant Singh, in 1984 October.
Bangladesh first drew the attention of the world media on July 1st when a highly guarded secret meet of the Pakistani High Commissioner Imran Ahmed Siddiqui with the Bangladeshi Foreign Minister A.K Abdul Momen took place in Dhaka which for two to three weeks remained a guarded secret until the Turkish news agency Anadolu leaked the Pak-B’desh secret meet.
This undisclosed meet must have made India’s Gang of Four (PM Modi, Ajit Doval, Jayshankar and Amit Shah) go for several sleepless nights.
However, this Pak-B’desh secret talks to a greater extent allowed both countries to reset their estranged ties.
An Indian journalist wrote recently on this Dhaka-Islamabad surreptitious meet that “much to the dismay of India, which counts Bangladesh as its trusted friend in the SA region, the teleconference (between the two Prime Ministers Imran Khan and Sheikh Hasina) marks nothing short of a diplomatic coup for Pakistan”.
Frankly speaking, this meet was more than a diplomatic coup in the South Asian political scenario and thus it paved possibly the way for the emergence of some new alignments/realignments for the upcoming years and decades.
As per senior South Asian emissaries who have had their stint in Bangladesh in the past, Prime Minister Khan talked with his B’deshi counterpart on matters related to the strengthening of the SAARC body and also stressed on the need for the world leaders including Bangladesh to listen to the continued quandary of the Kashmiri population who have been held hostage by the brutal Indian government in the occupied Kashmir since August 5/2019.
PM Khan pleaded, say Pakistani sources, Sheikh Hasina to listen to the predicament of the Kashmiri Muslims and impress upon Indian government at her convenience, however, Sheikh Hasina remained tight-lipped on the issue of the Kashmir occupation by the Indian military forces.
But as a majority Muslim country in South Asia, Bangladesh is bound to speak on the endless trouble being faced by the Kashmiri Muslims inside the valley sooner than later.
Kenneth Roth, the executive director, Human Rights Watch, New York, very freshly wrote that “Prime Minister Modi has been ‘recasting’ the history of India from that of a secular democracy accommodating a uniquely diverse population to that of a Hindu nation that dominates its minorities especially the country’s two hundred million Muslims”.
In the same manner, Mjal Shrika wrote in his twitter account that “not only Islamic middle east but also cities after cities in the United Kingdom and the United States of America have begun to denounce the gross Human Rights violations by the Fascist Hindutva regime. It is time for the civilized world to help stop the genocide in Kashmir”.
Yet another jolt to India’s G4 was awarded by the Chinese regime when it provided grand tariff exemption for 97% of exports from Bangladesh to be effective from the beginning of July this month. The Chinese trade tariff concessions to Bangladesh has already come into force that heavily benefits the country which was in the fold of the Indian regime since its birth in 1971.
This is China’s quiet diplomacy at its best. China easily inched closer to Bangladesh by default.
And diplomatic sources have described, according to the Indian media reports, the Chinese move as a “major success in Dhaka-Beijing relationship”.
This Beijing-Dhaka tie broke the vertebral column of the South Asian hooligan-Indian dominion born 1947.
As if these bombshells were not enough, Bangladesh gave yet another shocking astonishment to India when the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) signed an agreement with Beijing Urban Construction Group Ltd (BUCG) for the construction of a new airport terminal at Sylhet, Bangladesh.
All these events perhaps amply suggest that Dhaka prefers now a relaxed distance with Delhi which officially takes the Bangladeshi Muslim nationals as “termites”.
This agreement with the Chinese company for the Sylhet airport terminal has practically alarmed New Delhi in that it borders India’s northeastern region and therefore is considered a security-sensitive area for the Gang of Four Regime in Delhi.
Yet another near to death blow to Delhi from Dhaka is yet to come.
The Indian High Commissioner in Bangladesh Riva Ganguly Das tried for all along the past five months (beginning this year so to say) or so for an “urgent” audience with the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed.
Unfortunately, her passionate petition was summarily ignored by the B’desh Prime Minister’s office in Dhaka which now speaks so many things unspoken.
Delhi must not have any extra excitement over its ties with Dhaka since a dynamic political shift has already taken place or is in the making in South Asia with the smooth entrance of China which is at best cultivating and cementing its ties with India’s immediate neighbours who now prefer to come out from the firm grips of the former slave of the British India Company.
“China is reaping the unexpected political benefits (it is a windfall for China) from the failed neighbourhood first policy of the highly arrogant and mischievous New Delhi regime now controlled by four naughty scoundrels”.
The Indian High Commissioner Riva Ganguly Das out of sheer humiliation and insult that she felt when summarily ignored by the office of the Bangladesh Prime Minister, suddenly went in hibernation for a week or so and made her way to some villages outside the Dhaka city.
Riva Ganguly after braving the “deserved insult” in Dhaka nevertheless met for a farewell meeting with Foreign Minister A. K. Abdul Moment on July 14/2020.
The humiliated Indian envoy Riva Ganguly is soon to take up the post of the Secretary (East) in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, says South Asian media sources.
With the Chinese entrance in Bangladesh quietly, India has tentatively lost one of its trusted ally in the South Asian region.
Thanks, Baby Bhutan has not yet declared a revolt against terrorist India.
However, sources say that the energetic youths of Bhutan prefer now for formal diplomatic ties with China so that Thimpu could keep Delhi and Beijing at an equal distance and maintain balanced ties with both the giant neighbours.
Ties with Beijing is also important for Thimpu in order to maintain its sovereign identity and territorial integrity.
The choice is surely with Thimpu whether or not to come out from India’s iron clasp?
The last jolt to the erratic Indian establishment has best been awarded by India’s arch-rival China when this country just the other day, 26 July, organized the first-ever Foreign Ministers webinar session with Pakistan, Nepal, and Afghanistan as “chosen” participants.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi took the lead in convening this important teleconference comprising of the four countries wherein he mooted a four-point plan to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, boost economic recovery and resumption of the Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects after the pandemic.
Presiding over the teleconference, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi hoped that the “four nations would work together to extend China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan”.
This video conference has come close on the heels of the month’s long India-China border standoff at the Galwan valley and the fairly strained relations with sovereign Nepal which may be very hard for New Delhi to digest the “event” and that too initiated by China in a region that India thought to be its sphere of political influence.
Wang Yi urged his counterparts from Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan to exploit the geographic advantages that are available at the moment, strengthen exchanges and expanding the connections between the participating four countries (Nepal, Pakistan, China and Afghanistan) with the Central Asian nations and by doing so Minister Wang Yi hoped that regional peace and stability will be maintained.
The meeting was participated in by Nepal’s Foreign Minister Pradip Kumar Gyawali; acting foreign minister of Afghanistan Mohammad Haneef Atmar and Pakistan’s Economic Affairs Minister Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar.
Though the Pak Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s recorded version was played at the virtual seminar.
Is China now aiming at a new regional alignment grouchily excluding India?
Appears close to the presumption. India must pay for its barbaric follies played by the four scoundrels.
India’s relationship with its neighbours has seen a dip/nosedive in recent months. Pakistan is its known rival but New Delhi’s ties with Nepal, Bangladesh and Iran have suffered major blows in the recent days and months and, as the luck would have it, China is the common factor behind this paradigm shift observed in the South Asian politics, writes the Express Tribune dated July 27/2020.
“Nepal, which was not long ago seen as more of an extension of India, is now at loggerheads with New Delhi over the border dispute. The current Nepal government took an unusually tough stance over border issues with India”, the Express Tribune adds further.
Observers in Nepal firmly believe that China’s outreach has by default helped Pakistan to reset its ties with certain regional countries, for example, Bangladesh. Pakistan is also now looking to deepen its ties with Nepal as Kathmandu is slowly coming out of the Indian influence.
High placed sources claim that the Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had proposed a tele-conversation with Nepal PM KP Oli through Nepal’s Foreign Ministry, however, some India bend moles in Nepal’s foreign office leaked the Pakistani proposition and thus the talks failed.
But our source confidently confirms that PM Khan and Nepal PM Oli are now in close contact with each other.
The virtual conference organized by China has surely come after PM Oli and Imran Khan have talked over the phone.
Sources in Kathmandu claim that in a week or so, Nepal PM Oli is all set to talk to his B’desh and the Sri Lankan counterpart.
A formal request has already been made to the Bangladesh government through Bangla and the Sri Lankan mission in Kathmandu.
Addressing the mini SAARC conference, FM Wang Yi said that “we will actively promote the building of CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) and the Trans Himalayan Connectivity Network (THCN), support the extension of the CPEC corridor to Afghanistan, and further unleash the dividends of the regional connectivity”.
Wang Yi’s strong desire to bring in Afghanistan in the CPEC scheme does speak that China is interested in the charismatic development of war-torn Afghanistan.
Such express statements from China’s Foreign Minister must have pleased the Afghani acting foreign Minister Mohd. Haneef Atmar who later may have beamingly briefed about the positive outcome from the China sponsored webinar for Afghanistan to his seniors in the Cabinet headed by President Ashraf Ghani.
This means that in some way or the other Afghanistan has reasons to come closer to China.
This certainly is a political disaster for the Indian dominion.
All in all, the China-Pakistan iron brotherly relationship is being developed as a model for the rest of the South Asian nations who are for a variety of political reasons were sharp differences with the regional devil-that India is.
In all, China’s recent efforts aimed at establishing a mini-SAARC quadrangle excluding “deliberately” the Indian dominion is not only a successful diplomatic coup against India but also augurs well for Pakistan as it provides this Islamic republic with an opportunity in changing the regional dynamics that was largely dominated by its rival-India.
However, why Bangladesh was kept out from this “growth quadrangle” demands a separate debate.
The most rewarded with this Chinese scheme will be Pakistan and Afghanistan as the two bordering countries will not only come closer but also approach Central Asian nations for trading activities.
China, Pakistan and Afghanistan will now definitely profit from the Gwadar and the Chabahar port in Iran to expand their trade/business activities across Europe through Central Asian nations.
For the road: Senior People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader of Jammu and Kashmir Naeem Akhtar has said July 27/2020 that “the decisions taken by Modi regime, including the scrapping of Article 370 and the Citizenship Amendment Act have rekindled the Hindu versus Muslim discourse and in the process has given birth to a “South Asian Ummah” that now extends from Khyber pass to Chittagong in B’desh, writes Azaab Javaid for ‘the Print’ dated 28 July/2020. That’s all.
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