Commemorating the Monsoon Revolution by the students who deposed Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina, the Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus made a scornful remark. He told Delhi to shut Hasina’s mouth while living in exile in India.
In an interview with the Indian news agency PTI, Dr Yunus also gave a message that the Iron Lady would be extradited to Bangladesh to face the music of justice for the deaths of more than nearly a thousand students and youths during the July massacre, the enforced disappearance, extrajudicial deaths of opponents and critics.
“She [Hasina] has to be brought back, or the people of Bangladesh won’t be at peace. The atrocities she has committed must be addressed through a trial here,” said the inventor of microcredit, the founder of Grameen Bank.
This was a slap on Delhi’s ‘Sarkar’, which India did not expect from the interim government – a big embarrassment for India.
Hasina hastily fled, when the students and protesters on August 5 marched to Gonobhaban, the official residence of the Bangladesh Prime Minister. Tens of thousands from east, west, north and south joined the rally, the Bangladesh Army responsible for her security, forcibly whisked her away to a military airfield, a kilometer away and air dashed her to an air force base, adjacent to Dhaka International Airport. She boarded a transport plane and flew to Delhi, sinking her party’s boat (election symbol). She also abandoned thousands of leaders and millions of members of her party, the Awami League.
In the absence of a backup plan, the dumbstruck leaders and members of the Awami League either went into hiding and many tried to leave the country. Few managed to fly away. Some paid a hefty price to human traffickers and crossed the porous international border to India.
At Hindon Air Base near Delhi, where the Bangladesh Air Force transport plane landed, there she is still living in a safe house for a month. After hectic negotiations with several “friendly” Western countries, one after another her requests were turned down.
A top Indian diplomat stationed in Dhaka said what India would do when all countries have refused her applications for refugee status (political asylum).
The United States promptly revoked her 10-year multiple visa. Bangladesh’s new regime invalidated her Red and Green passports. Hasina is a stateless person. Delhi is now in a fix!
It is understood that Hasina is apparently under house arrest. She is not allowed to venture out of the safe house to take a stroll around the place, nor allowed to buy essentials from a military super shop nearby.
Her daughter Saima Wazed, who is employed as Regional Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) South-East Asia office in New Delhi, has not been able to meet her.
Saima in posts on Twitter (X) has given several excuses for her tight schedule and unable to hug her mother. Her elder brother in Washington DC had announced to visit Delhi and meet her mother. Unconfirmed news claims that Sajeeb Wazed Joy was asked not to arrive in Delhi, as he may not be able to meet her.
Many political observers say after Dr Yunus had a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian authorities decided to sever all communications with the outside world and stay away from her.
Phones in the safe house are disconnected and she is unable to contact her loved ones as well as her party central leaders, who have fled the country. Both her son and daughter are conspicuously silent over Hasina’s incommunicado in India.
Except for Indian national security advisor Ajit Doval, none of the Indian officials and opposition leaders has paid a courtesy call to their loyal guests. This gives a clear message that India is uncomfortable with the status of their guest.
Dr Yunus will have an opportunity to meet with Modi at the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Summit in Bangkok this weekend. He will once again raise the issue of Hasina with Modi.
BIMSTEC links five countries from South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka) and two from South-East Asia (Myanmar and Thailand).
Earlier, he cautioned Indian media not to play the Hindu card and invited journalists from India to visit Bangladesh. Indian media was agog on the persecution of Hindus, vandalism of Hindu business establishments and desecration of Hindu temples in expressing anger after the downfall of Hasina.
In a clever decision, Dr Yunus urged foreign journalists, especially Indian journalists to visit Bangladesh. Indian media has stopped beating in the bush.
In several interviews, Dr Yunus has told the international media, that the elections will be held only after a series of reforms are made to block autocratic government from taking control of the state institutions, which has been politicized and exploited by the ruling parties.
The politicization of state institutions – especially the judiciary, bureaucracy, law enforcement agencies and state media – was nothing new. Both the Begums – Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina – kept the institutions on their lap to dominate and dictate terms with loyalists.
The interim government has entrusted a think tank and several pundits to the White Paper Committee, which is responsible for identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
The White Paper Committee on the economy has sought public opinion through social media. They sought feedback on the accuracy and reliability of government statistics; current challenges in macroeconomics; review of GDP growth; inflation trends and their impacts; poverty, inequality and vulnerability; internal resource extraction; assessment of priorities in allocation of government expenditure; foreign exchange balance and credit capacity, evaluation of mega-projects, actual condition of the banking sector; energy and power sector situation; business environment and private investment; illegal money and money laundering; labor market dynamics and youth employment; foreign labor markets and migrant workers’ rights.
Plans are afoot to make the election commission an independent institution and reforms of the electioneering system would allow inclusivity and transparency.
Hasina during her tenure failed to hold free, fair, credible and inclusive elections in 2014, 2018 and 2024, which were all flawed.
She deliberately kept the opposition out of the electioneering and jailed 10,000 leaders and members of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami – an Islamist party – accused of terrorism and attacks on government properties, which enabled the government to keep the opposition languish in prison for a long time.
The Yunus administration has repealed the ban on the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir, stressing that the organisations are not involved in terrorist activities. This decision has invited backlash from Mukti Bahini, the 1971 war veterans and secularists.
Dr Yunus, who is chief adviser of the interim government, in an address to the nation on September 5 in commemoration of a month of minus Hasina’s autocratic regime, said the biggest challenge now is to heal the wounds created by misrule and autocracy.
He appealed for unity and coordination. “We all pledge that, as a nation, we will not allow the blood of the martyrs and the sacrifices of our injured brothers and sisters to be in vain.”
He pledged, “I want to assure them that we will never betray the dreams of the martyrs.”
First published in the Stratheia news portal, Islamabad, Pakistan on 6 September 2024
Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad