THE BANGLADESH FACTOR IN INDIAS SECURITY CALCULUS

Hiranmay Karlekar The return of the BNP-Jamaat alliance to power will re-establish ascendance of anti-India forces in Bangladesh which will revert to being the happy hunting ground of the ISI. This is something that India must prevent The security threats India faces from Pakistan and China have been discussed at length. Islamabad’s strategic doctrine of balkanising India to counter this country’s military superiority over it and salience in the world is well-known. While its main focus is currently on stirring up trouble in Jammu & Kashmir by orchestrating street violence, and stepping up cross-border terrorist strikes, in the State, North-East India has from the beginning been very much under its gaze. China’s goals are different. At one level it seeks the resolution of its claims on Indian territory in Ladakh in the north-west, and south of the McMahon line, which marks the border between the two countries in the East and the North-East, on its terms. At another, it wants to keep India from emerging as a power that can rival its own role as a super power. A Government in Dhaka that is hostile to India and ready to assist in Pakistan and China’s designs, will pose serious problems for India. Bangladesh, either on its own or on behalf of Pakistan and China, can threaten India or become the springboard of threats to India, in several ways. The first is cutting off India’s links with its north-eastern States through the Siliguri-Islampur Corridor or the Siliguri Corridor, which is about 200 kilometres long and between 20 and 60 kilometres wide, and is often referred to as the “Chicken’s Neck”. It is unlikely to attack Chicken’s Neck on its own. It can, however, try such an adventure in a situation in which India is engaged in a war with Pakistan in the west and China in the north and North-East. And even if it does not move militarily, it may sponsor terrorist strikes to hinder the movement of troops, arms and supplies, through the corridor. That this is not a mere hypothetical speculation became clear during the Kargil War when a blast occurred in a train in north Jalpaiguri station on June 24, 1999. It was directed at a group of jawans travelling to north-western India in connection with the operations. Two jawans were killed and 16 injured. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which has been active in the area since the early 1950s when Bangladesh was east Pakistan, was strongly suspected to have been behind the incident as well as several others aimed at disrupting the movement of troops and equipment from north-eastern to north-western India. Besides, it can — as it had been doing in the past — provide sanctuary and assistance to North-East India’s rebel groups like the United Liberation Front of Asom, the National-Socialist Council of Nagaland, the People’s Liberation Army of Kangleipak in Manipur, the All-Tripura Tiger Force (initially formed as All-Tripura Tribal Force), and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland. In addition, either the Bangladesh Government or terrorist groups supported by it, or too powerful to be curbed by it, may send money, arms and terrorists across the long and porous border between the two countries to stage terror strikes in India. As for the movement of terrorists to India, there is the example of what happened in January, 1999, when Delhi police arrested Syed Abu Nasir, a Bangladeshi, who had crossed over from Bangladesh to bomb the US Embassy in Delhi and Consulate General in Chennai. He revealed during interrogation that he and his team of nine — six of whom had come via Bangladesh, gathered in Calcutta in December, 1998. From there, the three Indian members had been sent to Siliguri to establish a support base in collaboration with ISI agents stationed there, while the six ‘Afghans’ — a generic term used to signify Afghans as well as various Arab and other terrorists trained in Afghanistan by the Al Qaeda — went to Chennai. The three Indians who went to Siliguri were subsequently arrested while the six ‘Afghans’ managed to disappear. Bangladesh not only provided sanctuary, assistance and training to North-East India’s rebel groups, but mocked at detailed information India provided about the location of training camps. Major-General Mohammad Jahangir Alam Khan Chowdhuri, Director-General of the Bangladesh Rifles (now Bangladesh Border Guards), visiting India for talks with his counterpart in the Border Security Force, Ajay Raj Sharma, referred to the list of insurgent camps provided by the Border Security Force (BSF) and said, “There is not a single camp in Bangladesh. We looked for the camps’ locations given in the BSF list. Some of the addresses were of our cantonment area and our headquarters…. Some addresses even pertained to the Bay of Bengal.” Bangladesh’s awareness of its ability to threaten North-Eastern India was starkly demonstrated when its Foreign Minister, Morshed Khan, stated while inaugurating an India-Bangladesh Dialogue of Young Journalists in Dhaka on September 7, 2004, “Bangladesh is India-locked. But Delhi has also to remember that the seven North-Eastern Indian States are Bangladesh-locked.” Khan further raised the pitch of his minatory statement when, referring to what he described as India’s restrictions on the import of goods from Bangladesh, he said, he could “end India’s three billion dollar (sic) trade here by issuing an Statutory Regulating Order (SRO) on all Indian goods entering Bangladesh.” Khan was Foreign Minister in the coalition Government comprising the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, which was in office from 2001 to 2006 with Begum Khaleda Zia as Prime Minister. It made no bones about its hostility to India. Major-General Khan Chowdhuri, headed the BDR in the same period. In fact, except those headed by Sheikh Hasina, all Governments of Bangladesh since the murder of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975 have been hostile to India and pro-Pakistan. The Awami League Government, headed by Sheikh Hasina, which is now in power, is friendly to India. It is working closely with this country. It has not only closed down the camps of the North-Eastern India’s insurgent groups but made it impossible for these to operate from Bangladesh. It has clamped down hard on fundamentalist terrorist Islamist organisations like Ansar-al-Islam (pro-Al Qaeda) and Islamic State (or New Jamaat-ul Mujaheedin Bangladesh) whose name indicates its allegiance, as well as other elements associated with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat that are implacably hostile both to Sheikh Hasina and India. In fact, India-Bangladesh relations are now more cordial than perhaps even when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman headed the Government in Dhaka. The return of the BNP-Jamaat coalition to power will mean the re-establishment of the ascendance of anti-India forces in Bangladesh which will revert to being the happy hunting ground of Pakistan’s ISI. This is something that India must try to prevent at all cost.