Behind Yunus’ Many Provocations Aimed At India – OpEd
Why is Bangladesh interim government chief adviser Muhammad Yunus trying to frequently provoke India? Those who think he is doing it to try please both a domestic constituency — the hardline Islamists — and some important global actors — US and China, Pakistan and the Islamic world — may not be wrong, but don’t miss the woods for the trees. Yunus’ provocative talk is for self-survival, so that he can continue in power without facing elections. Already pro-Yunus bloggers have pitched for giving the Nobel laureate a five year term to ‘fix Bangladesh’s many problems.’
Initially Yunus tried reasoning with his countrymen that he should be allowed to stay on until the promised reforms were in place. He was challenged by many at home and abroad that reforms, specially structural reforms, should be the prerogative of an elected parliament, not an unelected leader without a popular mandate.
Just when the controversy was heating up and major political parties like the BNP and Awami League started pushing for an immediate roadmap for elections, Yunus told a predominantly business audience in China that Bangladesh was the ‘guardian of the ocean’ and the only outlet for landlocked Northeastern region of India which could rightfully be ‘an extension of Chinese economy.’
This provoked furious reactions from Indian politicians of all hues and perhaps India’s decision to cancel transhipment facilities for Bangladesh’s exports using Indian ports and airports. It impacts adversely on Bangladesh’s ready made garments industry, the country’s major foreign exchange earner , but Yunus’ purpose was served. The public attention swung away from the electoral roadmap to India-bashing over transhipment and many issues associated with it.
Then when Yunus came under fresh pressure to announce elections and not go ahead with the grant of a Bangladesh-to-Myanmar corridor by succumbing to UN and US pressure, the Nobel laureate let fly on the need to intensify Bangladesh’s war preparations because India and Pakistan were , in his opinion, close to a war. If India and Pakistan start a war, which many doubt will be the case, why should Bangladesh get ready for war, unless its leaders want it? Against whom? India. Why should India start a two front war which its strategy makers will always seek to avoid? Yunus is not available to answer these questions because journalists in Bangladesh are too scared to ask him uncomfortable questions after three television scribes recently lost their jobs for asking ‘tough questions’ to his Culture Advisor Mostafa Sarowar Farooqi.
But again Yunus has managed to trigger an anti-India wave with one of his top aide reinforcing the war cry against India. Former Bangladesh Rifles chief, Lt Gen A L M Fazlur Rahman, now heading an Yunus-installed commission of enquiry, told journalists if India and Pakistan went to war, Bangladesh should join hands with China and capture India’s Northeast. Rahman as Director General of Bangladesh Rifles (now Border Guard Bangladesh) had unleashed incursions into Meghalaya’s Pyrdiwah region leading to violent clashes in which many Indian BSF soldiers were killed..
Many other Yunus aides and political sidekicks have been highlighting the vulnerabilities of India’s Northeast but Rahman seemed to have crossed all limits. Realising the general had gone too far, Yunus got his press office to issue a statement saying Rahman’s views were personal and not that of the government.
But the Nobel Peace Prize winner had again scored brownie points by whipping up war hysteria to divert attention from his controversial decisions to get Bangladesh allow the Corridor to Rakhine state in Myanmar. Again the Yunus ‘need to prepare for war’ and Fazlur Rahman bombast on capturing Northeast India came at a time when major political parties were demanding elections and reminding Yunus that an unelected interim government should better leave the corridor issue to a future elected government to take a call on.
Yunus’ fan brigade is famous for circulating rumours the Nobel laureate has never emphatically denied and perhaps encourages subtly. After rumours about Yunus all set for a second Nobel doing the rounds, the latest in the grapevine is that Yunus is all set to take over as UN secretary general after Antonio Guterres steps down in December 2026. Again, such rumours are aimed at silencing domestic critics, who point to Yunus’ abject failure to control law and order, by flaunting his global connections. This is expected of someone who has come to power through a foreign inspired regime change operation (Yunus said Hasina’s ouster was meticulously designed) and who will go out of his way, even compromise on national sovereignty or drag his country into a neighborhood civil war like Pakistan’s Gen Ziaul Huq in 1979-80 .
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