India TV Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Rajat Sharma.
In Bangladesh, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to resign and leave the country. Sheikh Hasina and her sister left Dhaka in a Bangladesh Army plane and reached Delhi. It is learnt that Sheikh Hasina wanted to go to London via India but Britain has refused to grant political asylum to Sheikh Hasina. Bangladesh President Mohammad Shahabuddin announced on Monday night that the Parliament will be dissolved and nationwide elections will be held, and till then an interim government will be in place. The President issued an order to immediately release the imprisoned Bangladesh Nationalist Party President Begum Khaleda Zia. Khaleda Zia’s son Tariq Rahman, who is currently in Britain, is about to return to Bangladesh. The agitating student leaders have demanded that any interim government should be formed under the supervision of Nobel Prize winning economist Dr. Muhammad Yunus. The students have demanded that Muhammad Yunus be made the chief advisor. Bangladesh Army Chief General Waqar Uzzaman appealed to the people to maintain peace but till late Monday night, incidents of arson, murder and attacks took place all over the country. Many police stations in Dhaka were set on fire, policemen ran away by jumping over the wall. From Monday morning itself, lakhs of people came out on the streets of Dhaka and started moving towards Shahbagh. Thousands of students attacked the Prime Minister’s residence and ran away after looting all the valuables. The protesters also entered the Parliament building.
The Army Chief called a meeting of the leaders of political parties and discussed about forming an interim government. General Waqar-uz-Zaman has appealed to the people to maintain restraint and asked the protesters to return to their homes. There was peace in Dhaka on Tuesday morning, government offices, shops and courts opened, but incidents of vandalism and arson took place in the houses and temples of Hindus in the districts. More than four hundred people have died so far in the violence in Bangladesh. There is no such thing as administration. No one is listening to the army. Therefore, the biggest question is what will happen in Bangladesh now and what effect can the situation there have on our country. Sheikh Hasina formed the government with a huge majority for the fourth consecutive time in January this year, but had to flee from her country within 6 months. A crowd of protesters entered the Prime Minister’s residence Gana Bhavan while hammering and bulldozing the statues of Sheikh Mujibur on the streets of Dhaka. The protesters started looting the Prime Minister’s residence. The same scene was repeated in Dhaka as we saw in Sri Lanka. These protests in Bangladesh started last month when the opposition to reservation in government jobs for the third generation of freedom fighters began. It started from Dhaka University. In Bangladesh, those who fought in the 1971 Liberation War used to get reservation in jobs. Then the sons and daughters of freedom fighters also got reservation. Now in Bangladesh, more than one-third of the government posts are reserved for the grandchildren of freedom fighters. The students’ protest was about this.
Very soon, this movement against reservation turned into a big movement against the Sheikh Hasina government. After this, workers of Sheikh Hasina’s party Awami League came out in protest against the students. Violence started from Dhaka and gradually spread throughout the country. This movement of students against Sheikh Hasina, who has been in power for the last 15 years, was hijacked by the banned fundamentalist organization Jamaat-e-Islami because Sheikh Hasina’s government had sentenced many Jamaat leaders who supported Pakistan to death and also banned Jamaat-e-Islami. When the Supreme Court banned giving reservation to the third generation of Mukti Warriors, the protests stopped for a few days, but for the last one week, violent protests against the government had started again all over Bangladesh. Former Foreign Secretary and former High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh Harsh Vardhan Shringla said that apart from Jamaat-e-Islami and Bangladesh Nationalist Party, some foreign powers may also be behind the coup of Sheikh Hasina. The anti-government protesters in Bangladesh are extremists. Therefore, now the Hindus living there are in danger. There have been reports of attacks on Hindu houses and temples in at least 27 cities of Bangladesh. Hindu leaders said that rioters broke into Hindu temples and vandalized them. Rioters also vandalized the Indira Gandhi Cultural Center built with the help of India in Dhaka.
West Bengal BJP leader Shubhendu Adhikari even claimed that due to the situation in Bangladesh, about one crore Bangladeshi Hindus can turn to India for refuge and preparations should be made for this in the districts bordering Bangladesh. Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that her government will follow whatever instructions the central government gives regarding Bangladesh. Mamata Banerjee appealed to all the leaders not to make such statements which can spoil the atmosphere. Mamata is right that the matter is international, sensitive, Hindus are in danger in Bangladesh, so the central government has to decide what to do next. In an all-party meeting on Tuesday, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar informed all the leaders about the situation there and later also gave a statement in Parliament. There is no doubt that the political situation in Bangladesh will affect our country because Bangladesh was once a part of India. Lakhs of Hindu families there have relations with India. India is Bangladesh’s biggest trading partner. Sheikh Hasina is considered close to India. His party is liberal whereas the organizations which are creating chaos in Bangladesh right now are Islamic fundamentalists and are considered anti-India. Therefore, the situation in Bangladesh will have an impact on our country. The Indian government is also concerned about the safety of the approximately eight thousand Indian students stranded in Bangladesh. That is why the government has to take a decision very carefully.
The biggest question is why did Sheikh Hasina have to resign? Why did she have to leave her country and run away like this? On the surface, it appears that the situation was getting worse due to the student movement, this movement took place in the name of reservation and whatever efforts Sheikh Hasina made to suppress this movement proved unsuccessful. But the story behind this movement and Sheikh Hasina’s resignation is much bigger than this. Islamic fundamentalist forces are behind this entire movement. Jamaat-e-Islami is behind it. Jamaat’s policy and objective is to run Bangladesh in an Islamic way. Islamic rule has to be implemented there. And Sheikh Hasina was the biggest obstacle in this path. Sheikh Hasina took action against Jamaat-e-Islami but Jamaat put the student leaders in front. All these student leaders are connected to the radical Islamic organization Jamaat-e-Islami. These organizations are funded by Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI. Sheikh Hasina tried to rein in the fundamentalists of Bangladesh. The result was that organisations like Jamaat-e-Islami got busy in removing Sheikh Hasina at any cost. ISI also has a big role in this. That is why this movement became so big. But there is a very big section in Bangladesh that supports Sheikh Hasina but this time these people became silent in front of the incidents of arson, violence and vandalism. The power of Islamic fundamentalists has created a big danger for Hindus living in Bangladesh. On Monday, rioters burnt the houses of Hindus at many places and vandalised temples. The Indian government is most worried about such people. That is why every step is being taken very cautiously. (Rajat Sharma)
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