Who, after Muhammad Yunus?

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was a student activist in Kolkata (then Calcutta) when Bengal was partitioned on 15 August 1947. He returned to East Bengal — from where he originated and which had now become East Pakistan — to continue his politics. His struggle to preserve Bengali culture and language and protect Bengalis from the atrocities of West Pakistani rulers was crowned by winning independence (with India’s help) and the birth of Bangladesh.

Rahman and several of his family members were brutally assassinated, by some strange coincidence, on another 15 August, this time in 1975. His two surviving daughters (who were abroad at the time of the killings) had to stay away from their homeland for years. But the spirit of the Sheikh — reverentially hailed as Bangabandhu or friend of Bengal by his people — was not extinguished. Sheikh Hasina eventually returned and won power through democratic means, until her authoritarianism got the better of her. Earlier this week, she unceremoniously fled her country.

Whether this means curtains for the Mujibur Rahman clan in the history of Bangladesh is immaterial in the context of current affairs. Admittedly, individuals matter in subcontinental politics. But what is more relevant from an international, and more specifically Indian, perspective is what happens now and in the medium if not long-term aftermath of Hasina’s exit.

For a start, more than for any other country, the deposition of Hasina is a crisis for India. Her patience with India — notwithstanding Narendra Modi and Amit Shah’s many anti-Bangladeshi utterances in the past dozen years — made Bangladesh India’s best friend in the neighbourhood. Except for Bhutan and Sri Lanka under Ranil Wickremesinghe, the rest are either inimical or have drifted away during the Modi regime.

News agency PTI reported that S. Jaishankar, India’s external affairs minister, "did not rule out the role of foreign governments" in the recent unrest in Bangladesh. However, the fact that the student leaders of the uprising — which was ostensibly over unpopular job quotas reserved by the government for descendants of freedom-fighters — proposed economist Muhammad Yunus as head of an interim government, might be an indication that the movement was not engineered by the mullahs.

Business, civil society and military spearheads in Bangladesh were party to the students’ decision, which is also a positive sign. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, Yunus is best known for being a ‘banker to the poorest of the poor’, having pioneered, through the Grameen Bank, the use of microcredit to help the financially disadvantaged, particularly women. A PhD in Economics from Vanderbilt University in the US, his other company Grameen Telecom is part of Bangladesh’s largest mobile phone company GrameenPhone, a subsidiary of the Norwegian firm Telenor.

Indian economist Kaushik Basu’s assessment of Yunus on X was: "He has three qualities critical for a leader in a modern democracy — he is not vindictive, he will not cling to power when the time comes to leave office [and] finally, he is inclusive and secular."

If Yunus has a grievance against India, it appears to be New Delhi’s failure to rein in Hasina from cracking down on opponents and indeed anyone who dared question her father.

Yunus has been a longstanding critic of Hasina. She had, he felt, effectively destroyed her father’s legacy. In turn, Hasina fired a series of corruption charges against him, which Amnesty International described as "emblematic of the beleaguered state of human rights in Bangladesh". A hundred Nobel laureates signed a letter calling for suspension of the allegations.

Yunus, who was attending the Paris Olympics as an advisor to its organisers, has been abruptly pulled away from appreciating human excellence in the field of sports to the political arena.

The only concern about him is that he is 83. How much energy can he bring to the task of guiding the fate of his nation? Will he be granted the freedom and flexibility to shape the administration he leads? Will the powerful Bangladesh military — which refused to suppress the protests, thereby sealing Hasina’s fate — stand squarely behind him?

An editorial in Bangladesh’s Daily Star was of the opinion: "After Hasina’s fall, we must strive to build a pro-people, inclusive society." Not everyone in Bangladesh, though, shares this liberal bent of mind.

Following the assurance extended to her by US secretary of state Hillary Clinton during her 2012 visit to Bangladesh, Hasina’s relations with the US deteriorated significantly in recent years. Washington’s attitude towards her ignored its strategic ties with India, and dismissed Modi’s personal tilt in its direction. It also ran the risk of encouraging the right-wing Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its hardline ally Jamaat-e-Islami.

It is, however, too early to pronounce judgement on the likelihood of the BNP and the Jamaat raising their heads, given Hasina’s Awami League (AL) losing credibility in the foreseeable future (the Daily Star headlined ‘AL stares at a “political death”’). Reports of the BNP being considerably weakened under Hasina’s sustained onslaught might be both optimistic and premature.

Bangladesh’s former prime minister 79-year-old Khaleda Zia — who was released from house arrest soon after the toppling of Hasina — may not be in a position health-wise to return to active politics. But her son Tarique Rahman, who was in exile, has stepped into her shoes, demanding immediate elections.

The return of the BNP would undoubtedly be a victory for the China–Pakistan axis; the party is perceived to have reservations about India. (Regardless of India’s preference for Hasina, Indian diplomats maintained links with BNP leadership in Bangladesh during their extended absence from office.)

At the same time, neither the US nor the UK are without leverage over Tarique. Indeed, to ensure continuance of such control, Britain — which unhesitatingly offered safe haven to her father in January 1972, after the Pakistanis freed him under international pressure — has not (yet) done the same for the daughter.

It would be a relief for India if the Yunus government was not associated with any political party. If it contains anti-Awami League figures, this would be a worrying development for South Block. The Indian Foreign Service, if given a free hand, has the capability to overcome odds.

Bangladesh, surrounded by India on three sides and the Bay of Bengal on the fourth — where the Indian Navy has a major presence — is geo-politically somewhat hemmed in. Yet, it ought not to be forgotten that Bangladesh’s trade turnover with India — India’s exports to Bangladesh came down from $16.2 billion in FY22 to $12.2 billion in FY24 — is less than that with the European Union and China.

The Dhaka–Beijing relationship has come a long way since 1971 when China, at Pakistan’s behest, vetoed Bangladesh’s admission into the United Nations. Today, Bangladesh is the second-largest buyer of Chinese defence equipment; China is the only country with which Bangladesh has a defence cooperation agreement. These have, in fact, been irritants in Indo–Bangla bonhomie.

Around 1994, when Hasina was in opposition, and this correspondent was CNN’s South Asia bureau chief, she took us (Tom Johnson, CNN president and myself) around her residence, hung with large portraits of her parents, siblings and others who had been unspeakably gunned down.

On that occasion, as well as at other meetings with her, including social gatherings for iftar, she didn’t quite exude the impression of being prime minister material. This was disproved by Bangladesh’s GDP growth under her, and her success on the education, health and infrastructure fronts.

The Covid-19 pandemic interrupted that momentum, unemployment increased and favouritism towards freedom fighters’ families (despite being struck down by the courts) struck the death knell. Clearly, her thumping re-election in January was a mirage. The upsurge against her could not have occurred merely on the job quota issue. This was a deeper malaise, which the students ignited.

India has nothing to fear from a Yunus dispensation. He enjoys the confidence of the US, the UK and the EU; and does not seem to be on intimate terms with either China or Pakistan. For us the question is: after Prof. Yunus, who?