Bangladesh: The Guardian of The Bay of Bengal!

Saleem Samad

The hostile Indian “Godi Media” is once again rolling up their sleeves after Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus said that, “We Are The Only Guardian Of Ocean…”

Hours before Prof Yunus arrived in Dhaka (before taking oath of public office as Chief Adviser of an Interim Government), he spoke to India’s popular 24/7 news channel NDTV. He said that “if Bangladesh becomes unstable, it will affect [neighboring] West Bengal, Myanmar, and the entire North East India.”

Such a statement by Yunus did raise eyebrows of Delhi-wallas but they did not officially react. Once again, when he mentioned that the North East India (collectively known as the “Seven Sisters”) is landlocked. He suggested that if the Indian states in the North East are given access to the ocean, it will make its economy vibrant and create backward linkage industries which will create employment opportunities for people on both sides of the border.

However, Assam’s (a member of Seven Sisters) Chief Minister, Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma, in a reaction says Yunus’s ploy in stating North East is “landlocked” and proposal to open the region to the “oceans” is a sinister threat and provocative to severe North East from mainland India.

In fact, such a proposal was first given by the Japanese in 2022 that they will help India’s North East to set up industries and infrastructure to reach Bay of Bengal – the maritime routes to export destinations. For Japan, India’s North East has been in focus for some time. Japan has shown an urgency to build an integrated and scaled-up supply chain in the region as it plans to boost its presence and increase investments.

South Asian countries are among the least connected and integrated in the world today, writes Mahua Venkatesh in an influential India Narrative news portal. Bangladesh will indeed be a “game-changer” for the region as it would open up connectivity with India’s North East, especially Tripura and Assam, along with landlocked Nepal and Bhutan, when the US 1.5 billion seaport becomes functional.

During a trip to India, Japan’s former Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, (2021 to 2024) in March 2023 highlighted the importance of strengthening connectivity in the North East region, rich in resources but relatively untapped, for developing robust global supply chains.

When Kishida proposed developing an industrial hub in Bangladesh with “supply chains” to the landlocked North Eastern states of India, and to Nepal and Bhutan beyond by developing a port and transport in the region, “to foster the growth of the entire region,” hardly anybody understood the depth of his vision, writes Venkatesh. The Indian government was upbeat about the Japanese proposal. Soon after a Japanese delegation held parleys with stakeholders on the yawning economic opportunities for the North East region.

Welcoming Japan’s initiative, the Japanese, Indian and Bangladeshi officials also discussed the plans with G. Kishan Reddy, India’s Federal Minister for the North East. At that time the Godi media, or the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), advocating Hindutva (true ‘Indian’ partakes of this ‘Hindu-ness’) did not make any hue and cry nor did it raise “territorial claim” of North East.

Interestingly, history says the British Raj understood their political grievances and gave those princely states reasonable political autonomy which kept them in good humor. However, Delhi systematically ignored the Seven Sisters in scaling up infrastructure development for economic, industrial growth and emancipation of the people. The economic hardship, poverty and controversial state policy agenda went against the ethnic communities in North East states.

Delhi’s bureaucrats responsible for negotiating the political agenda of the ethnic leaders were mishandled. Failing in negotiations with the ethnic leaders, the region plunged into a deadly political crisis and thousands of military and para-military forces were deployed. The soldiers did not speak their language and did not understand their culture and they were blamed for committing human rights abuses during anti-insurgency operations against armed separatists, who were divided into several ethnic groups and sub-groups.

Initially, India refused to hold peace talks with the ethnic leaders blaming the armed insurrections that were aided and abetted by China and Pakistan in the 70s.

Pakistan came into the scenario when Bangladesh was an eastern province of Pakistan. The rogue military dictator General Ayub Khan (later President) provided political and material support to the separatist ethnic groups. Ayub Khan was once GOC and stationed in Dhaka. He knew the region. It’s a long story!

Most of the Indian officials and central politicians have little knowledge about states in north east and journalists travelling to Delhi for meetings or seminars used to hear strange stories about the region. Once, a journalist Anirban Rai, who worked for the Hindustan Times, went to the head office of an airlines at the ticket reservation counter to reconfirm his return flight to Guwahati, state capital of Assam. He was asked to produce his passport, which made him angry!

A fresh conspiracy theory has been cooked up that giving access to the ocean by Bangladesh challenges India’s regional security.

The feel-good project to serve as a key port for the landlocked North East Indian states is expected to be commercially operational in 2030. The economic development will immensely contribute to the rich cultural heritage of the millions of vibrant communities living in the region, bordering China on the side and restive Myanmar in the South. Meanwhile, projects for road and railway connectivity projects to the desired port from the Seven Sisters are almost completed by the Indian and Bangladesh governments.

Though Delhi has not issued any official statement, former senior officials like Ambassador Veena Sikri said Yunus is not politically empowered to negotiate with China to expand the Bay of Bengal to India’s arch-enemy and open the gateway to the ocean for North East.

One must admit that China, through its infrastructure investments, has made major inroads into Bangladesh after 2009, when Sheikh Hasina was re-elected backed by India (according to Indian President Pranab Mukherjee’s autobiography The Coalition Years), since Modi’s government was hesitant to continue strengthening bilateral ties with Dhaka.

What the Godi media do not discuss is that Bangladesh is the guardian of the Bay of Bengal, the world’s largest bay, which forms the southern border of Bangladesh, covering an area of approximately 2.17 million square kilometers and is a crucial part of the Indian Ocean.

Bangladesh has sovereign rights for the exploration, exploitation, conservation, and management of natural resources, including both living and non-living resources.

Bangladesh has delimited its maritime boundaries with India and Myanmar through arbitration, ensuring a fair and equitable division of maritime zones in the Bay of Bengal. The 12-nautical mile territorial sea, a 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and a continental shelf extending up to 350 nautical miles, according to international law and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Bangladesh has maritime rights in the bay.

The Indian TV news blames Yunus for recalibrating its compass towards Beijing and has crossed the red line for anti-India rants while visiting China, and they argue that his government is not legitimate. Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington said Bangladesh has become a battleground for great power competition.

India’s ruling BJP and the South Block in New Delhi must stop looking at Bangladesh through the lens of Sheikh Hasina, who has fled Dhaka and taken shelter somewhere in New Delhi.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan on 2 May 2025

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

Fears of an American base at Saint Martin’s Island kicks fresh row in Bangladesh politics

SALEEM SAMAD

In the mid-60s the radical students of the East Pakistan Chattra (Student) League and also a few leftist elements to arouse dissent against the regime of a military dictator General Ayub Khan of Pakistan said that he has leased Saint Martin’s island in the southeast tip of the country to the United States to build a military base to counter India.

After the independence of Bangladesh, the myth loaded with political jargon melted away. A similar story of St. Martin’s being given away to America popped up several times since its independence in 1971. A couple of times during the military juntas of a liberation war hero, General Ziaur Rahman (1977-1981) and founder of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and General Hussain Muhammad Ershad (1982-1990), founder of Jatiya Party were in power. They were deliberately blamed for facilitating inroads for America to counter the regional influence of India.

Once again, Bangladesh’s only coral island, Saint Martin’s is in fresh controversy for being given away to the Americans, this time not to counter India, but China’s hegemony in the South Asia region.

This time, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina herself exploded a bomb, when she asked “How did BNP come to power in 2001?” at the press conference at her official residence Ganabhaban on 21 June.

“They came to power by pledging to sell gas [to India]. Now do they want to sell the country [to the United States] or come to power by pledging to sell Saint Martin’s island,” she told.

Well, she did not mention the name of any country, but it is understood by political analysts, that she pointed her fingers towards two countries. The export of natural gas through a pipeline to energy-starved West Bengal, India and the coral island to the American for a military base.

She was upbeat to politically admonish BNP that the ‘Kings party’ had negotiated with India, which helped the rightist party leader Khaleda Zia to return to power in the 2001 October elections.

She blames BNP negotiated with Washington DC to give away the ‘critically endangered’ coral island to America for a military establishment to watch over a huge swatch of the Bay of Bengal, which merge with the Indian Ocean in the far south.

Promptly, BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam alleged that prime minister Sheikh Hasina, as of her political strategy, provided false information about BNP’s stance on St. Martin’s Island.

“The remark on St. Martin’s island is part of her political strategy. They want to gain an advantage through such statements. No country signs a deal with the opposition, it is signed with the government,” he remarked.

The United States State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller scoffed off the rumour centring on the island and the USA.

In a press briefing in Washington last week, he said that the ruling Awami League and its [political] allies have been alleging for the last few days that the US wants to take over Saint Martin’s island and the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) wants to come to power by “making a pledge to lease it out”.

The US had no intentions to acquire Saint Martin’s Island. “We have never engaged in any conversations about taking over Saint Martin’s Island,” he remarked.

The spokesperson, putting away his diplomatic niceties did not hesitate to comment that in the “last 15 years, she [Sheikh Hasina] is in power without reflection of the will of the people of Bangladesh, though.”

The issue was first raised in the Jatiya Sangsad (parliament) on 14 June by a left leader, Rashed Khan Menon, president of Bangladesh Workers’ Party and an alliance of governing Awami League said the countries that “have the US as a friend, do not need any enemies”.

He stressed that the US sought Saint Martin’s and Bangladesh’s participation in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), a strategic Indo-Pacific alliance, where Australia, India, Japan and the United States are primary members.

Six days later, another radical politician Hasanul Haq Inu, president of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD), also an ally of Awami League in his speech in parliament said, “The time has come for us to think about the reason for this over-enthusiasm of the US. Is it democracy or Saint Martin’s Island?”

A British team of surveyors’ in 1900 included Saint Martin’s island as part of the British Raj in India and named it after a Christian priest Saint Martin.

The Department of Environment (DoE) in 1999 declared the 8 Sq. Km island an Ecologically Critical Area (ECA). As per section 19 of the ECA Management Rules 2016, notwithstanding anything contained in any other law, the class of land of any ECA cannot be changed without permission of the DoE. Thus, any construction of establishments on the island is illegal and dangerous for saving the coral reef at Cox’s Bazar-Teknaf peninsula.

Despite several official notices and high court orders, the island has more than 230 hotels, resorts, cottages and restaurants, either one-storey or multi-storied.

Green activists and researchers say the island is home to several globally endangered marine turtles and birds, including rare Pacific reef-egret, red crab, dolphin and vulnerable olive Ridley sea turtles, which are also on the verge of disappearance.

Professor Kawser Ahmed, dean of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Faculty of Dhaka University in his article published in Ocean Science Journal in 2020 predicts that coral species would completely disappear by 2045.

Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association’s (BELA) chief executive Syeda Rizwana Hasan doubts whether an ecologically threatened island would be suitable for any military purpose.

The longstanding political debate over the island could be understood from a news report on 18 December 1980. The defunct Dainik Bangla published a report under the heading “None will be allowed to establish a naval base at Saint Martin’s”.

A stern warning was issued in a statement by the Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The statement alleged that several political parties claimed that a country [United States] has been allowed to set up its naval base at Saint Martin’s island is completely baseless.

However, political historian and researcher Mohiuddin Ahmad quoted in a reputed Bangla-vernacular newspaper Prothom Alo that he first heard in February 1971 about leasing Bhola’s Monpura island out to the USA.

The rumour had spread, soon after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman held a parley with the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Joseph Simpson Farland, on 28 February 1971 – a month before the genocidal campaign ‘Operation Searchlight’ launched by Pakistan military, which sparked the liberation war.

The pro-Chinese left Maoist parties and their affiliated youth organisations printed a propaganda leaflet that Monpura Island will be given away to America, in exchange for US support for the independence of Bangladesh.

The disinformation against Sheikh Mujib died when the United States tilted towards Pakistan’s military junta during the bloody war of Bangladesh’s independence in 1971.

The blame game by political opponents in Bangladesh is a dilemma alleging the ruling elites are going to lease out Monpura or Saint Martin’s Island to the US or going to provide benefit to India are age-old political bashing, said writer Ahmad.

Some political observers believe that the imposition of sanctions by the USA against the anti-crime special unit Rapid Action Battalion’s (RABs) seven current and former senior officers were accused of violating human rights including extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances – recent US visa restrictions for officials, the ruling party and opposition, whoever undermines democracy and cause hindrance to a free and fair parliament elections in January 2024, have raised eyebrows among political leaders and government officials.

They did not hesitate to slam the United States’ foreign policy and deemed the announcement as interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said this week “We welcome the continuous engagement with the US to wipe off misunderstanding between Dhaka and Washington if there was any.” He told reporters when he was asked to comment on the upcoming high-level official visit from the United States.

Dhaka would welcome if the US delegation led by US Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland and US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu scheduled in early July came up with a “bright idea” as Bangladesh is committed to hold free, fair and violence-free elections, said Dr Momen.

First published in the India Narrative, 9 July 2023

(Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. Views expressed are personal. Twitter: @saleemsamad)