Indeed a diplomatic blunder for PM Modi, if he ignores Yunus in New York

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh diplomatic channels have requested India for a sideline meeting between Dr Muhammad Yunus, Chief Adviser of Bangladesh Interim Government, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the upcoming United National General Assembly (UNGA) next week in New York.

Prestigious Indian newspaper Hindustan Times reported that PM Modi is not expected to meet Yunus on the UNGA sidelines, which both leaders are set to attend.

There may be more than one reason why Modi would shrug his shoulder in despise Yunus for his comments on Bangladesh-India relations in a recent interview have not gone down well in New Delhi.

Political observers state that Yunus should find an opportunity to meet Modi on the margins of UNGA to update on the bilateral relationship between the two neighbouring countries.

The two leaders had a telephone dialogue on 16 August, a week after the Nobel laureate Dr Yunus took oath as head of the Interim Government. Modi reiterated India’s support for a democratic, stable, peaceful and progressive Bangladesh.

Modi also urged Yunus for the safety and security of the “Hindus and all other minority communities” in Bangladesh.

The two leaders spoke for the first time in the backdrop of the fast-moving developments in the neighbouring country, which earlier this month witnessed the dramatic removal of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the subsequent internal political turbulence.

Several journalists based in Delhi quoting insiders in South Block that Modi will have a packed schedule for his three-day visit to the United States, as he is set to attend the Quad Leaders’ Summit in Wilmington, Delaware, on 21 September and address the Summit of the Future at the UN General Assembly on 23 September.

However, sources in the South Block said such a meeting is not part of the Indian side’s agenda. A meeting with the head of Bangladesh’s interim government isn’t on the schedule,” one source told Hindustan Times.

In a press interview, Yunus, the inventor of micro-credit and women’s empowerment, which helped several million women to escape from the cycle of poverty in rural Bangladesh, criticized former premier Sheikh Hasina for commenting on developments in Bangladesh while in exile in India.

He did not hesitate to suggest that Bangladesh could seek her extradition and said India should move beyond the “narrative” that every political party other than Hasina’s Awami League is “Islamist”.

Meanwhile, Touhid Hossain, the de facto foreign minister and other advisers of the Interim Government, have repeatedly raked up the possibility of seeking the extradition of Hasina, who fled to India after her autocratic regime collapsed on 5 August.

Hossain went a step forward and said that if Delhi is stubborn on the issue of deportation, it would create an “embarrassing situation for the Indian government”.

The External Affairs Ministry has refused to be drawn out on any possible Bangladeshi request for her extradition, describing it as a hypothetical matter.

The Iron Lady of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina landed at an air force base in Delhi and is living in a safe house, literally in seclusion. She was unable to meet her daughter Saima Wazed, Regional Director of the World Health Organisation South-East Asia Region based in New Delhi. Her brother Sajeeb Wazed failed to get clearance from the Delhi administration to fly from Washington DC to meet her mother living incommunicado with her sister Sheikh Rehana.

India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told the Indian parliament that “At very short notice, Sheikh Hasina requested approval to come, for a short term to India, following an unprecedented political upheaval in Bangladesh.”

Some academicians said it would be another diplomatic blunder of Delhi’s South Block if a dialogue is not held at the soonest between the two leaders.

Modi does not know the immediate plan of Hasina’s stay for a number of days in India. Most importantly he does not know what to tell Yunus, who will press him for the extradition of Hasina to face the music of justice for the deaths of hundreds of students and protesters and their bloods spilt in the streets.

She is also blamed for enforced disappearances, extra-judicial deaths and confinement of her opposition and critics in secret prisons.

There is no doubt that she knew very well of the horizontal and vertical corruption, bank loot, money laundering, and second home of most lawmakers, Awami League senior leaders, bureaucrats, and law enforcement officers. She deliberately did not crack down on rogue elements.

It is feared that if Bangladesh officially demands her extradition, she may be moved to Russia, an anti-west where she can live happily ever after.

First published in the Northeast News portal, Guwahati, India on 21 September 2024

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

ASEAN Plus formula unlikely to resolve Rohingya crisis

Photo: Rohingyas hold placards prior to the arrival of UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres and World Bank president Jim Yong Kim at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, July 2, 2018. REUTERS

Saleem Samad

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina tabled a four-point proposal at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to solve the Rohingya crisis.

“The crisis is now lingering into the third year; yet not a single Rohingya could return to Myanmar due to [the] absence of safety and security, freedom of movement and overall conducive environment in the Rakhine State of Myanmar,” Hasina lamented at New York.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen was eager to hold parleys with his counterparts in China and Myanmar, Wang Yi and Kyaw Tint Swe respectively, at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, for safe and voluntary repatriation of Rohingya refugees languishing in sprawling camps in Cox’s Bazar.

Prospects of a diplomatic breakthrough in tripartite talks with China and Myanmar were marred after Myanmar rejected a Chinese proposal to have a group of Rohingya genocide survivors visit the Arakan state to STUDY whether the situation was favorable for repatriation.

Aung Ko, Director General of the Political Affairs Department at Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs categorically stated that they “will stick to the bilateral agreement to accept returning refugees after they are assessed.”

Two years ago on August 25, Myanmar security forces began a fresh military campaign of ethnic cleansing that drove an estimated one million Rohingyas to neighbor Bangladesh.

Despite Myanmar’s agreement on the proposal for the repatriation and reintegration of Rohingya survivors, official efforts to implement it ran into hurdles. The Rohingyas' return was stalled several times in a decade.

There is indeed a trust deficiency in engaging with Myanmar, said Dr Momen in an exclusive interview with this journalist. He felt that the confidence and cooperation level should improve significantly to remove misunderstandings and suspicions among the two South Asian neighbors.

Dr Momen explained the present situation to the reporters on the eve of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India, adding, “India is a good friend of both Bangladesh and Myanmar. It has investments in both countries. But if the Rohingya crisis prolongs, there may be pockets of radicalization.”

Myanmar in a bilateral agreement agreed to issue National Verification Card (NVC) after the return of Rohingyas to Arakan State but Bangladesh demanded that there should not be any restrictions on mobility for the Rohingyas returnees.

An estimated 500,000 Rohingyas who still remained in Arakan State are confined in several hamlets and guarded by Myanmar para-military forces and their freedom of movement is severely restricted.

Bangladesh was not surprised that the proposal for a non-military group of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – ASEAN, plus the inclusion of China and India to oversee the repatriation of refugees, supervise integration and rehabilitation was rejected by Myanmar.

Myanmar is a member of the ASEAN bloc and has friendly ties with its members including nine states ― Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

ASEAN countries are willing to cooperate to mitigate the Rohingya crisis. Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia are vocal about the genocide survivors and had extended help for the refugees living in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh proposed to Myanmar with a time limit of two years to complete the repatriation in cooperation with ASEAN Plus countries.

This was mooted at the tripartite dialogue in New York after Myanmar refused to agree to a “safe zone” concept similar to the “peace corridor” for two million refugees from war-torn Syria.

The “safe zone” idea for Syrian refugees was proposed by Turkey with the leaders at the UN meeting and backed by Russia and Iran.

Dr Momen reaffirmed that the Myanmar government had a moral responsibility to be proactive in their political commitment to ensure A voluntary, safe, and dignified repartition of Rohingyas languishing in the world's largest refugee camps in Cox's Bazar.

First published in Bangla Tribune online on 09 October 2019

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, also a recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com

Bangladesh worry thaws on NRC

A protest against the Citizenship Amendment Bill in Assam in January 2019. Photo: AFP

Saleem Samad

The good news over which many heaved a sigh of relief came when Indian prime minister Narendra Modi assured his Bangladesh counterpart, Sheikh Hasina, that Assam’s National Registration of Citizens (NRC) in India would have no impact on Bangladesh and urged her not to be worried about it.

In the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at New York, Modi gave his assurance after Hasina raised the NRC issue saying that it was a matter of great concern for Bangladesh.

This conclusive statement came at the time when the Indian leadership was in deep embarrassment after a series of hiccups experienced by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government after the publication of the NRC list.

During the parliamentary (Lok Sabha) elections in May, the BJP extended political support to the upgrading of Assam’s National Register of Citizens, a Supreme Court-monitored process to identify undocumented migrants from Bangladesh living in the state.

It was a disaster as most of the illegal migrants according to the list published were Hindus, nearly three-fourths and very few Muslims allegedly from Bangladesh. Even Kargil war veterans and others were unfortunately de-listed as Indian nationals.

Shoaib Daniyal in his in-depth story published in Scroll.in reveals several blunders in the de-listing of Indian nationals which have caused displeasure within the ruling BJP.

Weeks before the release of the final list in August, the BJP expressed severe displeasure with the NRC. BJP-run state and central governments even tried to delay publication. The BJP realized that the bill was not a solution for Bangali Hindus left out of the NRC.

Only recently, the BJP went so far as to declare that it was rejecting the NRC entirely. The Citizenship Amendment Bill is on a head-on collision course with the NRC, which will instead hinder Bangladeshi Hindus become Indian citizens, writes Daniyal.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill shows the actual process of making claims under the Bill is so complicated and riddled with contradictions that it would have no real impact on the citizenship prospects of Bangali Hindus left out of the NRC.

Large-scale exclusion of Hindus will cause collateral damage politically to the BJP, a party that has a Hindu identity. For damage control, the BJP has renewed its push to amend India’s citizenship law in order to explicitly favor non-Muslim migrants from neighboring countries, writes Scroll.in.

Most of the criticism of the Citizenship Amendment Bill introduced by the Modi government has centered around the question of religious discrimination.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill introduced in 2016 would violate India’s secular character since it expressly identifies Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians coming from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan as being eligible for citizenship even if they entered the country illegally. Obviously, this list leaves out Muslims.

Critics from Indian civil society as well as the political opposition have opposed the Bill on the ground that it would violate India’s secular character.

First published in the Bangla Tribune online edition, 30 September 2019

Saleem Samad, is a journalist, media rights defender, also recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad; Email: saleemsamad@hotmail.com