As presumed Bangladesh may go for its national elections by 2025 itself, if the political parties agree to adopt a minimal reform in various administrative and electoral agencies with assurances that the winning representatives in Jatiya Sansad (National Assembly/Parliament) will continue pursuing the reform process in the south Asian nation. Recently the Bangladesh caretaker government head Professor Muhammad Yunus also pointed out that the stalled election can be held by the year itself. Nobel laureate Prof Yunus, who took the leadership of an interim government in Dhaka soon after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted by a student-led mass movement in July-August 2024, also added that the country needs a major reform in various sectors to bring the poverty-stricken populous country on the right tracks. Recently, Prof Yunus also directed the concerned authorities to prepare for the general elections in the Muslim majority nation which he assured to be free, fair and inclusive.
Amidst the love-hate relations between Bangladesh and India, Prof Yunus has also responded positively to bring Dhaka closer to Islamabad, even though Pakistan is currently facing severe internal problems with the Baloch freedom aspiring nationals. Political observers believe that the unholy alliance between Islamabad and Dhaka may pose a serious challenge to the Indian Union government in New Delhi. While Pakistan remains an enemy nation to India since its birth, another neighbour Bangladesh now starts behaving like a foe. Prof Yunus had a meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in New York during the United Nations General Assembly in September 2024, which was followed by regular cargo shipping and direct flights to facilitate the people to contact between Bangladesh and Pakistan (incidentally both were under the same territory as Islamic Republic of Pakistan after separating from Hindustan in 1947). Lately a delegation of Pakistani traders visited Dhaka with an aim to establish a joint council that would focus on economic cooperation and a team of Bangladeshi military officials visited Pakistan. Meanwhile, a popular Pakistani singer performed Qawali (a form of Sufi Islamic devotional song) in Dhaka with a spectacular response.
During the Bangladesh freedom movement, the Pakistani forces killed nearly 30 lakh Bengali nationals, but even then Bangladesh was born with the support from Indian armed forces and millions of common Indians. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman became the first President of the country which turned seemingly secular in nature, but soon Mujib was killed along with many of his close relatives. Decades later, his daughter Hasina (who luckily survived the massacre) became the Bangladesh government head as her party Awami League won the national elections. Till she was deposed and compelled to take temporary shelter in India, Hasina maintained a confrontational stand against Pakistan asking Islamabad for a public apology because of the 1971 mass murder. Hoping to return back soon, Hasina continues criticizing Prof Yunus and thus indirectly influencing the bilateral ties between Dhaka and New Delhi. In public places, representatives from both the countries are talking about good neighbourly relations, but it has deteriorated on the ground.
Now Prof Yunus is insisting on reviving the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which faced deadlock because of growing enmities between New Delhi and Islamabad. It may be mentioned that representatives of the eight SAARC member-countries met last time in Kathmandu (Nepal, November 2014). The deadlock began in 2016 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided not to attend a SAARC summit in Pakistan as India faced Islamist terror-attacks allegedly backed by Islamabad. The then Bangladesh premier Hasina also refused to attend the summit in Pakistan. Ultimately the forum, which was established in 1985 representing over 25% of the global population, became defunct. On the other hand, PM Modi and Hasina initiated to empower the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), which is headquartered in Dhaka and rejected space to Pakistan.
As Prof Yunus is calling for revitalising the SAARC in different platforms with the argument for ensuring collective benefits to the entire region, it’s assumed that he wants to include Pakistan in the south Asian group by reviving the SAARC. Seemingly, Prof Yunus is not interested in activating BIMSTEC and expecting support from Islamabad in his SAARC mission. When Prof Yunus meets PM Modi in the BIMSTEC summit, scheduled for April in Bangkok, it will be a matter of observation how he is entertained by the Indian government chief. If everything goes well and Bangladesh embraces polls it will be the end of Prof Yunus era as a ruler. On principle, he cannot be an electoral candidate as he heads the caretaker government, but some political observers predict the octogenarian banker turned interim government’s chief adviser to be the next President of Bangladesh. Till then New Delhi may adopt a wait & watch policy over these developments unfolding in the immediate neighborhood.
