Bangladesh could be more formidable opponent than Pakistan to India
This article looks at the reasons why Bangladesh could be a more formidable opponent than Pakistan to India in South Asian region.
Bangladesh could turn out to be a more formidable opponent for India in South Asia than Pakistan. Reasons are as follows :
1. Economically, Bangladesh is growing much faster than Pakistan and even India. Bangaldesh's economic growth has increased its imports from India and this gives Bangladesh a strong leverage against India. At present Bangladesh imports about USD15-20 Billions of exports from India and approximately about 2.6 Million Indians work in Bangladesh in various sectors.
Now Bangladesh can easily replace most of these Indian contributions to her economy with Chinese contributions and this is the greatest leverage Bangladesh has over India at this moment. Being mindful of this leverage of Bangladesh against India, Indian government has refrained from directly criticizing the Bangladeshi government on the recent violence against Hindus in that country.
2. With the economic growth, the next step inevitably is the rise of a middle-class and economic inequality. The governments in this region, while facing societal pressures due to this inequality decides to deflect attention from criticism by creating and propagating both external and internal enemies.
This is a strong pan-South Asian phenomenon that has already been observed in the 1980-s in Sri Lanka when the Sinhalese majority governments decided to create an enemy out of the minority Tamils which later led to civil war for two decades. The same phenomenon can be observed in India at present times. After the economic reforms in 1990-s, India has seen greater economic inequality over the last few decades and successive governments in this country have decided to focus on China and Pakistan as enemies in order to deflect the blame from itself for the economic inequality related issues. The present government is not the only government to do so as the UPA governments in the past did the same thing when they ruled.
The same tendencies can be seen in Bangladesh, as behind the facades of economic growth, economic inequality and misery always lurk. For Bangladesh, the logical enemy can only be India as there have been strong memories of hostility and antipathy towards India in Bangladesh over many decades whereby the common Bangladeshi considers India as a regional hegemon hellbent upon stopping Bangladesh's rise. There are many reasons behind this attitude for example the water sharing issues between the two countries , the BSF killing of many Bangladeshis at our common borders, the Kashmir 370 NRC CAA, India's refusal to export COVID vaccines to Bangladesh at an opportune moment etc.
3. The present ruling class in Bangladesh, is considered by many sections of that country as Indian puppets and therefore India will generate a lot of antipathy in that country as and when Bangladesh experiences economic misery during the present government as we have seen in the last two years due to COVID lock downs.
4. The most fascinating aspect of the Bangladeshi question is that while most of the Indians feel that Bangladeshis should be permanently indebted to India for 1971 liberation whereas to most Bangladeshis, 1971 and Indian help in that very liberation actually are reminders of a borrowed and partial independence and most of these people feel that Bangladesh had to pay a great and unfair price over the years for that to India.
The young generations in Bangladesh now feel, that the Indian contribution to 1971 actually belittles and enfeebles their own contribution and their own liberation narrative. To the uninformed Indian, to expect the Bangladeshis to be permanently grateful for their liberation from Pakistan is like the absurdity of the Americans to feel permanently grateful and bonded to the French for the liberation of the Americans from the British yoke !
For this reason, Bangladesh will be looking to challenge Indian interests in the region. A great example of the same is Bangladesh offering Sri Lanka strong economic support which India herself was reluctant to offer considering Chinese prominent role in Sri Lanka. In this way, Bangladesh can take over India's role in this region for providing much needed economic support to economically challenging countries in this region.
5. The most challenging aspect of the Bangladesh question is that the Indian government because of economic and geopolitical interests will not be able to antagonize the present Bangladeshi government of Sheikh Hasina since India currently is being successfully encircled and boxed in her own South Asian region by an ascending China. The loss of Bangladesh will be something that would complete the process therefore a strategic nightmare for policy makers in the Raisina hills. To prevent this nightmare to become true, no Indian establishment will be able to antagonize or criticize Bangladeshi atrocities against the Hindu minority in that country.
The above are reasons for which the strategic community in India should consider Bangladesh a potentially more formidable challenge to the Indian hegemony in South Asia compared to Pakistan.