A rich and profound work on the polity, people and state of Bangladesh.

'Bangladesh Decoded' is a rich seminal work on the polity, state and the people of Bangladesh by RNP Singh, a trained mind and experienced hand on intelligence issues with an insatiable apetite for substantiating details and supporting evidence. RNP Singh's work is a case study and a historic account of Bangladesh and its previous incarnation as Muslims-intense East Bengal and Muslim-majority East Pakistan. The history of what is today Bangladesh needs to be summarised in brief for a greater understanding of RNP Singh's work.

• In its previous incarnation as East Bengal, it first experimented with, and also experienced, the success of, political Islam in the modern sense of the term, in the Indian subcontinent as the 20^th century opened, long before the Islamised version of modern politics visited the other parts of the subcontinent;
• next, it saw the potentiality of political Islam to redefine and redetermine not just personal, social and political relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in a religiously diverse demography, but, also to break the pre-Islamic bonds of Muslims with non-Muslims in diversified societies and make new nations founded on Islamic identity and redraw international borders and maps along the faultlines of Islam;
• third, by turning that potential into kinetic effort, it participated and succeeded in a movement to truncate and trifurcate India on religious lines, finding in that process West Pakistan, a geographically distanced Islamic cousin more desirable to join and live with, rather than with the neighbouring Hindus inside and Hindu-majority India outside its borders and thus reincarnated the Muslim-intense East Bengal as East Pakistan;
• fourth, soon after succeeding in partitioning India along Islamic faultlines and joining hands with Pakistan, East Pakistan found its trust in Islamic poilitics shattered by its dear and intimate Islamic counsin West Pakistan turning hostile and setting upon a genocidal agenda against it regardless of the common bond of Islam;
• fifth, forced by the adverse turn of its Islamic cousin on a course of revenge, East Pakistan was forced to take a U-turn from its course along Islamic agenda and to seek refuge in and the support of India, from which it had had a hostile and bloody separation, to save it from its Islamic cousin's blood thirst and to secure freedom;
• sixth, after securing freedom from Pakistan's dictatorship with India's assistance, East Pakistan reincarnated as Bangladesh set out to practise and practised for a while, domestic and cross border policies that seemed to move away Islamised politics at home and geo-politics across and outside the borders;
• finally, but not too late thereafter, Bangladesh again did a U-turn against the benefactor India and began pursuing Islamic politics not only at home and abroad, but also in relating geo-politics, particularly the Islamic world, within its reach, thus undoing the deviation from Islamised approach to the neighbour and the world and back to square one, establishing in the process that the Islamic exclusive orientation that had given birth to East Bengal and firmed up in its reincarnation as East Bengal had managed to survive the shock of genocidal oppression by its Islamic cousin and also overcoming the sense of gratitude to its Hindu-majority neighbour, India.  

This book, rightly titled 'Bangladesh Decoded' captures and measures the wounded body and understands and unveils the disturbed soul of Bangladesh that has been struggling for over a century with political Islam, but, neither succeeded in handling it on the softer premises of Islam like Egypt does nor was to secularise by de-Islamising it like Turkey did, to the initiated as well as the uninitiated in subcontinental and global politics.

II

In his incisive collection and erudite analysis of historic and current data and evidence on the neighbouring State, RNP Singh has recounted how rapidly Bangladesh is re-Islamising to its own and to others’, particularly its neighbours’ risk. Yes, it is re-Islamisation, not Islamisation as some think, as Bangladesh in its previous incarnations as East Bengal divided by Curzon in 1905 and later as East Pakistan along with the West divided by Mohammed Ali Jinnah in 1947 was a product of strategically induced political Islamisation that started with the Curzon strategy in 1905 to the partition of Bengal to trigger and expedite Islamisation of Muslims and their political and social separation from the non-Muslim neighbours. This soon turned and matured into a spontaneous movement for Islamisation that is, mobilisation of Muslims on Islamic approach to non-Muslims for political ends that climaxed into the partition of India as India and Pakistan. But, after the partition in 1947, the Islamised East Pakistan that shared with its senior cousin, West Pakistan, a common hatred for India – read Hindus – as the rationale for the partition soon began to receive its rudest lessons from West Pakistan when the latter began to treat the East as an economic and political colony, rather than an Islamic and equal cousin. The people of the Eastern part of Pakistan began realising not too late that the common religion founded on social equality within the Islamic Umma would not get them equal treatment in politics and geo-politics. Forced to defy political and economic subordination of the East by West Pakistan, they began struggling for their rights, which gradually turned into a movement for freedom from and against West Pakistan and the movement reached its peak in the year 1970. Inevitably, that invited, like it does from Islamic establishments against apostates in Islamic history, violent retaliation through genocide and destruction by the West which was under military dictatorship. At this point, as millions of Bangladeshi people turned into refugees and took refuge in India, the Indian government had to step in to end, and rescue them from, the tyranny of West Pakistan and handed out a military defeat to Pakistan in the West and in the East. Consequently, the truncated West Pakistan had to sign a humiliating military surrender to India leading to thousands of its soldiers becoming Prisoners of War. This clinched the creation of independent Bangladesh.

III

It was then, when Bangladesh was saved from Islamic Pakistan by Hindu-majority India, that the Islamisation process in modern political terms that started with and resulted in the creation of East Bengal in 1905 and later East Pakistan in 1947 halted seemingly for all time to come. But, as the later events proved beyond doubt, this relief from the Islamic drive actually lasted only for a while. But, as the author explains, after the establishment of Bangladesh, the process re-manifested first stealthily, but as if it were a continuity from where it had left before the bloody confrontation between the East and West Pakistan took place. This remanifestation was facilitated by the fact that the brooding Islamic establishment of East Pakistan, which en masse had turned into and cloathed itself as the secular establishment of Bangladesh could not and infact did not change the Islamised mindset that had rationalised the partition of India and the creation of East Pakistan along with the West. The Islamisation process that created East Pakistan began to re-emerge openly despite the fact that the saner people of Bangladesh had perhaps reviewed the entire course of history that had resulted in the tragic partition of Bengal within India in 1905 and then the partition of East Pakistan from India in 1947 on the two nation theory and rejected the communal character of the partition between India and Bangladesh. As the events that unfolded later revealed, the creation of Bangladesh through the efforts of India merely resulted in the Islamic elements in Bangladesh going underground for a while and they neither changed their mindset nor could the contamination of Bangladesh polity caused by them be eliminated by the saner elements who were initially in command in Bangladesh. How Islamised politics revisited Bangladesh as if it had continued from where it stood suspended calls for a deeper understanding of the theological foundations of Islam to understand how, once such theological implications manifest in politics, even the emergence of Bangladesh after the genocidal oppression by Pakistan from which Hindu India had had to save the people of Bangladesh also would not durably interfere with, or put a stop to, or reverse, the process of isolation and separation that seems to be inherent in Islam as a faith and a way of relating to the world and to non-Muslim people. Such an understanding will also demonstrate how Islam seems to make its adherents satisfied and fulfilled only in relating exclusively to their co-faithfuls and to separate and distance from those who are not its adherents. A deeper study of the case of transition of the people of the united Bengal before 1905 through to their present state only testifies to this conclusion.

IV

A historic mapping of how Islamic separatism manifested and went underground and remanifested in the eastern region of India  brings out four distinct landmarks. First, the partition of Bengal in 1905 on communal basis as a Muslim intense area, second, the partition of East Pakistan in 1947 as a Muslim majority state on two nation theory, and third, the emergence of Bangladesh in 1972 as an independent, India-friendly [read Hindu-friendly] State negating the foundations of  both communal division of Bengal in 1905 and the two-nation theory driven partition in 1947, and fourth, and finally, the re-emergence of anti-India [read anti-Hindu] politics in Bangladesh almost as if an inherent phenomenon that had gone underground for a while had remanifested. The result is the reality of the Islamised polity of Bangladesh which may make one believe and even concede that Pakistan was wrong, but would equally assert that India was not and can never be right despite whatever India might have done to help Bangladesh out in the 1970s. This was a contrast to all rational expectations about how Bangladesh led by Pakistan would relate to India after its hard and violent experience with Islamised politics.  What were the expectations? The emergence of Bangladesh out of East Pakistan would have been first seen by most in India and in Pakistan and by sub-continent watchers elsewhere as the negation of the ideological foundation of the two-nation theory that gave birth to East Bengal first and East Pakistan along with West Pakistan later. Geo-politically, Bangladesh would have been perceived, rightly, as a durable ally of India which ensured the freedom of its people from Pakistan. But the re-emergence of the anti-Indian [read anti-Hindu] political Islam in Bangladesh, has thrown up profound issues concerning the influence of Islamic theology on the psyche of the Muslims and its decisive, even determinative, influence on their relations with non-Muslim peoples and States. The question that arises in the context of the dramatic transformation of  Bangladesh polity from being India-friendly into one unfriendly to India is whether there is substance in the apprehensions in the mind of non-Muslims engaging Islamists that due to the Islamic theological influene on  Muslims, they can be easily and always  turned against non-Muslims by invoking the theological tenets of Islam on and against non-Muslims. Otherwise, there is no logical explanation for the mass adverse hysteria which could  so easily and effortlessly and so soon be built up against India in and by Bangladesh with decreasing disapproval, and even a mute approval, of Pakistan in Bangladesh today. The attitude of the Islamic establishment – that shaped the Islamic identity of East Bengal and later in East Pakistan and that influenced Bangladesh in recent times – to India and Hindus in particular affords the best historic testimony on whether the apprehended theological incompatibility of Islam to a multi-religious polity or nation or state is a myth or a practical reality.  

V

Bangladesh history is a case study in modern world on whether Islam has or lacks the potentiality to live in peace with non-Islamic neighbours with whom the Islamists had shared common history, parentage and culture. Bangladesh affords the most visible example of this intriguing, yet instructive, phenomenon of Islamic faith influenced polity and geo-political and neighbourly relations, with particular emphasis on the approach of Islamised politics to non-Islamic peoples in modern times.  The study of Islamic theology as manifest in practice in the polity of Bangladesh and its previous incarnations is necessary to grasp the inner working of the Islamic mind in a world of diverse cultures and faiths. Bangladesh was part of the composite Bengal that consisted of Hindus and Muslims, and from its being part of the composite Bengal commenced the theologically driven political Islam transform into Muslim-intense East Bengal, and as a logical course, from being Muslim-intense East Bengal and part of India to East Pakistan and part of Pakistan. Then came the break with West Pakistan, the Islamic cousin of East Pakistan, attempting to destroy the East with its military and political might supported by the US and the West in its effort to turn the East into a colony of  West Pakistan by a genocide, if necessary. The hate towards non-Muslims which was generated in East Pakistan during the partition of India should have abated with their very Islamic cousins turning into their destroyers. But it did not. The people of Bangladesh should have turned guilty for having religiously and politically hated India and for having felt closer and be part of West Pakistan. But they did not. During the period when India – which the Islamic theologians and politicians who created Pakistan always regarded as Hindu in character – extended support to the East Pakistanis to become independent Bangladesh, the anti-Hindu politics did not abate, contrary to the expectations, but, seemed to have merely remained in a state of suspended animation, with the potentiality of the Islamic theologically driven politics to revive and reinstate it. And that is precisely what happened afterwards.This process and the forces of re-Islamisation led to the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman who, even though he was the father and architect of Bangladesh, was considered to be close to India [read Hindus] and consequently was not legitimate from the central point of Islamic politics! Thus, what persuaded the Muslims of Bengal to justify the separation of Muslim-intense East Bengal in 1905 when the united Bengal was divided on communal lines is the same theolgoical rationale that justified their decision to become part of the polity – despite not being part of the geography! -- of the Islamic nation of Pakistan in 1947. And what drove the powerful elements who control the mind of Bangladesh today to turn anti-India is the same theolgoically driven political rationale that did the trick in 1905 and 1947. The surprise for many, unfamiliar with the power of Islamic theological influence over Islamic polity and state craft is that the same rationale could be revalidated despite the unforgettable and harrowing experince of the Bangladeshsis in 1971 at the hands of Pakistan being still in memory. But if the theological influence of Islam over its polity is properly understood in the context of the history of Islam, the turn caused by powerful theolgical and political elements in the character of Bangladesh from being a nation that is, and should be, eternally grateful to India for having saved their people from Pakistan into a country unfriendly – and therefore ungrateful – to India might not be a surprise.

VI

 Any study of alienation of Bangladesh from India will be incomplete unless the character of Islamic polity and statecraft driven by Islamic theology is properly factored in. It is consistent with the broad pattern of Islamic history and the influence of Islam in creating hostility between the mother society and the new Islamic society in any place where Islam entered and enlarged its influence and following. The root cause of this alienation is the idea of Islamic Umma and alienation from the mother society based on that idea inherent in Islam and in the process of Islamisation. Islamisation  is not a one time event but a continuous process that starts and does not stop, with a people or a society adopting Islam as a way of worship, until all the remnants of the pre-Islamic symbols and habits of the converted people are eliminated. The process of Islamisation is completed only when the last reminders of the pre-Islamic remainders of an Islamic society are eliminated. While hardline Islamic initiatives like the Tablighi Jamaat say it and carry on intense programmes for it openly and persistently, it is the generally accepted theological position within Islam that a true Muslim cannot practise what the Prophet and his near and dear ones did not. So, while acquiring an Islamic name is the beginning, acquiring the Islamic character is a time consuming and continuous process. This makes Islamic conversion a gradual theological process and not just a single point event in the life of an individual or a society. If an individual from another religion accepts Islam as his faith, that does not complete the conversion, but only initiates it. His conversion is not complete unless he disowns all that connects him to his old faith, society, family, relations, people, history and culture and only when he is totally cut off from the old society to which he belonged he becomes a complete Muslim and true Islamist. This also equally applies to a society which has either en masse or in a piecemeal manner accepted Islam. Unless the converted society is made to disown and turn away from its own past, its own forefathers, its own history and culture totally and to forget that it had had any past other than the Islamic past, its conversion is not complete, and until it is complete in this sense, the Islamisation process continues. The Islamic faith says the Nobel Laureate VS Naipaul, makes imperial demands on its adherents. It demands total alienation of the convert from his social and cultural moorings and till that happens the process of Islamising him continues. Thus, the urge to disown the umbilical ties with the larger India and to assert the Islamic identity which became the trigger for separation within India and later foundation for the partition of India, was a product of the continuous process of conversion, as VS Naipaul explains, or Islamisation as the modern world sees that process. It is a fact of history, as recent as of the last century, that the people of what is now Bangladesh became progressively alienated from the larger India thanks to the normal local differences among them fuelled, exploited and promoted by georeligious and geo-political infuences generated by colonial masters and Islamic theologians working in tandem and even independently but with a common goal for, of course, different political purposes.

VII

The author has explained in the chapter titled 'Ungrateful Bangladesh' how the powerful Islamic groups in Bangladesh polity came out of their trance and rapidly turned the adversaries of India within a short while after East Pakistan had become free and independent Bangladesh. Equally rapidly did such elements turn Bangladesh obsessive about Islam and apprehensive about India and trashed the very idea of a secular Bangladesh as an Indian conspiracy to undermine the Islamic character of Bangladesh. Philosophically, this was the first step to the re-Islamisation of Bangladesh. And, thanks to them and their sustained efforts assisted by Pakistan and the subsequent turn in the global Islamic politics after the cold war, the Muslim-majority Bangladesh is today increasingly intensifying Islamic extremism and allowing such elements to incubate, nurture, and glorify theological hate for other faiths and peoples. Moreover, it also winks at the ceaseless efforts of such elements to develop highly motivated human infrastructure spearheaded by Jihadis believing in hate and  terror for  the cause of Islam. The sum of all this is that Bangladesh as a nation is fast becoming a threat, not just to its neighbour, saviour and benefactor, India, but also to the world at large that is hugely concerned at the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism as perhaps the greatest threat to world peace. Particularly after the 9/11 attack on the US, the danger posed by Islamic terror and Islamised nations to world peace is now increasingly and extensively debated in the Western world mostly in muted tones and sometimes even openly pointing an accusing finger at Islam as a faith and the Islamists as faithfuls as the fundamental motivation for terror. As the world is becoming highly sensitised to the rise of extremist trends in Islam in Islamic territories and elsewhere, security agencies of Islamic and non-Islamic States alike are sniffing around to catch the  stench of Islamic extremism in every nook and corner of the world to set in motion remedial action to prevent such extremism from transforming into terrorism.

VIII

Yet, despite transforming into a regional hub of extremism and terror, Islamic Bangladesh has not attracted global attention proportionate to its increasing potential for recruiting Jihadis and for generating and merchanting terror through them. And despite such increasing evidence of Bangladesh becoming a global factory of Jihadis, it has not figured at all in the global debate on Islamic fundamentalism and terror except marginally and occasionally. But, the reason why the rise of Islamic extremism and terrorism in some parts of the world is not on the radar of global awareness is that the self-appointed sentinels against Islamic terror, the US-led West,  are not too keen to fight global Islamic terror as such and as a whole. They are fighting that, and only that, Islamic terror which targets them, and not the Islamic terror that targets other non-Islamic or Islamic peoples. This is despite the fact that the US is geographically a distant target for Islam or the Islamist terror, while others, like India, are living in Islamist ambience and neighbourhood, and with Islamic people within, who are increasingly taking to extremism and terrorism that also intensifies in a reaction the global war on terror launched by the US-led West. Thus, while the US-led war against terror incentivises Islamic terror elsewhere, the US effort to fight terror is limited to the terror that targets the US and the West. Moreover, they even ally with the Islamic terror that targets India and secure such terror-merchants as their allies to confront the terror that targets them!

IX

This is so because the campaign of the West against terror is also carried on almost exclusively from its own perspective. Whoever from among the violent elements in Islam, like Pakistan, for instance, is friendly with the West is exempted from being the target of the war on terror. Historically, even before the war on terror commenced, this had been true as, when the Palestinian Liberation Army [PLO] was the enemy of the US, the latter  promoted the Hamas, and when the PLO became friendly with the West after the settlement on Palestine, the Hamas became the enemy! Since the West has arrogated to itself the authority to define which nation is terrorist and what is terror, there is disproportionate emphasis in the debate on, and action against, Islamic terror in those parts of the world which are of concern to the US and the West. Thus, thanks to the deliberately distorted American perspective which defines a terrorist according to who is the ally or adversary of the US and regardless of who is actually merchanting terror, the global debate about Islamic extremism, fundamenatalism and terror, is almost entirely centred around the Middle East and Iran – the areas of geo-political importance to the US. To demonstrate this distortion, as an illustration, this distorted debate sometimes, but only rarely, involved Pakistan, which is universally regarded as the epicenture of terrorism in the world. This is so despite the fact that the philosophic foundation for Islamist terror is provided by Wahabi and Deobandi Islam and it is Pakistan which has indigenised and nourished the Wahabi and Deobandi brands of Islam that inspired and incubated the Islamic terror as the world sees it today. It is also a well-known fact that Pakistan, at the instance of, and actually to help, the US, mothered the Taliban which, for a long time, also was an ally of the US against Soviet expansionism in Afghanistan in the 1970s. But, even as Pakistan figures marginally in the world atlas of Islamic Terror, Bangladesh, which has Islamic extremism and fundamentalism increasingly shaping its people, hardly finds a mention among nations and societies which, in the western or American perspective, are Islamising to the detriment of their neighbourhood and the world. In the context of Bangladesh, this perspective underplays the emerging position of this country as an important generating and operating centre of Islamic terror. In the larger interest of fighting global Islamic terror that constitutes a danger to all and not just the US, the world and particularly the Indian subcontinent and India, need to be sensitised about this true and emerging character of Islamic Bangladesh and the danger it poses to all, more so India.

X

It is in this context that 'Bangladesh Decoded' is a significant contribution to awareness in India about the hidden and emerging Islamic terror machine in Bangladesh. As RNP Singh's meticulous work brings out explicitly and irrefutably, Bangladesh is not only Islamising expeditiously, it is also making a frightening contribution to the growth of global Islamic fundamentalism and extremism in the regions which are the theological laboratories and exclusive catchment area for Islamic terrorism at the global level. In this sense, apart from being a historical treatise from the current perspective, RNP Singh's work is of great importance and relevance to students and experts alike who are keen to study and to know the phenomenon of fundamentalist Islamic infuence over Muslims in Bangladesh and its impact on the neighbourhood including India. As such, it is a global guide for those keen on gauging the role of Bangladesh in fomenting and promoting global Islamic terror. RNP Singh's work on the fast Islamising Bangladesh faithfully captures and presents, as if it were a film running on a screen before the reader, the past history and the present polity of a highly troubled people of that State, who were once an integral part of the larger India, geographically, socially and culturally.  Bangladesh is one country where, in modern times, Islam has guided the Muslims in intense interaction with non-Muslim neighbours in villages and towns and where Islam has been able to redraw international borders along Islamic faultlines with non-Muslims. So, not just India, the whole world, which is concerned about the dynamics of Islam as a faith and as an ideological drive of Muslim geo-politics and that wants to impose the power and influence of Islam over its faithfuls and also its decisive and determinative influence over the mind and thinking of its adherents in fashioning their relations with those who are not adherents of their faith, would benefit from this case study of the author on Bangladesh. So, in every way 'Bangladesh Decoded' is not only a great exploration of  Bangladesh but  also a deep penetration of Islam and its power to make its adherents  follow blind-folded its imperial dictates. A modern world which is in search of the logic and strategy to handle the threat of Islamic extremism and terror would learn a lot from the experience of Bangladesh in relation to India. It is equally a great contribution to shaping the thinking of the responsible sections of the people of Bangladesh on whom tremendous responsibility lies for guiding Bangladesh and making them introspect on the distortions that plague and misdirect the people and the polity of Bangladesh as well as the leadership of the nation.   

                                                                              S. Gurumurthy
(Columnist & Writer)

Chennai
July 7, 2007

The dictum that war against a state is fought by the army of another state is fast losing its meaning. With the changing times, technologies and sometimes even the aspirations of the people, a sovereign state is constantly engaged, virtually at a war level, against unidentified faces and faceless armies which are generally grouped as terrorists. Terror has always existed in human history. Albert Camu in his Nobel Prize winning detailed study of the philosophy of terror and terrorism in The Rebel says that terror / terrorism exists in two forms — individual terrorism and state terror. The reasons for unleashing  terror can be varied.

But the situation takes a very serious turn when a group of individuals, for one reason or another, takes the path of terrorism. Albert Camu found that most of these individuals forming terror groups and resorting to nihilism involve "a frustrated religious movement, which culminates in terrorism. In the universe of total negation, these young disciples try with bombs, revolvers, and also with the courage with which they walk to the gallows, to escape from the contradiction and to create the value they lack… The terrorists undoubtedly want first of all to destroy to make absolutism totter under the shock of exploding bombs. But by their death, at any rate, they aim at creating a community founded on love and justice".

Today we are witnessing that the whole world is suffering from terror activities perpetrated by the young people, mainly belonging to one particular religious movement, i.e., the Islamic fundamentalism. There is global threat from Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. There is a threat in a very systematic way to the political systems, the  socio-economic equilibrium and even territorial integrity of the sovereign, secular and democratic ethos all the world over.

The South Asian countries, especially India, have become very vulnerable because of terrorist activities. There are two main sources of terrorism in South Asia: Islamic fundamentalism and separatists driven insurgencies and violence. Governance, administration and control of the state machinery are collapsing under the onslaught of terrorism and instigated turmoil. The attack on  the Indian parliament, serial bomb blasts in Bombay and then, almost a decade later, in local trains, Godhra burning of train compartments followed by riots, bomb blasts in Akshardham temple in Ahmedabad, Raghunath temple in Jammu, Sankatmochan temple in Varanasi and serial bomb blasts in Delhi on the eve of Deepavali are examples of such terror activities. However, the problem becomes not only serious but, even dangerous for the country's sovereignty and integrity when we find that the neighbouring countries are deeply involved in encouraging terrorist and separatist activities.

In the last twenty years Bangladesh has emerged as a major safe haven for the terrorists and separatists operating in India. Although Pakistan had been supporting the Indian insurgents in the North-East since the partition of India, the support and assistance sharply increased since the 1990s. Prior to 1990, the incidence of insurgent activities involved guerrilla warfare waged on the Indian armed forces, formation of government in-exile, training and camping in jungles, ambushing and sporadic killing of government officials. But since 1990s the northeast insurgents changed their modalities and indulged in a variety of unlawful activities including extortion, kidnapping, drug trafficking, looting of banks, collection of money as taxes, bomb blasts and killing of innocent persons. This is all because of the full-fledged entry of the ISI. The environment of radicalised Bangladesh provided ample opportunity to the ISI for launching hostile activities against India aimed at furthering the pan-Islamic agenda and Pakistan’s proxy war in the northeastern India.

All the major insurgent outfits in the northeast have extensive links and bases in Bangladesh. The facilities enjoyed by them are broadly the same as those available to the Islamic terrorist groups. Besides the number of training camps, the insurgent groups have been provided safe haven in Bangladesh, transit facilities for important activists, acquisition of fake identity and travel documents, acquisition, storage and transportation of weapons etc. The ISI in Bangladesh has been nurturing insurgent and Islamic groups in the northeastern states, synergising activities of the Northeast insurgent groups with those of the terrorist and fundamentalist groups in India and Bangladesh, and  strengthening its links with Bangladesh security agencies to supplement its proxy war against India.

The emergence of Jammat-e-Islami and other fundamentalist organizations has given rise to a number of terrorist organizations in Bangladesh. It is difficult to identity fundamentalist and terrorist groups separately as these two have become synonymous. Most of these groups are known for their sympathies for the Talibans and the Al-Qaeda. 

The overall picture of Bangladesh is indicative of the fact that the country is moving fast in the direction of becoming a terrorist hub, which does not pose a deadly threat only to its neighbour India but to the entire world. The growth of militant fundamentalism in Bangladesh can very well be assessed after seeing appendices 2 and 3 of this book, which would surprise anyone.  The appendices are an eye-opening account of militant and terrorist training centres and madarsas. A perusal of these would suggest to any one that the entire Bangladesh is moving in the direction of fundamentalism and terrorism.  The terrorists have been using Bangladesh as a springboard to jump and fan out anywhere and everywhere in the world.

Bangladesh has been in a state of disturbance and unrest for quite some time, but the developments taking place after imposition of emergency there have the potential to seriously damage India’s security interests. The developments in Bangladesh remind one of what Musharraf did in Pakistan. But on the face of it, there is, however, one difference. General Musharraf strangulated democracy and banished two leaders, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, after seizing power through a military coup. Though there has not been any such thing in Bangladesh, it is impossible to believe that an ad-hoc administration under Fakhruddin Ahmad would take such drastic decisions without the explicit support of the army. Though the people of Bangladesh have widely welcomed the clean up mission, yet, unfortunately, history is full of instances in which such ostensibly noble intentioned missions sooner or later lose their way and end up making a cruel mockery of their stated objectives. Pakistan is the best example of how such allegedly reformist takeover ended up in a dictatorial mess. Bangladesh itself has had a similar experience.

The major political organisations and leaders may now have been removed from the scene, but what about the fundamentalist parties, which established their firm roots and shared power in the Khaleda regime? No action has been taken against these avowedly anti-India parties. Will they now fully rule the roost in Bangladesh? The question assumes a dangerous dimension in view of their support, sympathy and links with the Al-Qaeda and Bangladeshi jehadis’ mentor, Directorate General of Forces Intelligence’s (DGFI) being hand in glove with the ISI. The ISI-DGFI combine is too eager to infiltrate the Muslim cadres from Bangladesh into the ULFA, help them with arms and money, guide their tactics, keep them away from holding talks with the government, and bring all the Northeast insurgent outfits and Jehadi elements under one umbrella.

All this poses a very serious question. Bangladesh was born as a secular state after suffering a most inhuman rule under West Pakistan for about 25 years, followed by one year of most savage treatment ever known in human history, by Pakistan army. In its war of independence, India not only provided human and material support but also lobbied around the world for its cause. India did everything for Bangladesh whatever a good neighbour could do. No doubt, there were some minor irritants in the relationship between the two countries, but could anyone say that they were of such dimension that Bangladesh should take up the role of virtually an enemy country? How come, it has become a safe haven for Islamic terrorists and separatists operating within India? How come, it has become a close friend of the very same country, that had perpetrated the most savage and inhuman miseries on its people? How come, the people of the very same Bangladesh that showed grateful comradeship with Indian people and Indian army at the time of its war of independence treat India and Indian people as their sworn enemies?

The following chapters try to answer some of these very questions.