6 days ago
Plane Tragedy Reminds Bangladesh Of A Friendly India, Failing Yunus Regime
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Ordinary Bangladeshis are slowly beginning to see how, despite all the brickbats from across the border, Bharat calmly stands with a helping hand in the time of tragedy
American poet Theodore Roethke, in his poem In a Dark Time, writes: 'In the darkest hour, the eye begins to see.'
Profound tragedy has struck Bangladesh in the form of a plane crash which killed dozens, or possibly over a 100 students of Milestone school and college. The nation is inconsolable. India, made a villain in the eyes of millions of Bangladeshis by relentless propaganda, has rushed burn-specialist doctors and nurses to treat the victims. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quick to express his condolences.
But the tragedy has set in motion two very strong strains of public reaction in Bangladesh.
The first is a massive and spontaneous outpouring of friendliness and gratitude towards India after years. India had accrued deep public resentment in Bangladesh for backing the increasingly unpopular Sheikh Hasina regime, which ultimately fell to a mob on August 5, 2024. Since then, chief advisor Muhammad Yunus, his virulently anti-India and loose-tongued student advisors, and their Islamist puppeteers like Jamaat and Hizbut Tahrir ensured that relations reach rock bottom.
They tried their best to make people forget India's role in liberating Bangladesh from Pakistan during the 1971 Muktijuddo, or sending vaccines during peak Covid-19, or supporting its economy and developmental projects.
India maturely navigated the bile. No irresponsible remark was fired from New Delhi to Dhaka.
And now, ordinary Bangladeshis are slowly beginning to see how despite all the brickbats from across the border, Bharat calmly stands with a helping hand in the time of tragedy.
Bangladeshi social media, which was hijacked for the last couple of years by radical voices, is now coming alive again with praise for India. Islamist influencers like Pinaki Bhattacharya (a Muslim neo-convert eager to prove his loyalty to his Islamist masters) are being mocked, shamed, and rejected for trying to play dirty, anti-India politics after the deaths of so many students and a few teachers.
While the renewed warmth towards India cuts across BNP, Swami League and Jatiya Party lines, the buyers' remorse over the Yunus regime has accelerated even faster after the Milestone mishap. Bangladesh is realising that it has put in power a bunch of clueless and incompetent young bigots led by a malevolent and maladroit Nobel recipient.
Bangladesh's GDP is at a 20-year low. Its lifeline, the garment industry, has been immobilised by the mobocracy. Local industrialists say a famine-like situation is advancing along with an energy crisis and total collapse of law and order.
To add insult, Yunus was caught on video smiling heartily at an all-party meeting right after the crash which took so many young lives. But he did not stop at that. Instead of announcing an emergency financial package, he exhorted the Bangladeshi citizenry to collect money and help the victims.
This growing callousness, coupled with the recent Gopalganj massacre and public lynching of a businessman, is slowly tipping the patience of the public.
It is still too early to expect a paucity- and violence-torn citizenry to effect change, but it is becoming clear to all that the nation cannot indefinitely feed itself with political and sectarian hate. Knives will have to come back to the kitchen.
Abhijit Majumder is a senior journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views.
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