Many people in Bangladesh believe the United States was behind the assassination of their founding president in 1975. Whether or not Washington played any role in the military coup that toppled Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is still a subject of intense debate. However, one thing is clear: Washington squarely backed the South Asian nation’s first military ruler, Gen. Ziaur Rahman.
Now, nearly five decades later, the daughter of the assassinated president, Sheikh Hasina, the current prime minister, is laying charges that the United States is out to topple her and put in power her rival, Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister and widow of U.S.-backed the military strongman. She recently told the BBC that Americans “don’t want me to continue” in office. Even worse, she told parliament in April that America intends to bring “such a government here which will not have any democratic existence,” an allusion to the military.
Hasina’s suspicion that the United States is inherently opposed to her, a fear she has aired privately to U.S. diplomats on several occasions, can’t be easily dismissed. In 2021, Washington sanctioned multiple Hasina administration officials and members of security forces for alleged human rights violations.
No such action was taken when the pro-U.S. military regime hanged hundreds of rebel soldiers after kangaroo court trials. The trials had so much outraged the State Department that Jane Coon, then deputy assistant secretary, blocked the military ruler’s visit to the White House, ignoring Ambassador Ed Masters’ pleas from Dhaka. And this happened under President Jimmy Carter, who essentially codified protecting human rights as one of America’s cardinal foreign policy goals.
The United States recently threatened further punitive measures, saying anyone caught attempting to taint coming national elections would be denied entry to the United States. This threat created an unprecedented political maelstrom in Bangladesh and pulled out many forces from dormancy, including radical Islamic outfits, which nearly turned the Muslim-majority nation of 165 million Bengalis into a new Afghanistan merely a decade ago. Hasina almost stamped them out after getting the green light from Washington and Delhi, albeit using unlawful tactics.
The human rights violations that the United States is accusing Hasina of committing have their roots in her crackdown on the militant religious forces. Of course, she cast a wider net and swept away her political opponents. Still, it’s ironic that now the United States is punishing those who only did its bidding.
No question that Hasina’s record on human rights is not squeaky clean. Under her watch, there have been documented enforced disappearances and repression of political opponents.
Nevertheless, the Bengalis see double standards in U.S. behavior. While it’s punishing a weak country like Bangladesh for minor offenses, it’s rolling out the red carpet for powerful major offenders, like Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, known as the Butcher of Gujarat, for inciting the massacre of thousands of minority Muslims when he was chief minister of the state. Modi was on the U.S. no-visa list for years until he was elected prime minister.
America is using sticks against Hasina to promote democracy, a theory that’s a hard sale in Dhaka, given the U.S. support for military dictators in Pakistan, of which Bangladesh was a part until 1971. The Bengalis say Washington’s democracy talk is a camouflage with a hidden self-serving motive. Indeed, the real aim of the United States is to nudge Hasina to its side in the fight against China.
Bangladesh, once neglected as a poor country, now commands respect in the international arena for its impressive economic success. It’s no longer the basket case the United States labeled it at its birth 50 years ago. Moreover, its location near the Bay of Bengal has made it strategically important because of China’s rise as a global power and the U.S. attempt to frustrate Beijing’s desire for more influence.
Two leftist parliament members recently claimed that America wants to create a naval base on a Bangladeshi island in the Bay of Bengal. Such a base will enable the U.S. Navy to block China’s sea trade route to Europe and the Middle East, thus choking its economy. The U.S. Embassy in Dhaka categorically denied Washington has any such idea. Still, politicians and media are abuzz with the talk of U.S. regime-change plan for Bangladesh.
India and the United States see eye to eye on the China containment policy. Their shared vision has found its way into multiple anti-Chinese regional security groups that include Japan and Australia. Like the United States, India wants Bangladesh to be in the anti-China camp because of longstanding Sino-Indian hostility. But how far Delhi will go with the United States if Washington really wants to set up a base in the Bay of Bengal remains uncertain. For sure, Delhi wants U.S. help to halt Chinese advances into South Asia. Yet, it is unlikely to feel easy with a U.S. military base in its backyard. India considers South Asia its exclusive domain.
As far as Hasina is concerned, she may, in the end, buckle under Indo-U.S. pressure and keep a safe distance from Beijing to placate Big Brothers. However, the Bengalis are staunchly opposed to joining any military alliance. The disaster that befell their former homeland of Pakistan from its membership in the U.S.-led Cento and Seato defense pacts haunts the Bengali minds.
On top of this, they see no benefits in cutting off the hand that feeds them. India and the United States can only give Bangladesh enough money to keep its growth momentum, so China appears as a savior. If the highly fractious Bengali nation agrees on one thing, it’s the economy. So no matter who rules the country, Bangladesh’s strong bond with China will likely sustain.
India’s interests in Bangladesh diverge from those of the United States. America’s priority is democracy, while India’s paramount goal is security in its eastern flank, which Hasina has helped maintain the best in decades. America may want to see all flowers bloom in Bangladesh’s political landscape. Still, India has no mercy for the Islamic radicals.
By getting into bed with the Islamists, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the organization the military ruler created and the United States seems to support, has put itself on the wrong side of India’s equation. New Delhi distrusts Khaleda Zia. As prime minister, she irked India by dismissing Delhi’s complaints that Bangladesh was being used for anti-India activity.
India and the United States have common interests in keeping Bangladesh stable. What America wants the least is a restive nation rocking the entire region. And India will seek to prevent at any cost a situation that may force millions of refugees into its eastern states. So India will go along with the United States as long as Washington lets Delhi mind its interests first; Delhi will push Hasina on the China front but help her retain power.
The United States will be less than thrilled to see Hasina win a fourth-consecutive term in this year’s elections. The reason is clear: World leaders with strong domestic support tend to rebuff U.S. diktat. Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan and Hungary’s Victor Orban are two bright examples. So dumping its disastrous violent regime change formula, Washington seeks to orchestrate regime change through the ballot box. This puts the United States at odds with India, as far as Bangladesh is concerned.
If India’s plans succeed, the United States will find itself again in a not-so-friendly situation in Bangladesh that existed soon after its birth. Hasina has vowed not to bow down to foreign pressure, an indirect jab at the United States. Quiet diplomacy rather than so-called democracy-building public rhetoric and the threat of punishment will work better on her, for the prime minister may not be incorrigibly anti-American despite her occasional angry outbursts.
In fact, she secretly tried after returning to power in 2009 to be in America’s good grace by inviting President Barack Obama to deliver his speech to the Muslim world from Dhaka. On a personal level, Asia’s iron lady has family ties to the United States. She adores her daughter-in-law, an American woman whom she publicly defended in parliament when an opposition member questioned her religion. In Bengali culture, personal ties overpower formal rituals.