| PLANTED IN A POLITICAL MINEFIELD
Sheikh Hasina's approach towards the Anup Chetia case will determine how the new regime is judged in Bangladesh, writes Sanjib Baruah
Less than a week before the mutiny broke out in the headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles in Dhaka, it was widely reported that the Bangladeshi authorities were about to hand over to India the United Liberation Front of Asom leader, Anup Chetia, who has been held in a Bangladeshi prison since 1996.
As things slowly return to normal in Bangladesh, many now expect the government, led by Sheikh Hasina Wajed, to attend to its ambitious domestic and foreign policy agenda. When asked by journalists in Delhi on April 1 about Chetia, the new director general of BDR, Mainul Islam, said, "Some time is needed for the new government to walk the talk." But the handover, he assured, will take place soon.
Expectations that the new government would move quickly on matters that concern India may be premature. The government has extended the deadline for the completion of the official inquiry on the mutiny for a third time. But even before all the facts are in, one lesson of the mutiny may already be quite apparent to Sheikh Hasina. Addressing issues concerning India will use up significant political capital. She will have to carefully weigh those costs while making each and every decision.
The question of Chetia's handover was more than a sideshow in the recent developments in Dhaka. The distinguished Bangladeshi political commentator and former ambassador, Harunur Rashid, while trying to provide the political context for the mutiny, cited the Chetia handover as one of the "crucial decisions" that had angered "influential groups" in his country.
Placed alongside the decisions to restart the murder trial of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the trial of those charged with war-crimes in the 1971 war, the importance attached to the Chetia case would seem astonishing. A letter written in December 2008 by Chetia's lawyer to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in support of Chetia's application for political refugee status describes him as a "freedom fighter" — the term that the former prime minister, Begum Khaleda Zia, once used to describe insurgents from India's Northeast when she was the leader of the opposition. Bangladesh, she had then argued, should extend support to these groups and not try to limit their activities.
Chetia had asked for political asylum in Bangladesh as far back as 1998. After a number of appeals to the government went unanswered, a writ petition was filed in the high court on his behalf by an NGO with high-level political connections. In response, the court, in August 2003, asked the government, then headed by Khaleda Zia, to explain why the application could not be acted upon expeditiously, and ordered that Chetia and his two colleagues continue to be held in prison for their safety until the issue of political asylum is settled.
Citing that pending case, Chetia's lawyer in his December 2008 letter to the UNHCR said that "a covert move possibly emanat[ing] from the terrible pressure created by Indian Government" was afoot to hand over Chetia to Indian authorities "without considering the legal and political status of [his] client". How the Sheikh Hasina government approaches the Chetia case may have become a test by which the new regime will be judged vis-à-vis its dealings with India — the most sensitive of questions in Bangladeshi politics.
Since the Awami League's opponents portray the party as India's stooge, Sheikh Hasina can hardly appear too eager to please India.
It is not only radical Islamists who would make hay of anything that could be portrayed as caving in to Indian demands; Bangladeshi nationalists of all stripes also care as deeply about how their government deals with India. In spite of her huge mandate, Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister, will have to consider seriously how her actions vis-à-vis India are interpreted by various domestic constituencies — by her enemies as well as by friends.
Indian leaders will do well to keep the Bangladeshi street in mind when making statements about putting pressure on Bangladesh. Tough talk on Bangladesh sheltering Indian insurgents or on the role of Bangladeshi Islamist outfits in the Mumbai terror attacks, or on the Guwahati blasts, or warnings to Bangladesh that good relations with India are in its long-term interests — as the home minister, P. Chidambaram, has said — can easily backfire. As the December elections have proved, efforts to portray Bangladesh as a failed State full of jihadi militants are both misguided and counter-productive.
They are deeply resented by most Bangladeshis — not by Islamist radicals alone — especially when the charges originate in India. The spread of the news of the apparently imminent release of Chetia, and the Bangladesh government's reaction to it during the week before the mutiny, give us some clues to the politics involved. The source of the news was an interview with an Indian television channel of Bangladesh's state minister for foreign affairs, Mohammed Hassan Mahmud, together with an article in a Bangladeshi online newspaper by the Indian journalist who interviewed him.
Apart from saying that New Delhi and Dhaka had "mutually agreed" on handing over Chetia, Mahmud spoke of previous Bangladeshi governments nurturing terrorist organizations. He addressed the question of cross-border linkages of terrorist groups while referring to the Mumbai terror attacks, and the possibility that the banned Harkat-ul-Jihadi-Islami could still have "underground pockets" in Bangladesh. Not surprisingly, such comments, coming from a top Bangladeshi official, became breaking news in India, Bangladesh and beyond. Perhaps equally unsurprising was the clarification on behalf of the minister that immediately followed.
The minister claimed he was misquoted. On the Chetia matter, it was said that "the report of decisions and so-called promises made with regard to handing over specific individuals" was both a misrepresentation of what the minister said and also factually inaccurate. On the exchange of terrorists, we are now told that there is apparently no more than consultations regarding a South Asian regional mechanism to facilitate the exchange of convicted criminals and a Bangladeshi initiative on a regional cooperation and coordination mechanism to prevent linkages and cooperation amongst the terrorist elements in the region.
In a January 2009 review of the new edition of India Doctrine — a 2007 book that is highly critical of India and popular in Bangladeshi political circles — the reviewer advises Bangladesh's new government to "adopt a more cautious attitude to New Delhi since our own history shows that a two-thirds majority in parliament is no guarantee of longevity or permanence in power especially when deeply held views about our national interest are constantly and arrogantly offended." It seems that in spite of Sheikh Hasina's landslide victory, her government would have to be extra careful in making any decision that concerns India so that her critics cannot accuse her of compromising national sovereignty and equality. The Chetia case is now part of this political minefield that she must negotiate.
The author is at Bard College, New York, and with the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
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