Ever since the ouster of former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, India-Bangladesh bilateral relations have strained as power fell in the hands of Islamists. Now, Muhammad Yunus, the chief advisor to the interim government, has made an audacious attempt to shift blame onto New Delhi for Indo-Bangladesh ties turning bitter.
Speaking at the Chatham House in London, Yunus also dared to villainise Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not heeding his request to stop Sheikh Hasina from making online speeches and comments, as she resides in India.
When asked about Bangladesh’s appeals to India to extradite Sheikh Hasina to face the court, Yunus said that these efforts will continue. He added that Bangladesh wants best relations with India, however, it is the Indian media backed by the Modi government that runs fake news about Bangladesh which makes matters worse.
“This will continue…we want the whole process to be very legal, very proper…We want to build the best of relationship with India. It’s our neighbour, we don’t want to have any kind of basic problem with them. But somehow things go wrong every time because of all the fake news coming from the Indian press…and many people say it has connections with policymakers on the top,” Muhammad Yunus claimed.
He further harangued that somehow the Indian media’s reportage and Indian social media outrage over the anti-Hindu attacks in Bangladesh makes them angry. “So, this is what makes Bangladesh very jittery, very, very angry. We try to get over this anger but a whole barrage of things keeps happening in cyberspace. We can’t just get away from that…suddenly they say something, do something, anger comes back. This is our big task, to make sure we can have at least a peaceful life to go on with our life. To create the life we are dreaming of,” he said.
Yunus also asserted that the anti-India sentiments in Bangladesh surged because India gave refuge to Sheikh Hasina after her unceremonious ouster in August last year. “All the anger (against Hasina) has now transferred to India because she went there,” he said.
After claiming that the Indian media peddles fake news about Bangladesh unrest at the behest of the Indian government, Muhammad Yunus went on to claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi dismissed his appeal to deter Sheikh Hasina from speaking about the Bangladesh unrest online saying that social media cannot be controlled.
“When I had the chance to talk to Prime Minister Modi, I simply said you want to host her, I cannot force you to abandon that policy but please help us in making sure that she doesn’t speak to Bangladeshi people the way she’s doing. She announces on such and such date, such and such hour, she will speak and the whole (of) Bangladesh gets very angry.”
Responding to Yunus’s request to stop Sheikh Hasina from talking to Bangladeshi people, the Indian Prime Minister replied, “It’s social media, you cannot control it.”
“It’s (an) explosive situation, you can’t just walk away by saying it’s the social media,” Yunus said.
It requires a different level of shamelessness to blame India for the strained Indo-Bangladesh ties while continuously ignoring India’s legitimate concerns over the safety of Hindus and other religious minorities who even to this day continue to face attacks from Islamists belonging Jamat-e-Islami and other Islamist outfits for simply being existing. Yunus’s comments accusing India of exacerbating tensions by allowing ex-PM Sheikh Hasina to make online statements from Indian soil is not only hypocritical but comes across as the shrewd attempt at deflecting attention from the Islamist onslaught against Hindus which continues to this day although the scale may have reduced.
Sheikh Hasina is a democratically elected leader but was forced out of power and her motherland by BNP and Jamat members who hijacked the student’s movement for their own political agenda. The Indian Prime Minister is neither legally nor morally bound to heed desperate calls by the Bangladeshi chief advisor-cum-puppet-without-power, to silence Sheikh Hasina. Even in exile, she has the right to express herself and India as world’s largest democracy values her freedom of speech, and thus, is under no obligation to suppress her voice just because the same Islamist lot that ransacked Hasina’s residence and flashed her undergarments on 5th august 2024 cannot stand the fact that the former Prime Minister is alive and safe.
Had Muhammad Yunus expressed even half of the frustration he expressed over Indian media reporting on anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh and Islamification of the erstwhile secular nation, over the Islamist mobs raping Hindu women, killing Hindu men, vandalizing temples and torching their houses, India would have gone out of its way to support Yunus-led government. However, it was under his leadership that the interim government handed clean chit to Jamat-e-Islami and lifted the ban on it even as it was evident that JeI Islamists were indeed involved in violent activities during the protests before Sheikh Hasina’s ouster and also involved in anti-Hindu violence that continued for months afterwards.
Muhammad Yunus’s audacity to seek India’s support in suppressing Sheikh Hasina’s voice exemplifies how deep the Islamist regime’s hatred is for the Awami League leader and how Yunus wants India to heed all his appeals and demands but conveniently overlooks India’s concerns.
Not to forget, Muhammad Yunus has constantly been downplaying attacks on Hindus by Islamist mobs as ‘political retribution’ for supporting Awami League and not attacks driven by religious hatred.
OpIndia has reported numerous verified incidents of target attacks by Muslim mobs on Hindu temples and Hindu houses. While there were incidents where the mob targeted Hindu and Muslim leaders of the Awami League, the attacks are not confined to political rivalries or revenge. While attacks on Hindu temples itself made it evident since temples don’t have any political affiliation but are simply the abode of Hindu deities, Hindus regardless of their political leanings were singled out and attacked by Islamic fanatics affiliated with BNP and Jamat, who also deem Bangladeshi Hindus as ‘Dalals’ of India.
While Yunus regime continues to blame India for spreading fake news about anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh and passes off the whitewashed version of such incidernts in BBC, NYT, Al-Jazeera reports as ‘universal truth’, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published in February this year exposed his lies.
Even recently, Muhammad Yunus was upset with OpIndia for not downplaying and whitewashing Islamist violence against Hindus by coming up with ‘Muslim human-chain protecting Hindu temples’ sort of falsehoods, reporting facts. On 22nd May, another violent act was perpetrated against the marginalized community when a Muslim crowd executed arson attacks on Hindu residences in Dahar Mashihati village, located in the Abhaynagar upazila of Jessore district in Bangladesh. Predictably, the regime of Muhammad Yunus published a long post on X to downplay the communal nature of the crime. However, having realised that his post aimed at negating OpIndia report exposed his own Islamist nature, the ‘chief advisor’ to the interim government of Bangladesh deleted his controversial tweet.
Amusingly, while Muhammad Yunus claims that he wants good relations with India, he leave no opportunity to villainise India and the Modi government. In May this year, Muhammad Yunus attempted to whip up anti-India sentiments in the country so as to distract the public from his incompetency and failure to restore democracy and electoral reforms in Bangladesh.
Through one of his stooges, Mahmudur Rahman Manna (Nagorik Oikya party President), Yunus sent out a message that Bangladesh was faced with a ‘major crisis due to Indian hegemony’.
“The chief adviser stated that the country is in a major crisis due to Indian hegemony. He believes that the entire nation needs to remain united in response. He (Yunus) started the discussion by saying that we are in a deep crisis. By crisis, he meant the conspiracy of Indian hegemony,” Manna remarked.
Is this the way of having good bilateral relations with India, the country literally helped Bengalis of East Pakistan in attaining freedom from the same Islamist elements that now have found their ideological descendants in BNP and Jamatis? India asked Yunus-led government to ensure safety of Bangladeshi Hindus and other religious minorities, and in return, all Muhammad Yunus did was blame Indian media, dismiss well-documented cases of attacks on Hindus and their temples as mere social media fabiricatins downplay communal drivers of the anti-Hindu violence and whitewash Islamists. Peak shamelessness!
Since India is a perceived as a ‘Hindu nation’ by Bangladeshi Muslims, Yunus set out to antagonise the neighbouring country as well and capitalise on his growing anti-Indian sentiment in the country. He first attempted to ban the export of Hilsa fish to India but it was in vain. He then strategically downplayed the crucial role played by India in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War by distorting textbooks.
Yunus remained tight-lipped when officials, appointed by him, issued threats to India. In October 2024, Law adviser Asif Nazrul in Bangladesh’s interim government warned that if India tried to refuse the extradition of Sheikh Hasina, the country would launch a “strong protest.”
Sarjis Alam, a so-called ‘student activist’, issued veiled threats to Indian Prime Minsiter Modi. And yet again, Yunus maintained strategic silence. His own ‘adviser’ Mahfuz Alam threatened to annex parts of India.
Former Director General of the Border Guard Bangladesh had also threatened to occupy the 7 States of North-East India in case of war with Pakistan. He is a close aide of Muhammad Yunus.
Not to forget, Yunus himself in April this year claimed that Bangladesh is the guardian of ocean access for these states, and these states, landlocked and with limited connectivity, should be used as an extension of China’s economy. Following the undemocratic ouster of Sheikh Hasina, he made similar controversial claims about India’s seven sisters (Tripura, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Meghalaya). “If you destabilise Bangladesh, it will spill over all around Bangladesh, including Myanmar and seven sisters in West Bengal everywhere,” he claimed in August 2024.
After creating such a disgraceful track record of making anti-India statements, Muhammad Yunus and the Bangladeshi interim government has the audacity to blame India for the strained ties. From dismissing India’s decisive role in liberating Bangladesh, threatening India, villiainsing Modi government and blaming Indian media for Bangladeshi Islamist crimes to eyeing Indian seven-sister states, Bangladesh under Yunus’s leadership has done everything it can to destroy any hope for Indo-Bangladesh ties regain normalcy and yet Muhammad Yunus shamelessly blames India, Indian media and Prime Minister Modi for the bilateral ties turning soar.
It, however, seems like just as in Pakistan, the more you hate India, the better political clout you get, Yunus is also trying play the same game, perhaps, to hold on to power for as long as he can. Till then, he will continue to mindlessly blame India to coverup his own administrative failures.
Since the very creation of Bangladesh, India as a major regional player has consistently supported Bangladesh’s development and yet Yunus projects India as an aggressor and enemy before domestic audience and on foreign soil claims he wants best of relationship with India. However, someone needs to ‘advise’ the ‘chief advisor’ that you cannot villainise India and its Prime Minister then also claim that you want good relations with India. You cannot expect PM Modi to muzzle Sheikh Hasina’s voice while you discard India’s concerns as ‘fabrications’, ‘exaggerations’ and whatnot. You cannot expect India to shower rose petals on you while you threaten India and challenge India’s territorial integrity. If there was a Nobel prize for being a top order hypocrite, Muhammad Yunus would become a two-time Nobel laureate.
