Complicated tale of secular intrigue
Events in neighbouring Bangladesh have moved with unprecedented speed, complications, and complexities. It is quite a challenge sorting out who’s who and which side are they on. Muslims in Bangladesh went into a frenzy against a Muslim government when the top leader Sheikh Hasina disclosed publicly about a plot to carve out a Christian country from Bangladesh. In the wake of Muslim fanatics going on a rampage, she fled to seek refuge among the Hindus of India, from where she is reportedly seeking asylum in the Christian West! Never was there a more complicated tale of secular intrigue.
A mysterious ‘White man’, obviously a Christian, wanting to build an airbase, in Bangladesh, an Islamic country, possessing an island, bearing the Christian name St. Martin, to keep watch over Buddhist-dominated Myanmar, Hindu-dominated India, Buddhist Bhutan, Hindu Nepal, and in the distance China occupied Tibet and Communist Mainland China. Sheikh Hasina’s disinclination for acceptance of such a devious plan, motivated the mysterious White man to set in motion, a Muslim revolt by inflaming the Islamist Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) cadres and its Jihadist ally Jamaat-e-Islami. The fanatic Madrassa-educated Jamaat-e-Islami cadres ignited a communal cauldron, going into an orgy of killing, and raping the minority Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians. That this sub-plot would become centre stage, was never anticipated by the conspiring Western nations. They have been quick to ensure that their protégé Muhammad Yunus, already endowed with a Nobel Prize, assumes the interim government’s chief adviser — a position equivalent to the prime minister. Along with him, 13 other advisors were inducted including student representatives. The Anti-Corruption Commission is busy withdrawing all prosecution cases filed against Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank colleagues.
India needs to learn a lot from the developments that have taken place in Bangladesh. Despite all her pretensions, Sheikh Hasina was a hardcore Islamist, yet she was helpless to confront Christian conspirators. India has always been on an advertisement spree about its secular credentials, whereas in reality, most countries have a religious identity and frown upon those not committed to any of the Abrahamic religions. Secularistic credentials are often viewed as an invitation to fundamentalist forces to play conversion havoc, especially in sensitive zones. As a result of peddling secularism, India has ensured that the entire North East has achieved almost 100% conversion to Christianity, which started during the British era. Today, if Sheikh Hasina is warning that a Western nation is plotting to carve out a Christian country, India’s North East is completely gone. Even far-flung territories like Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, and even Tawang, are facing the brunt of missionary gangs, and the docile Buddhist religion is unable to counter the aggressive thrust of the proselytizers. Conversely, the aggressive Sikhs of Punjab are also succumbing to the wiles of the devious missionaries. The biggest threat facing Sikhs and Hindus of Punjab today is the conversion machinations of hyperactive evangelists. The dangerous designs especially in border districts and States, need to be effectively stamped out. Removing the term ‘secularism’ from the Constitution can save in preserving the integrity of the country.
Despite Bangladesh having a National Population Policy, the massive population overload has contributed to rampant poverty, unemployment, and infiltration into neighbouring India. Successive Indian governments have been avoiding having a firm national population policy. As a result, the misguided Muslim community has been aggressively promoting large families, creating vast enclaves exclusively for themselves, impacting election verdicts, and policies, and coercing governments to support their obscurantist compulsions. If the population is not controlled, enclaves will burgeon, making democratic elections a big farce, as also encouraging violent fissiparous tendencies.
The data gathered by the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS) reveals that though the number of schools and colleges in the country has increased continuously in the last decade and a half, the number of students enrolled at Madrasas continued to rise. In 2019, there were 2.4 million students in madrasas. In 2023, the number increased to 2.75 million. This is another important warning for India, that as the Muslim population swells, Madrassa education will rise, and become the source of fundamentalism. The Bangladeshi revolt is by the Madrassa-educated fundamentalists, who have an entirely different agenda. The Muslim government of Bangladesh itself became helpless before the barbarian hordes. In India, the situation is even worse. For example, the Allahabad High Court in a March 2024 judgment, scrapped a 2004 law governing Madrasas in Uttar Pradesh, saying it violated India’s constitutional secularism and ordering that students be moved to conventional schools. The Allahabad High Court order liberates 2.7 million students in 25,000 Madrasas, to pursue a normal education. The judgment also held that “The state government shall also ensure that children between the ages of 6 to 14 years are not left without admission in duly recognized institutions.” There are many private Madrasas in addition to the government-funded ones, over which the government has no control, nor any idea of the syllabus taught. There are also online teaching programs being controlled from the Middle East, over which there is zero government control. Given the sheer number of Madrasas, the swelling population, and the lack of governmental control, it would be difficult to enforce High Court and even Supreme Court orders. A stage would come when the fundamentalist students would decide, like in Bangladesh, whether the Chief Justice should continue in office or not. They have ordered all other judges “loyal to (Hasina’s) Awami League” to quit and a restructuring of the country’s judiciary. This is a lesson for India’s judiciary not to encourage students of particular communities to pursue only religious education. The nation should have only one uniform system of liberal education, one standard uniform, and if possible, all religious institutions of every community should have a minimum age of entry of 18 years and above. This would erase a lot of unhealthy fundamentalist zeal, goals, and objectives. All online religious education from abroad needs to be banned outright.
Another grave lesson for the Indian government is that in Bangladesh, the entire Army and Police simply succumbed to the threats of the fundamentalist students. Every organ of the government was stunned into a paralytic state. The orgy of violence unleashed created an eerie atmosphere of fear. Everybody wanted to escape death, rape, and destruction. An entire nation sank into the quagmire of cowardice. In India many sane people have been recommending compulsory military conscription, but to no avail. Perhaps, the expenditure could be a deterrent. However, the government could easily institute compulsory military training for all government employees including public sector and serving in border areas as part of their training curriculum. Further, monthly, one Saturday could be earmarked for conducting military drills combined with disaster management. Any nation planning to destabilize externally or internally should shudder at the prospect of encountering such a formidable force.
From the facts in the public domain, there is an apparent failure of many intelligence agencies in Bangladesh. No doubt, Sheikh Hasina had divulged the ‘Christian country’ plan being hatched by White men, but intelligence agencies never anticipated that Bangladesh would be rattled by fundamentalists and the nation would descend into chaos. Whether Indian intelligence agencies had an inkling of what was going to happen is not known? Happenings being reported in the media would indicate that both Bangladesh and Indian intelligence agencies had scant information about the gory drama that unfolded. There appears to be a very strong case for the adoption and assimilation of emerging technologies into the way intelligence is collected, analyzed, and delivered to decision-makers. Many new technologies hold the potential to unlock deeper and wider data-driven insights and deliver them at greater speed, scale, and specificity for many intelligence agencies. Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and its subset, machine learning (ML), cloud computing, and advanced sensors, among others, can empower intelligence and enhance the performance of the intelligence community. No doubt, under Mr. Modi’s tenure, and under Mr. Ajit Doval’s stewardship, India’s external spy agency Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), has benefited from additional resources and operational latitude. This policy needs to be extended to all other intelligence agencies, operating in the North East. Active multiple intelligence agencies are preferable to one lone agency; however resourceful it may be.
Meanwhile, for the present, Sheikh Hasina is comfortably ensconced in some secret location in predominantly Hindu India, from where she could supplicate to Christian Western nations, for a quiet place, from wherein she could write her memoirs about her White tormentor. Muhammad Yunus would also be plotting to extradite her, to avenge, the criminal cases that were registered against him. Will he hand over St. Martin’s island to the unknown White man? How will the fundamentalists react to a new Christian country popping out from the womb of their Islamic country? After Grameen Bank, Yunus will have to handle the land bank, who knows, perhaps a chance for another Nobel?
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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