Modi, Doval, Jaishankar Out-Manoeuvred In Bangladesh By Pakistani Players

By Sushil Kutty

India didn’t know what was cooking in its backyard. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, vaunted vishwaguru – supposedly the only leader with the charisma to talk Russia out of the war with Ukraine – was caught off-guard when a coup forced Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to take a clandestine flight to India, leaving Bangladesh to the mob!

Was India’s powerful NSA Ajit Doval also caught off-guard? When “unknown men” were killing “known” Pakistani blackguards, talk was Doval and R&AW had let loose Indian ‘jasooz’ in Pakistan. Now, it appears, Pakistan’s ISI was in cahoots with Bangladesh’s Jamaat-e-Islami all along. On August 7, Muslim fundamentalists declared that Bangladesh will be henceforth ‘Islamic and Sharia-compliant. How come Doval and his official could not get a whiff of Jamaat’s plans?

The Jamait couldn’t have pulled it off without the ISI in cahoots, and the American “deep state” on Pakistan’s side. After Hasina flew to safety, ISI sleeper cells in Bangladesh were fully awake.

Also, student protestors don’t go around hanging bodies from railway over-bridges. That is the handiwork of terror cells and religious sidewinders.

The Modi government has a lot to answer. NSA Ajit Doval is long past his utility. And Foreign Minister S Jaishankar had no idea what was happening in India’s backward, forget what was cooking in the United States vis-à-vis India and Bangladesh?

India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar got away with a statement in Parliament and another to the All-Party Meet. Jaishankar lost the game completely as far as Bangladesh was concerned. But the External Affairs Ministry got away with dusting the base of its pants for all the concern it caused.

Modi, Doval and Jaishankar, the three of them failed India on the foreign stage. If Bangladeshi Hindus are being killed in that country, the blame lies squarely on the trio. Will Modi have the guts to try and rescue men and women of his faith?

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was in New Delhi at Modi’s third-term inauguration and Modi didn’t know Shaikh Hasina’s dire straits. Hasina went to China and made an enemy of Beijing, yet Modi/Doval/Shah/Jaishankar had no inkling of what could happen to Hasina?

What was Modi’s intelligence apparatus doing? Doval should provide answers; ditto EAM S Jaishankar. Also Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The isolation of India in South Asia is complete. India has been stunned into inaction. Forget Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has nowhere and nobody to reach out to. Is Modi really the “Vishwaguru” the world looks upto and listens to, the sole world leader capable of ending the Russia-Ukraine War with his mere intervention and a word with Russian President Vladimir Putin?

Sheikh Hasina is out of the game. And Prime Minister Narendra Modi is out on a limb. India’s R&AW has been out manoeuvred. And India’s foreign ministry simply wasn’t thinking of Bangladesh. S Jaishankar couldn’t take his mind off “happenings” in Canada, the United Kingdom, Russia and the United States. He was left to chasing red-herrings and he didn’t even know.

Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, should provide answers? Point to ponder is, was India the only “power” totally unaware of what was cooking under her own nose and in her backyard? Question to ask is, what benefit the killings of “known Pakistani terrorists”, at the cost of losing Bangladesh as a trusted ally? Does Prime Minister Narendra Modi have an answer? What was his foreign ministry doing, what was National Security Advisor Ajit Doval doing?

When Sheikh Hasina fled Dhaka, the Bangladesh Army was in control but had left “protestors” to roam the streets and engage in killings; bodies were strung high from the iron-rafters of railway overbridges. Homes were burned and temples became targets of arsonists. Targets were Hindus and Awami League workers. The Bangladesh Army stood looking.

In hindsight, it has become clear that the army pushed Sheikh Hasina to flee the country. The Army knew it wouldn’t be attacked, the protestors had already marked their targets and among them Hindus. ISKON temples were attacked and people fled towards the border with India. An influx of “refugees” is expected, but this time it wouldn’t be to liberate a country.

The Bangladesh Army Chief is behaving like a “human-being” and he has promised to the people that troops would not open fire on them or enforce curfew like Hasina demanded. Retired Army generals were spotted leading the protestors. There are lots of Bangladeshis who see a future for themselves under a new regime. Sheikh Hasina had lost Army support soon after she won the elections and took charge for another reign.

Thanks to the Modi government’s failure to read the signs and act, India is now surrounded by hostile countries and it would be a long time before India regains a toehold in the country which was created because India’s rulers of 1971 were on the ball from the word go and were ready to punish Pakistan to stop mayhem and madness on India’s borders. The Modi government got diverted by “unknown men” killing “known men”, was that a diversion created by the ISI so that Operation Hasina went ahead the way Pakistan wanted. (IPA Service)