Bangladesh Gets a New Leader, and New Delhi’s Epstein Anxiety

If the chance created by the BNP’s sweeping success in Bangladesh is seized, the eastern zone of the South Asian subcontinent, about which I will shortly say more, could see a welcome change. Four factors have produced, for now, a favorable climate. One is the scale of the BNP’s win. Secondly, Bangladesh’s newly sworn prime minister, 60-year-old Tarique Rahman, has made helpful statements. Thirdly, reforms stipulated by the referendum which accompanied the voting appear to be encouraging. Finally, the alacrity with which Modi, the Indian prime minister, welcomed Rahman’s victory was received well in Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital. 

In important utterances, Rahman has promised that all Bangladeshis will have the same rights, that the country’s Hindu minority will be protected, and that religion will have no bearing on citizenship. Three Hindus have been elected on the BNP ticket to Bangladesh’s Jatiya Sangsad (parliament). Although the “religious” party, Jamaat-e-Islami, which with its allies constituted the main challenge to the BNP, won more seats than ever before – at least 71 in a house of 300 -, the pragmatic agenda of the non-religious BNP was strongly endorsed by Bangladesh’s electorate. Moreover, the referendum’s result is likely henceforth to limit premierships to two terms -- a welcome move. 

In December last year, Dipu Chandra Das, a 27-year-old Hindu worker in a garment factory in Bhaluka, about 25 miles north of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, was lynched by a mob following rumors, later found baseless, that he had made derogatory remarks about Islam’s prophet. Shortly before Bangladesh’s elections, the interim government allotted funds for constructing a house for Dipu Das’s widow, child, and parents and for the family’s maintenance. Suspected culprits were arrested. 

However, some friction between India and Bangladesh remains. One cause is the sheltering by India of the former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, who was accused of prolonged autocratic rule before being forced out in 2024 by huge nationwide demonstrations. The exclusion of her party, the Awami League, took away some sheen from the recent electoral exercise, but the fact that 60 percent of the electorate seem to have voted, despite the AL’s call for a boycott, suggests that for the time being Hasina’s party has lost the trust of most Bangladeshis. While Hasina herself has dismissed the polling data released by Bangladesh’s authorities, other reports indicate that many former AL supporters voted this time for the BNP. 

Comprising three distinct territories – independent Bangladesh, India’s Northeast, and India’s state of West Bengal -- this eastern portion of the South Asian subcontinent’s possesses complementarities, diversities, similarities, and resources that can make it a zone of strength and stability, provided a chance is given to commonsense. I recommend googling the zone’s map. It would be an interesting exercise for anyone. 

Out of West Bengal’s population today of about 106 million (a large majority of them Hindus), around 29 million, or about 28 percent, are Muslims. Bangladesh’s population of roughly 180 million includes 13 million Hindus. Less densely populated, India’s Northeast holds about 46 million people, of whom around 12.5 million (i.e. more than a fourth) are Christian, around 10.7 million (i.e. more than a fifth) Muslim, and a majority Hindu. 

CULTURAL COMMONNESS 

Especially in its Northeast India segment, this “eastern zone” possesses an abundance of tribes, many of whom receive constitutional protection in the areas they have inhabited for centuries. Despite its variety, complexity, and stresses, the zone as a whole -- bordering China, Myanmar, Bhutan, and Nepal -- enjoys a cultural commonness felt by inhabitants and noticed by visitors. 

Bangladesh’s biggest industry and export, cotton textiles, relies for most of its raw cotton on India. Cotton, cricket, and the Bangla language should bond Bangladesh with India. Trust and understanding between Rahman and Delhi, between Rahman in Dhaka and Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata, and between Bangla-speakers (Muslim and Hindu) and the rest in “the eastern zone” as a whole, would strengthen everyone. 

Dividing the peoples of this eastern zone has long been a favorite activity of powerful forces. There is no dearth of potential animosities. A Hindu vs Muslim line-up, or another that sets tribals against non-tribals, or “my tribe” against “your tribe,” or the Assamese against Bangla speakers, can generate strong emotions. The sad, bitter, and continuing hostility between Meiteis and Kukis in Manipur underlines the challenge present all across this zone. Time will tell whether civil society activists and courageous politicians in this crucially significant space are able to promote initiatives of teamwork across and within the zone’s different boundaries. 

EPSTEIN AND INDIA 

The Epstein files have jolted not just the US or the UK (where because of their association with Epstein the former prince Andrew had to lose his titles and more, and Peter Anderson his ambassadorship to Washington) but the Indian scene as well. Named frequently in the files is the country’s 74-year-old oil and petroleum minister, Hardeep Singh Puri. A former member of the Indian Foreign Service, Puri was based from 2009 onwards in New York, first as India’s permanent representative to the UN (2009-13) and from 2013 as adviser to the International Peace Institute, whose president from 2005, Norway’s Terje Rod-Larsen, was apparently very close to Epstein. In 2014, while still in New York, Puri joined the BJP. 

The Epstein files evidently show that from June 2014, i.e. within weeks of Modi becoming India’s prime minister, Puri was in repeated contact with Epstein, even though the latter’s 2008 conviction for sex-related offences had been well-publicized. There was no suggestion that Puri was linked to the said offences. In 2017, Puri was inducted as a minister in the Indian government. From 2021 he has been India’s minister for petroleum and natural gas.

Compelled to offer explanations for his Epstein associations, Puri at first claimed in media interviews that he might have met Epstein “three or four” times and exchanged a few emails with him. Since then he has been cornered by the large mass of their correspondence, now in the public domain, and by the evident warmth in these exchanges. Particularly troubling is a question highlighted by Pawan Khera of the Congress Party: did Puri discuss India’s digital policies with Epstein when he was with the IPI in New York and not yet part of the Indian government? 

FLAGRANT EVASIONS 

India’s parliament is not in session right now, but there are insistent demands for Puri’s resignation, which has not come as of writing. In fact, on February 15, which happened to be Puri’s birthday, Modi posted praise and birthday greetings for the petroleum minister, which were duly publicized by India’s timid and more or less sycophantic media. However, in a blistering press conference on February 16, Pawan Khera demanded to know why Modi was praising someone who with his flagrant prevarications over Epstein has lost the right to remain in office.

On February 17, the Hindu, braver than most Indian dailies, carried these headlines:

“Hardeep Puri must clarify his ‘62 email exchanges, 14 meetings’ with Epstein – Congress”: “Opposition party reiterates [demand] for the Minister’s resignation.”

As I type these lines on the morning of Feb 18, there are contradictory statements in India on whether or not Bill Gates, earlier invited to be a visionary speaker at New Delhi’s AI summit, which opened on Feb 16, will in fact speak there. Gates is already in India and has been warmly welcomed by officials, but given the worldwide publicity of how Gates features in the Epstein files, there are suggestions that he will decide, or be urged, to stay away from the summit. 

ANOTHER HEADACHE 

Puri and Gates are hardly the only headaches for the New Delhi regime. The website of Trump’s Justice Department gives the following headlines to its Feb 13 story connected to an unsuccessful 2023 attempt in the US to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the Sikh separatist leader who is an American citizen: 

“Indian National Pleads Guilty To Plotting To Assassinate U.S. Citizen In New York City”

“Nikhil Gupta Worked at the Direction of an Indian Government Employee to Arrange the Murder of U.S.-Based Leader of Sikh Separatist Movement”

The Justice Dept story goes on to say:

“On June 30, 2023, GUPTA was arrested in the Czech Republic and subsequently extradited to the United States.... GUPTA, 54 of India, pled guilty to murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. [He] is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero on May 29, 2026.” 

“ALL SIX STANZAS” 

I must express opposition to, and dismay at, the Indian government’s recent order (January 28) directing that all six stanzas of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s old Vande Mataram song be played at official functions, with everyone present required to stand at attention. Written in the 1870s and 1880s, and first published in Anandamath, Chatterjee’s novel of that period, Vande Mataram is unquestionably a stirring, rousing, and patriotic song, words from which were frequently uttered by freedom lovers fighting the British throughout the first four decades of the 20th century.

However, India’s Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and Buddhists, as also Hindus uncomfortable with idol-worship, have always separated themselves from the song’s latter verses, which offer obeisance to the Hindu goddesses Durga and Lakshmi. An article in The Hindu by senior advocate Sanjay Hegde is blunt in its criticism of the directive:

“The order of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, directing that all six stanzas of Vande Mataram be played at official functions, with everyone present required to stand at attention, is not an act of patriotism. It is constitutional vandalism dressed up in national pride.” 

Hegde points out that the song’s use was thoroughly and carefully considered long ago, in 1937, by personalities like Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Nehru, Patel, Rajendra Prasad, and Subhas Bose, president at the time of the Indian National Congress. As a result, the Congress, the chief vehicle of the freedom movement, recommended, through a publicized resolution, that only the opening two verses of Vande Mataram be sung at popular rallies for freedom, which was being demanded on behalf of all Indians, not for religious Hindus only. 

UNANIMOUS RESTRAINT 

After freedom came in 1947, that decision was underlined in 1950 through a resolution of the Constituent Assembly, which selected Tagore’s Jana Gana Mana as the national anthem and the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram as the national song. Recalls Hegde: 

“In October 1937, the Congress Working Committee had met in Calcutta... Dr. Rajendra Prasad moved the resolution while Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel seconded it. Mahatma Gandhi was there as a special invitee. The resolution was unanimous. Members recognized that “the first two stanzas alone [could be] accepted as the national song at national gatherings.” 

The latest decision of the Modi government to require “all six stanzas” to be sung at official functions upturns historical practice. Moreover, it defies the Constitution, which bars the elevation above others of one religion or of one religious community. In practical terms, the decision aggrieves significant sections of the population, undermines solidarity, and is capable of inviting unrest. 

There isn’t a single social, economic or cultural benefit in compelling millions of Indians to sing or salute words they’re uneasy about. There’s nothing democratic, constitutional, constructive, or wise about the step. It is only a form of bullying which the BJP hopes will be politically profitable as well. “Offend Muslims, incite protests, and then speak of Muslim objections to a popular patriotic song. Hindus, 80 percent of the population, will coalesce under our umbrella.” That’s the “astute” and reckless logic.