Why Nations Tear

The death sentence awarded by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal to former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been living in exile in Delhi, is not likely to assuage the young Bangladeshis who in August of last year overcame harsh attempts to suppress their rebellion and forced her out. With India unwilling to meet Bangladesh’s demand for sending the former premier back to Dhaka, the sentence is bound to increase the strains in the India-Bangladesh relationship. 

Given the South Asian region’s immense populations, troubled histories, and proximity to China, relations within the region are of obvious importance. However, I want this week to focus on a different question. In the recent past, two large Muslim majority countries in two different continents, Pakistan in South Asia and Sudan in Africa’s northeast, have managed to lose territory and hurt themselves in other ways as well. What lessons should we draw? 

More than five decades ago, in 1971, Pakistan lost its physically disconnected eastern half, which became Bangladesh. The great majority of the people of Bangladesh were as Islamic as those of Pakistan’s western half. With Sunni Islam predominating in both halves, there was no sectarian divide either. However, linguistic and cultural differences in the two halves were not recognized, and the people of the eastern wing, constituting more than half of Pakistan’s population, felt unfairly treated, economically and in other ways, by the political leadership, which was dominated by West Pakistanis. Pakistan broke into two pieces. 

Now, in 2025, each half faces serious challenges. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have been of zero help in its bid to cope with a persistent insurgency in its largest province, Balochistan, as also threats elsewhere in the land from well-armed extremist groups, some of them with sanctuaries in neighboring Afghanistan. 

Equations Tilted

The Pakistan military’s seemingly perennial compulsion to control the country’s political life is a second huge challenge. A new constitutional amendment has tilted the equation in favor of the army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, and weakened the prime minister, Shahbaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League. 

Moreover, although the Pakistan People’s Party, dominant in Sindh province, is part of the civil coalition that governs Pakistan along with the Muslim League (which runs the country’s most populous province, Punjab) real trust between the PML and the PPP is not noticeable. A fourth major challenge is the continued incarceration of former prime minister Imran Khan, who continues to enjoy wide popularity. 

One simple conclusion is incontestable. Adherence to a common religion, in this case Sunni Islam, has not prevented either the Baloch insurgency, or extremist and terroristic attacks in Pakistan’s KPK province, which borders Afghanistan, or suspicion and even enmity between Pakistan and Afghanistan. We have noted that decades earlier, in 1971, a shared religion had failed to keep Pakistan’s two halves together. 

More successful than Pakistan in controlling an increase in numbers, Bangladesh today has a smaller population, currently estimated at around 175 million (Pakistan contains around 255 million). In Bangladesh, about eight percent are Hindus, while in Pakistan the Hindu percentage is two. 

A second disappointing inference is that Pakistan’s distinct linguistic/regional groups – Punjabis, Sindhis, Pashtuns, and Balochis being the main ones – have not developed solidarity or fraternity. The PML has remained a Punjabi party; the PPP is a Sindhi party; the Pashtun province (KPK) has its own regional political organizations; and Balochistan likewise. Lessons from Bangladesh’s secession in 1971 have not yet been learnt. 

A third historical verdict is the inability of Pakistan’s political parties to restrict the military to its barracks. The country’s voter is not allowed the final say -- the army may confirm or overrule the voter’s wish. 

In Bangladesh’s history, too, the army has frequently felt free to seize power. Not that Pakistan and Bangladesh have lacked ambitious/energetic politicians. Both countries have also built a tradition of independent journalists. Courageous judges too have emerged from time to time. But a democracy’s basic requirements -- a non-political military, a free press, and an independent judiciary -- have not dominated the histories of Pakistan and Bangladesh. 

Feeling of Belonging?

A fundamental failing may be the inability to create a nationwide community where all Pakistanis -- Punjabis, Sindhis, Pashtuns, Balochis, and the Urdu-speakers descended from Muslims who migrated from northern India -- feel they belong to one another and can trust one another. Trust and bonding within a nation are not, it seems, gifted by a common religion or sect. They are more likely to come from sustained, intentional, imaginative effort. A common enemy, whether real or cultivated, may produce a brief impression of unity, but fraternity and solidarity seem to require conscious internal work over a period of time. 

Fifteen months ago, in August 2024, an upheaval in Bangladesh saw the toppling of Sheikh Hasina, who had been in power from 2009. Her father, Sheikh Mujib, had led Bangladesh’s successful divorce from Pakistan and forged a fragile partnership with India. But Mujib’s style while governing the country he and his associates had liberated, and the far from democratic nature of his daughter’s long rule, produced the dramatic change which the world witnessed fifteen months ago. Led by Bangladesh’s students, the change received prestigious support from Muhammad Yunus, the economist who had pioneered microfinancing and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. 

However, Bangladesh’s interim government of advisers, led by Yunus, who is now 85, seems to have lost much of the sheen with which it started. Promised elections have not yet taken place, and Bangladesh’s Hindus harbor anxieties about their safety. 

Meanwhile a court in Dhaka pronounced a death sentence against Sheikh Hasina and against former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, who too may be in India at present. Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal found Hasina and the former home minister guilty of ordering a deadly crackdown on the students. Bangladesh’s former police chief, Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, was also found guilty. The court said that “the three accused acted in connivance with each other to commit atrocities in order to kill protesters throughout the country”. However, it pardoned the former police chief, who "sought an apology from the tribunal and the people of the country". 

Religion had failed to keep Pakistan in one piece. Separation has failed to keep Bangladesh united. It does not seem that the student power that removed Hasina and an economist’s global renown have given Bangladesh a satisfying government. 

Savior to Tyrant

How South Asia liberates itself from what one commentator has called “the circularity of South Asian history, where leaders are alternately elevated as saviours and condemned as tyrants, often within a single lifetime” is indeed a relevant question. 

In area, Sudan is Africa’s third largest country, after Algeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ninety-seven percent of Sudan’s current population of about 52 million are Muslims. Christians are one-and-a-half percent. After years of functioning as an Islamic state, in 2020 Sudan called itself “secular”. 

But the biggest item in Sudan’s recent history was the creation of South Sudan as an independent country in 2011. Of South Sudan’s population of 11 million, 61 percent are estimated to be Christian. Thirty-three percent follow traditional African religions and six percent are Muslim. 

While the “Arab” strain is far more noticeable in the population of Sudan, which too, like South Sudan, is predominantly a country of African races, in South Sudan the Dinka, the Nuer, and the Shillik are the principal groups/languages among a total of more than 60. However, the Arabic language too may be heard in South Sudan’s capital, Juba. 

A prolonged civil war that took a heavy toll had preceded the creation of South Sudan, but today both truncated Sudan and South Sudan face deep internal tensions that have erupted into high-casualty civil wars. As has been true for Pakistan and Bangladesh, strife within each piece has followed the break-up of Sudan. 

For some years after its independence, South Sudan presented to the world a painful picture of a civil war between factions led by its president and vice-president. Now in the larger territory of Sudan two men who had jointly staged a coup in 2021, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the armed forces and in effect the country's president, and his deputy, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the Rapid Support Forces, have emerged as foes in a destructive civil war. 

Mass Killings

According to the BBC, the UN human rights council has given unanimous backing to a fresh, independent investigation into mass killings reported in the Sudanese city of el-Fasher, which had been attacked by the RTF. 

The bloodshed has been on a horrendous scale! The BBC report says: 

“Our wake-up calls were not heeded. Bloodstains on the ground in el-Fasher have been photographed from space. The stain on the record of the international community is less visible, but no less damaging,” UN human rights chief Volker Türk said at an emergency meeting in Geneva on November 14. 

Since the civil war began over two years ago, more than 150,000 people have been killed and about 12 million have been forced from their homes. 

A joint G7 statement has condemned surging violence in Sudan, saying the conflict between the army and the RSF had triggered “the world's largest humanitarian crisis”. 

A story put out by Reuters says this: 

“The war, which erupted out of a power struggle, has caused ethnically-charged bloodletting, widespread destruction and mass displacement, drawing in foreign powers and threatening to split Sudan. Both sides have increasingly relied on drone strikes in recent months, leading to heavy civilian casualties. 

“Developments on the ground indicate clear preparations for intensified hostilities, with everything that implies for its long-suffering people,” U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk said on November 14. 

No Initiative?

There is no sign of any international initiative to assist in Sudan’s crisis. Our world’s super powers are trapped in their own problems, and the UN is a forgotten stepchild. There are suggestions that richer neighboring countries are supplying arms to rival sides in Sudan’s horrendous civil war. What we are not hearing is the engagement of the world’s powerful nations in bringing the carnage to a halt. 

When strong nations or international organizations fail to do what is needed, the burden falls on simple citizens. There are countries where Bangladeshis and Pakistanis may be found, and where Sudanese of all kinds too may be living. Some dialogue could begin there, or friendship can be given. Friendship extended will not bring peace or reconciliation to distant zones of conflict, but it will add to the world’s stock of empathy – and it may inspire some to attempt bold things in the lands that gave them or their parents birth.