Authored by: Umakant Sir (Founder, Mentor and Civil Servant)
Who does not like a good conspiracy?
We all have our own little conspiracy theories that we believe in contradiction to facts even. And that is understandable because that is a pure “Human Psychological Error”. Psychologists call it “cognitive dissonance” (When the facts are in contrast to the things we believe in, yet we still believe in them).
But the Bangladesh saga, seems like a plot from a movie altogether. A Prime Minister as strong as Sheikh Hasina was given only 45 mins to wind up and run?
That is enough ingredient for us to cook up a conspiracy biriyani. Nonetheless, let me feed you with some more questions that may make you smell the “conspiracy biryani”: –
Question no. 1:
If you have read history, read your history well, you know that every revolution/protest has a shelf-life. Gandhiji knew it well than others. Revolution has its fatigue.
But….
The events (Protests) in Bangladesh unfolded in the Monsoon Months. And, they say “when it rains in Bangladesh, it pours in Bangaladesh”; so how did the students manage to protest for months and mount pressure on the government in the monsoon months.
How long can a protester stand in the “Bangaladeshi rain” and shout?
Because it unfolded in the monsoon months, makes you wonder: Was there a foreign hand in all of this?
Also, because, sustaining a protest of this size requires logistics and supply chain or more bluntly it requires a “good deal of Money”. Thus, the next question…Who financed it?
Question no. 2:
Every revolution requires financing…that’s how it has always been. Take any lasting revolution from your history books and you will see a financier.
Who financed it then? Who gave the food, fodder and shelter to the protesters?
That makes one wonder of the “invisible foreign hand”.
Question no. 3:
Just before the protest, Sheikh Hasina made a trip to China, however the trip was cut-short and when she returned to Bangladesh, she gave a statement that was in favour of India.
That makes one wonder, Is there a “Chinese Hand” or “China-Pakistan Conspiracy”, given the fact that a Bangladesh under the sphere of influence of Chinese can make Indian policy makers “Paranoid” perpetually.
We have a border with Bangaladesh i.e. running upto 4096 kms and the worrisome part is: – it is a porous border. There is no natural or geographical barrier between Indo-Bangladesh border…. which makes India extremely vulnerable. Guarding a border that runs for more than 4000 km and runs through agricultural fields, river and wetlands is extremely difficult.
In that situation, China-Pakistan will be very happy, and India will be very anxious. Of Course, Chinese will prefer an anxious India rather than an assertive India.
Thus, the smell of conspiracy.
Question no. 4:
There has been reports that it might be a USA conspiracy. In this regard we can consider couple of things: –
USA through its CIA had funded revolution and toppled governments. Look at South America, Look at other parts of the world. USA had done it in the past and done it multiple times across multiple continents. So, it is hardly a surprise to anyone.
But this begs the question, why USA will topple a government in Bangladesh ? What’s the catch ? We can understand the Chinese-Pakistan angle but USA…Why?
Well, in that regard, we can consider the following: –
- USA does not see Russia as its biggest threat anymore. As long as Russia posed a threat, USA was in Afghanistan.
- The challenger to USA’s hegemony is China and to counter China, what could be a better base than Bangladesh.
- If USA had its sway over Bangladesh
- India will lose some of its “strategic autonomy” and may be pushed towards the “USA Camp”.
- China will be anxious perpetually.
In that sense, from USA’s point of view, “Bangaldesh can be the new Afghanistan“. A base to fight the Chinese threat and contain it.
All of the above, definitely makes one wonder of the “supposedly external hand” in the Bangladesh protests.
Let’s consider the counter, that it was an internal rebellion and there was no foreign hand.
Let’s go back to the Revolution of 1857 or If you give a closer look at ” Arab Spring”. What we learn from these episodes is that :-
- Every revolution has a “trigger” (In case of 1857 revolution, it was arrest of Mangal Pandey and the “cartridge issue” and in case of Arab spring it was self-immolation of a vegetable vendor”)
- Every revolution has a “deep seeded anger” against the status-quo that has been burning slowing for years, even decades.
- Every revolution has a social, political and economic cause behind it.
If people’s social mobility is curtailed, if there is widespread unemployment and if the political rights of the people are suppressed (real or perceived), it gives rise to revolution.
And in this context, if one looks at Bangladesh, it appears that the protest was natural and organic one. It started as simple protest against the reservation quota in jobs and catapulted into an anti-government protest.
Bangaladesh did well economically under Sheikh Hasina’s rule. The “Textile sector boom” created jobs for millions. However, recently the textile sector became stagnant. The Political rights of ‘people and the opposition’ perceived as to be undermined. Which seems to have created the “deep seeded anger” running over a decade. The “reservation protest” was the “trigger” and death of students at the hands of “state” catapulted it as “anti-government” protest.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, one can say that the protest in Bangladesh was organic one in the beginning, but eventually the role of “external actor” cannot be discredited as well. Afterall geopolitics is a “ruthless” game. And “some foreign actors” may have been tempted to influence and build a narrative by financing and supporting the revolution.
But as we learn from history, strong empires fall mostly because of internal weakness, external factors usually accentuate it. And seems to be the case with what happened in Bangladesh. We learn more about it as the situation unfolds.
*Disclaimer: The above writing is just an analysis, and the opinion is based on Newspaper articles and editorials etc. This must not be construed as “Fact”.
Receive Daily Updates
Recent Posts
Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.