By IANS,
Dhaka : India and the US shared apprehensions of the rise of Islamist militancy in Bangladesh following the assassination of its founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman this day in 1975, official US documents have revealed.
“The religious extremism rattling the nation now was a prospect India and the US had feared soon after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,” The Daily Star newspaper said Saturday, quoting extensively from the just declassified US Office of the Historian documents.
The documents quote then US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and then Indian external affairs minister Y.B. Chavan, foreign secretary Kewal Singh and Indian envoy to the US T.N. Kaul in a series of conversations.
In conversation with State Department officials, Kissinger said: “I always knew India would rue the day that they made Bangladesh independent. I predicted that in ’71.”
The Richard Nixon Administration, in which Kissinger served, had totally opposed the liberation war and had even sent the US Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal “to protect American citizens”, a move which was perceived by India as one to brow-beat its war effort against Pakistan.
However, after Mujib was killed along with most of his family members in a military-led putsch Aug 15, 1975, both US and India shared perceptions on the rise of pan-Islamic forces and China-inspired Left extremists.
Chavan and his officials conveyed in clear terms the Indian apprehensions that Islamist forces in Bangladesh could threaten the Hindu minority and trigger a wave of refugees as had happened in the run up to Bangladesh’s war of liberation in 1971.
On Kissinger’s enquiring about the number of Hindus in Bangladesh, Chavan told him: “About 15 percent. It is a major factor. So far the new government (after Mujib’s killing) has given assurances it would follow the same policy as Mujib, but we are naturally worried about the influence of Pakistan on Bangladesh.”
“The danger is pan-Islamism,” Kaul emphasized to Kissinger.
India said that Bangladesh had sought to change its name to “Islamic Republic”, which came about eventually, and that despite a declaration by the new President Khandaker Moshtaque Ahmed, the stance was “anti-India”, besides being “pro-US and pro-China”.
In the context of the Cold War dynamics, India and the US were also concerned that China, which recognised Bangladesh only after Aug 1975, might help radical communist elements to thrive in the newly independent country sliding into militocracy.
Chavan noted that Pakistan recognizing Bangladesh in 1974 was “a good thing” and that New Delhi never wanted “an exclusive relationship” with Dhaka. But he also pointed out that China had been quick to recognize the regime that captured power after Mujib’s killing.
“The rise of Islamist militancy, once a fear, is now a reality, 34 years after the Aug 15 carnage,” the newspaper noted, adding that Mujib’s daughter, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, had assumed office in January this year on the promise of fighting and eliminating Islamist militancy.
The US and India debated whether there was prior indication of a plot to kill Mujib.
However, documents indicate that Kissinger made inquiries from his officials, who said that there were many indications and that Mujib had been informed, although details were “imprecise”.
Minutes of a meeting chaired by Kissinger after Aug 15 show that the US was well aware of the plot and that it had informed Mujib.
When Kissinger enquired of Alfred Atherton Jr., assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, the latter said: “He (Mujib) brushed it off, scoffed at it, and said nobody would do a thing like that to him.”
Kissinger remarked, “He (Mujib) was one of the world’s prize fools.”