July 28, 2006

My last article, "Is India a superpower?" evoked a sizeable amount of mostly endorsing responses from the readers. However there were a few who thought I was over-reacting to the crisis at hand. One of the respondents believed the Indian government was handling the situation well and had things under "control." Well, brickbats are as welcome as bouquets, because my aim in writing the aforementioned essay was to provoke a discussion, not to get wholesome praise from all quarters. So, I thank all the readers who responded.

When a nation issues a weak-kneed response to an atrocity committed on it, it's not just the perpetrator who gets bolder. The rest of the world is watching too, and quickly learning. So, it's Bangladesh's turn now to cock a snook at the Indian government.

A group of Bangladeshi civilians crossed the border after tearing away the border posts. They pushed back the Indians living in that area, grabbed two square kilometers of our sovereign terriroty, with plenty of help from the Bangladesh Rifles (the name by which Bangladesh's para-military forces are called), and resisted the attempts by Indian civilians and the Border Security Force to take back our land.

That, this happened on the 27th of July, the seventh anniversary of Vijay Divas is particularly galling. On that day, seven years back, Indian Army drove away the Pakistani intruders from Kargil and restored the wounded Indian pride. Several soldiers' lives were sacrificed in the process. That, a minnion like Bangladesh has chosen this specific occasion to do a similar thing, though on a smaller scale, speaks volumes about how soft India is perceived in the international circles now.

A lot of Indians are ignorant about Bangladesh's activities on our border. They think that, since we helped Bangladesh to gain independence from Pakistan, Bangaladeshis would forever remain greatful to us. Nothing can be further from the truth. Bangladeshis have always been a thorn on our side, by encouraging their citizenry to sneak into India, by foiling the attempts of our BSF people to build fences along the border to prevent that particular activity, and by providing a safe haven for Pakistan's ISI sponsored terrorists and so on and so forth.

None of our newspapers reported it prominently, except "The Pioneer," a national newspaper published from New Delhi. May be like some of the readers who wrote to me, our newspapers too thought it was just two square kilometers of land, and hence, not worth mentioning.

This is not very surprising considering it was Pandit Nehru who tried to lighten the situation about the Chinese aggression in 1962, when the Chinese captured 12,000 square miles of our territory by saying, "It's a land where not even a blade of grass grows. Why are you people making so much fuss?" An angry opposition member then retorted by saying, "The same can be said about your bald head. Not a hair grows on it. Why do you need it then?" Our newspapers are just following our esteemed leaders.

The biggest travesty of this whole situation is our defense minister was blissfully unware of the whole thing, until the newspaper called him for his reaction. Things are under "control" indeed.

The Border Security Force of India on the Bangladesh side, has not forgotten the insult meted out to them by the Bangladesh Rifles when the BDR killed and mutilated their personnel on April 18, 2001, in Boraibari along the Assam border. The carcasses of the BSF personnel were hung from poles, and paraded around by jubilant Bangladeshi villagers.

The BJP government ruling at that time, expressed their "strong condemnation" to the Bangladesh government. The Bangladesh government, of course, assured it "would look into the situation." Then, everything was forgotten and life returned to normal. Oh, by the way, the "would look into the situation" Bangladesh government announced gallantry awards to the same Bangladesh Rifles, three months after the incident.

Already, two crores of illegal Bangladeshis are living in India. If the Border security decides it's not worth endangering their lives for a government that doesn't care, and people who don't appreciate their efforts, we might be looking at another partition of India in the East, in the near future.

-Murali Chari
[email protected]

Other articles by Murari Chari:
• Is India a Super Power?
• Chiranjeevi - seeing is believing
• Open letter to Pawan Kalyan