Tag: Sheikh Hasina Ouster

Kolkata’s Mini Bangladesh Feels The Pinch

By Kunal Bose

People in this subcontinent, except for a miniscule, will be pining for the food they are eating all the time at home as they make a trip abroad instead of trying the local fare. Take the case of Bangladeshis, who before prime minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to leave Dhaka a little over a year ago following student led upheavals, would always be in Kolkata in hundreds as tourists must eat food here cooked in the same way back home. Let this be made clear at the outset. Like Bengalis on the two sides of the border will sound differently while speaking the same language – it will be pronouncedly so if they are from Chittagong or Sylhet – the cuisines too have their distinct identity.

For the benefit of readers not familiar with the above kind of distinction, in the local lingo you have ‘Bangal’ who either live in Bangladesh or who trace their origin there and ‘Ghoti’ who hail from West Bengal. Bengalis irrespective of where they are from have rice and fish, the latter thanks to the rivers, including the Padma and the Ganga crisscrossing the land, as their staple food. But Dhaka being once the Mughal capital of Bengal Subah and a major trading centre, foreign culinary naturally left a mark in the food there. Then the Nawabs of Dhaka introduced Nawabi (a form of Mughlai) cuisine to be further embellished by Persian, Turkish and Arabic influences when East Bengal was part of Pakistan.

A chef at Kasturi restaurant in Kolkata (you have a famous Kasturi in Dhaka too which tourists, epicurean kind from here will never give a miss) says: “In selection and use of spices, in sauteing, the Bangladeshi cuisine is distinctively different from ours. While retaining the basics of East Bengali food, the Bangladeshi fare has well absorbed mostly Islamic influences. I think from the patronisation we received from Bangladeshi tourists before that country faced political upheavals last year would confirm that our food was up to their palate.”

Unarguably Kasturi has always been the first choice for food for visitors from Bangladesh. At the same time, among the other well patronised eateries are Radhuni, Aami Bangali and Dhansiri at what is lovingly described as ‘mini Bangladesh’ encasing large portions of Marquis Street, Kyd Street, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road and Free School Street.

In days preceding Sheikh Hasina’s escape to Delhi, the ‘mini Bangladesh,’ which besides many eateries and home food delivery outlets houses hotels, guest houses, travel agencies and foreign exchange centres was an ever-bustling centre with teeming Bangladeshis. Over the years, the Bangladeshis have become the principal patrons of shops at the century and a half old iconic New Market. A shop owner there dealing in textiles and readymade garments says while New Market has long ceased to be the preferred shopping destination for the local residents, thanks to the opening of a number of high-end malls, the loss of this patronage was largely made good by highly indulgent shopping by the Bangladeshis.

ALSO READ: Dhaka Disorder – An Year Later

Whatever the reason for travel to Kolkata, business, medical or simply tourism, the Bangladeshis have the reputation to splurge money on buying sarees, dresses, jewellery and what have you. As it would happen, the economy of ‘mini Bangladesh’ and transactions in New Market became so largely dependent on tourists from the neighbouring country that their near total absence for a year resulting from visas being made available on a highly restrictive basis has sounded the death knell for many establishments.

Remember, all tourists from Bangladesh are not necessarily of modest means. The well-heeled ones used to check in at premier hotels, savour food and drinks at posh restaurants in the city and shop at exclusive outlets. These establishments too have taken a hit, but not to the same extent as the ones in ‘mini Bangladesh’. If you will call this an enclave, it houses over 200 hotels and guest houses and nearly 3,000 shops, all seeing their business plummet to disastrously low since July last year coinciding with the outburst of student agitation against Awami League administration policy on quotas in government jobs. The movement first surreptitiously and then openly was backed by Islamist forces. According to the UN Human Rights Commission, which collected information from various credible sources, the 2024 July-August crackdown could have claimed ‘up to 1,400’ lives.

Unfortunately, the new dispensation led by Dr Mohammad Yunus, a sworn enemy of Sheikh Hasina, in its pursuit of cordiality with China and Pakistan has soured relationship with India, leading to two-way visa restrictions. The present low-point of relationship between the two neighbours has virtually extinguished tourist arrivals from Bangladesh (in sunnier days in 2023 that country had a 22 per cent share of foreign tourist arrivals in India) causing serious collateral damage to not only to tourism infrastructure in Kolkata dedicated to Bangladeshis but also to a number of hospitals in the city. Incidentally, since the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country in 1971, its citizens have routinely travelled to Kolkata for medical care.

Over the years, the numbers of medical tourists grew to an extent that leading hospitals in the city, including Apollo, Peerless, RN Tagore Hospital and Amri opened special windows for the Bangladeshis. The preference for treatment in Kolkata has a few compelling reasons, including high class medical facilities, cost affordability and proximity. To their utter disappointment, the Bangladeshi patients are now finding it difficult to secure medical visas to travel to Kolkata. As a result, at the outpatient departments of Kolkata hospitals, visits by the Bangladeshis are down to 10 to 15 per cent of the routine flow ahead of July 2024.

The wait for medical care in Kolkata becoming longer because of political standoff between the two neighbours, the more affluent Bangladeshis are seeking relief in Singapore. While visas are now very selectively given to medical tourists from Bangladesh, the veterinary clinics in Kolkata continue to draw a blank when it comes to entertaining pet parents from the neighbouring country. The local demand for medical services has been so strong that private hospital chains are able to absorb the loss of custom from Bangladesh.

But hotels and guest houses, shops and restaurants, travel agencies and foreign exchange dealers who have always almost exclusively depended on Bangladeshi patronage are seeing their losses mounting everyday with quite a few shuttering their establishments. Absence of Bangladeshis means daily loss of business of anything between ₹3 crore and ₹5 crore in mini Bangladesh alone. The loss goes up by several notches if account is taken of purchases the Bangladeshis used to make in good times in the wholesale market of Burra bazar and several other marketing centres in Kolkata.

Dhaka Disorder: A Year Later

By Mahendra Ved

The current India-United States spat triggered by the “Trumpian tariff terror”, his repeated claims of brokering the end of the India-Pakistan conflict and his accusing India of ‘financing’ the Ukraine conflict, may or may not slide down to Cold War era rhetoric among “strategic allies.” But it has provoked the Indian Army, not without an official nod, to recall on social media what the Nixon administration did way back in 1971.

That year, India defied Nixon and the collective disapproval of the Western and the Islamic world to win decisively, its campaign to facilitate the birth of Bangladesh. Analysts say this has rankled with the US policy makers to repeatedly side with Pakistan and, whenever it found it convenient, target Bangladesh.

That was why Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed in a military-led coup, precisely 50 years ago. No evidence, but when some of the actors spoke out, it got written about, like many other regime changes in that era.

Now, there is talk that the Biden administration may have been behind the ouster of his daughter, the longest-serving Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, a year ago. Sophisticated, without the military involvement. No evidence, again, until someone speaks up one day. And allies don’t complain. Of course, the father-daughter had made a similar set of serious mistakes at home and outside of it.

The Biden/Trump boost to the new Dhaka regime, analysts say, has more to do with the US’s long-term need to ‘contain’ China. Reports say the US has quietly unleashed plans to use Bangladesh’s southeastern border to take on the China-supported military regime in Myanmar. Foreign military boots are stomping the ground, and Washington has reportedly invested USD 400 million to create a “humanitarian corridor” to facilitate the Rohingya refugees’ return to Myanmar. The new regime in Dhaka is facilitating it.

India is placed in a piquant situation where the US, its strategic ally, and China, the strategic adversary, otherwise confronting each other in the region and globally, find their clashing interests converging in Bangladesh.

Last year’s regime change has pushed Bangladesh closer to Pakistan, but even more to the latter’s “all-weather ally” China, which is perceived as trying to encircle India in the region. The era of India benefiting from having midwifed Bangladesh’s birth seems to have ended.

China is today Bangladesh’s largest arms-giver and trading partner. Dhaka looks to them, whatever its equations with India. This zero-sum game negatively impacts India, the largest entity in the region, in its internal security and external relations.

On the ground, improving Teesta’s flow with China’s help and a plan for an air force base for Bangladesh at Lalmonirhat, both close enough for a crow to fly from India’s vulnerable “Chicken’s Neck” corridor, worries New Delhi.

ALSO READ: Hindu Persecution In Bangladesh Vindicates Need For CAA

Further, neither the US, nor Pakistan, nor China appear concerned about the ill-treatment of religious minorities and the surge of the Islamists, but all three concern India in its east and northeast.

Given the history of how Pakistan lost its erstwhile eastern wing, now Bangladesh, it is a zero-sum game: India loses as Pakistan and China gain. The American factor has hugely added to these complexities. All of this makes the South Asian region the playground for geopolitical games as never before.

Amidst this situation, Bangladesh is headed for elections next February. The announcement came significantly on the day that marked one year of Hasina’s ouster and exile. The “July Charter” reads like the total of what the critics think of her, ignoring the economic and social leaps, as if she did nothing good for 15 years.

Chief Advisor Mohammed Yunus warned of “a certain group” ready to ‘obstruct’ the elections, “both from within the country and abroad.” These obvious hints leave little doubt that like all previous elections, India is destined to be an election issue, with a sharper edge provided by the Islamists who are ideologically opposed to anything Indian.

All this gives little hope to India – and not only because the Awami League it trusted for half a century, is banned and out of the election fray. As Dhaka demands Hasina’s repatriation for trial on multiple charges, India cannot forsake her. Things could get more volatile as her supporters, already on the run and facing violence and imprisonment, may seek to cross over.

There are a few silver linings, though. The July Charter has stopped short of including two crucial demands from the Islamists: removing the reservation in parliament for women guaranteed at present and establishing an Upper House based on proportional representation. This could have made a relatively woman-friendly Bangladesh another Afghanistan and accorded parliamentary legitimacy and clout for the Islamists.

The Islamists want the history of Bangladesh to be traced from 1947, when a divided Bengal became part of Pakistan. But the “July Charter” begins the historical trajectory from the struggle for liberation, democracy, and sovereignty, with the 1971 Independence Declaration.

The announcement of the elections may have the effect of putting on hold the reforms in the system governing Bangladesh, however good, bad or needed. The contesting parties will be busy pushing their respective political and ideological standpoints in the months to come. It is a test for a chaotic administration and for the intending voter alike to show appetite for this discourse amidst poll-related violence that is endemic to the Bangladeshi scene.

Arguably, though, Bangladesh’s trajectory begins with the 1970 election, the last in Pakistan and rated as the fairest. The one in February next year has the potential to show if the separation five decades back to safeguard Bengali culture and language was worth it.