Air travel out of Kolkata begins with time travel. Your cab drives to the airport down VIP Road, so named because when it was built in 1961, only VIPs could fly. Like many features of Kolkata, the airport is named after Netaji, but authentic natives still call it Dum Dum, which is the name of the area. Nearby was the Dum Dum Ordnance Factory, where a Raj official invented the dumdum bullet in 1890, which helped win many colonial wars until it was banned under the Hague Convention. The rumour that British cartridges were greased with forbidden fats, which triggered the rising of 1857, could also have begun here.
The last sign of history as your cab turns towards the airport is one which says that had you carried on straight, you would have been on Jessore Road. It is part of the Grand Trunk Road, which has been on official records from the 12th century. In 1971, Indian troops and armour went down Jessore Road to liberate Bangladesh, and there began a history of awkwardness, unease and loaded silences that have marked relations between the two countries. And now, it isn’t silent any more. It’s loud, angry and destructive.
Earlier, Bangladesh was often reticent about India’s role in the liberation war. The conflict was inevitable because in 1947, Pakistan was created with an imbalance—West Pakistan, which mostly spoke Urdu and Punjabi, wielded political power, but the Bengalis in the east had the majority of voters. Plus, the Bengali majority resented the imposition of Urdu, and the Bengali Language Movement began in the 1950s. The tipping point was the 1970 general election, in which Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Awami League, based in East Pakistan, won an absolute majority. West Pakistan was reluctant to surrender power and unrest broke out in the east, where the majority embraced their linguistic identity as Bangla-speakers, rejecting the Islamic identity on which Pakistan had been created.
On the night of March 25, 1971, the Pakistan army launched Operation Searchlight in East Pakistan, hunting down students, intellectuals, activists, Bengali officials and Hindus. The next day, Mujib declared independence, the targets of Operation Searchlight formed the Mukti Bahini militia and a civil war broke out. But the Pakistan army’s atrocities mounted.
On April 6, Archer Blood, US consul general in Dhaka, sent a blistering telegram to Washington, accusing his government of “moral bankruptcy” for its failure to oppose the genocide. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were seeking rapprochement with China with the help of Pakistan. It would end decades of animus; Kissinger hesitated to alienate the broker.
Thereupon, Indira Gandhi sent the Indian army into East Pakistan and Gen J F R Jacob secured the surrender of Pakistan after a blitzkrieg. But military intervention was only the last of India’s contributions to the liberation of Bangladesh. It trained and armed large numbers of the Mukti Bahini. It provided a safe haven and legitimacy for Mujib’s government in exile. It ignored Nixon’s threats. Kolkata absorbed 10 million refugees, and some of the city’s suburbs are still identified with them. Indian intellectuals, cultural figures and civil society brought the genocide to the attention of the international community. Most famously, Ravi Shankar teamed up with George Harrison for the Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden.
The India-Bangladesh compact was win-win. Bangladesh redefined itself on a linguistic basis, rejecting the Islamic identity. India gained prestige and was free of the threat of a two-front war. But over time, many Bangladeshis downplayed the role of India. Understandably so—everyone wants to own their origin story.
Bangladesh also suspected that the regional Big Brother ran the country. Sheikh Hasina’s corrupt, extractive regime was believed to be operating under Delhi’s protection and the last straw was that India gave her refuge. Most Bangladeshis at home and in the diaspora now believe that R&AW is using transnational repression to eliminate their leaders. Ironically, when Hasina was overthrown last year, the R&AW seems to have had no clue till the deed was done.
In India, the BJP politicised the illegal immigration of Bangladeshi Muslims in the period of the Babri demolition in 1992. Delhi’s slums, especially those on the Yamuna, were repeatedly combed for Bangladeshis. More recently, action against immigrants in Assam, where deportations were conducted in the early 1960s, was systematically resumed. Combing operations have become routine in many states.
Now, immigrants, a euphemism for Muslim strangers, serve as gaming chips in every election. They were used as jujus in Bihar this year and will be trotted out in West Bengal in 2026. Why isn’t the ruling party, which claims to protect Hindus everywhere, not taking strong action when a Hindu has been lynched in Bangladesh? Why is the response coming from allied organisations, rabid TV anchors and anti-social media, not the PM? The answer could be the West Bengal polls. The upheaval in Bangladesh is now mainly about nationality. But if it turns communal, it’ll help the BJP to win a state it has long coveted.
India and Bangladesh have become strangers to each other, and this is triggering inhuman public reactions like the murder of Dipu Chandra Das in Mymensingh, Bangladesh, and Ramnarayan in Kerala, India—a minority person and a migrant. Expendable pawns in a rash political game that could end a relationship so close that it’s like kinship.
Pratik Kanjilal | SPEAKEASY | Senior Fellow, Henry J Leir Institute of Migration and Human Security, Fletcher School, Tufts University
(Views are personal)
(Tweets @pratik_k)