The Lok Sabha election should hopefully yield a strong Government that will firmly back Sheikh Hasina and her crackdown on fundamentalists in Bangladesh
India faces a grim security environment as it prepares for Lok Sabha election scheduled later this year. Americans would be leaving Afghanistan by the end of 2014. A danger that cannot be discounted is that of the Taliban and Al Qaeda taking over the country with the help of Pakistan. This will take till about 2016 to happen — if it does at all — as there will be resistance. Mohammad Najibullah held the Mujahideen at bay until 1992 even though Soviet troops had withdrawn completely from Afghanistan by February 1989.
Once Afghanistan falls, Pakistan, its terrorist creations like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, and the Al Qaeda and Taliban will escalate their unconventional war through terrorism against India (see Syed Saleem Shahzad's Inside Al Qaeda and the Taliban) to the point where it escalates into a conventional war, which in turn will carry the threat of a nuclear blackmail by Pakistan.
Things would have been grimmer if the Awami League had lost power in Bangladesh. A Government led by Begum Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party and elements of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, would have been a disaster for India, toward which both are pathologically hostile. The Jamaat is banned from contesting election as Bangladesh's judiciary has held its fundamentalist Islamist ideology violative of the canons of secularism enshrined in the country's Constitution. Its members, however, could have contested under the BNP's electoral umbrella or as independent candidates.
Meanwhile, attempts to pressure Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina into holding another, and what is being described as more inclusive and credible, election to the National Parliament, continue, albeit with diminishing conviction. It is another matter that the implied oblique reference to the election already held is breathtaking; it was the BNP's choice not to participate in these and it stuck to its guns despite persistent efforts, including by diplomats of countries now demanding a new election, to reverse its stand. Equally, the widespread violence that kept the polling relatively low was the work of the Jamaat and the BNP, not the Awami League.
There is, therefore, no reason why the Awami League should hold a fresh election. In fact, there is every reason for it to rule for the next five years, ensure punishment of the war criminals who perpetrated unspeakable atrocities during the 1971 Liberation War against Pakistan, neutralise the pro-Taliban and Al Qaeda Islamist terrorist groups spawned by the Jamaat, which threaten not only the country's secular, democratic polity but the whole of South Asia, even the whole world. 9/11 and 26/11 have underlined the devastating effectiveness of long-distance terrorism.
India must continue to stand unflinchingly by Ms Hasina for the Awami League to do all this. It is Delhi's resolute support that helped her considerably to withstand relentless pressure, first to hold the elections under a Government that did not have her as Prime Minister, and then to postpone it to allow more time for persuading BNP to participate, and finally, to call for a new election as soon as possible. India's stand was in its own, Bangladesh's and the entire world's interest. To continue playing such a role-and also to intervene effectively in Afghanistan to prevent a Taliban Al Qaeda takeover, it must have, post-Lok Sabha poll, a Government that is strong and committed enough to cope with the challenges facing it. For this, it needs either a single party Government sworn to India's security and greatness or a cohesive coalition with the same goals and a pre-dominant constituent as the guarantor of its stability. A ruling coalition of squabbling parties without a common national perspective and pulling in different directions will be a disaster.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/the-grim-security-scenario-around.html
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