P. K. Balachandran
Jatiyo Nagorik Committee member Alauddin Mohammad calls for people to people interactions to end mutual suspicions
Alauddin Mohammad, a member of the Bangladesh National Citizens’ Committee Executive, seeks people-to-people contacts between Bangladesh and India to clear misunderstandings that had vitiated the relationship after the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a violent student-led movement in August this year.
While Bangladeshis saw the ouster of Hasina’s repressive regime as perfectly legitimate, India suspected that it was engineered either by Pakistan or the US or together, to nullify its traditionally close ties with Bangladesh particularly, Sheikh Hasina. New Delhi was particularly irked when the Interim Government led by the pro-US Chief Advisor Dr.Muhammad Yunus sought the extradition of Hasina from India to face criminal charges in a Dhaka court.
Feelings ran really high in India when Islamic radicals attacked Hindu temples and a Hindu monk, Chinmoy Das Bhramachari, was arrested and denied bail for allegedly dishonouring the Bangladesh flag. The Hindus of Chittagong had earlier held mass demonstrations demanding protection.
In Bangladesh, on the contrary, the popular narrative was that India was hatching a plot to use the Hindu minority in Bangladesh to discredit the Interim Government and eventually put protégé Hasina back in power. Relations between New Delhi and Dhaka stay frozen with no sign of an early thaw.
It is against that background that this writer talked to Alauddin Mohammad, a National Citizens (Jatiyo Nagorik) Committee member. The Jatiyo Nagorik Committee came into being in September seeking to unite diverse groups in Bangladesh to establish a new “political settlement for a democratic Bangladesh.” It aims to reform the State in line with the aspirations of the student-led mass uprising. It is run by a 55-member committee led by Nasir Uddin Patwary.
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