The Partition of South Asia Strikes Again

The successful Color Revolution in Bangladesh, further Western enabled chaos in Myanmar, and an aborted Color Revolution in Thailand have all occurred this week under the cover of the Zionist Genocide, the awaited/expected at any moment Iranian and Resistance counterattack, along with the Ukraine conflict with its newest twist in Russia’s Kursk Oblast. All these events are connected to the Multipolar world’s rise and the attempt by the Outlaw US Empire to keep its superiority and the plunder it takes in from its efforts. Most readers can probably access the following three articles, but I’ll post them here in full. Despite its historical importance, IMO South Asia is the least understood portion of the planet primarily because of its colonial oppressors. The vast multitude of ethnic groups, languages and belief systems is like nowhere else. Russia and the Balkans are far outclassed in those respects. That multitude also made it easier for divide and rule to be used, and not just by the British.

Finding a map displaying the vast depth of ethnic diversity within South Asia is next to impossible. This one depicting Myanmar’s major groups out of the 135 recognized ethnic groups is somewhat similar to that of South Asia, although it’s greatly magnified by Myanmar’s very rugged geography.

The Brits and their outlaw cousins have messed around in this region for several centuries, but it’s mostly been the outlaw Empire since about 1942, slowly at first, then it rushed in to fill the vacuum created by the exit of the Dutch, British and French lest the Chinese take over. But the primary problem was created by the British in their complete disregard for South Asian peoples to determine their own fate, which was the UN rule then and now. Many years and conflicts have come and gone since 1947, and I suppose it’s remarkable that there hasn’t been greater conflict. Many tomes record Partition and the events that led to it beginning prior to WW2. This short article provides a very truncated overview for those ignorant of the event. As the article concludes, tensions still remain quite high in the region thanks to longstanding religious animosities and Imperial meddling during and after the Cold War. Modi’s reelection and what appears to be his finally getting off the fence and favoring Russia, BRICS, SCO, EAEU, ASEAN over the Outlaw US Empire has likely been one of the reasons for the recent spate of conflict fueled by the Empire. The roiled region remains roiled as the three articles all agree. What they all provide is a finer, closer look at events, their causes and potential effects.

The first comes from the Deccan Herald, which is published in the Indian state of Karnataka, and is by a writer familiar to most readers, former Indian diplomat M K Bhadrakumar, who also happens to author the third article that was published at his blog. The order is chronological with the first produced on 6 August: “Regime Change in Dhaka a Morality Play: The speed with which the student agitation turned into an anti-government movement raises troubling questions”:

The political stalemate in Bangladesh has taken a dramatic turn. What began as a student agitation against the quota system for scarce government jobs for the descendants of freedom fighters culminated in regime change. There are salutary lessons here.

Democracy is not only about holding elections scrupulously at prescribed intervals, but they should be free, fair, and seen as so. Second, political alienation can turn into ulcers. In Bangladesh, too, the youth unemployment rate is very high, and what happened is a warning signal to India. Third, do not drive the opposition into a corner. The opposition should have space to function. Finally, hubris led to authoritarianism, and the ruling elite became dictatorial. As Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled her country, the political opponent she had locked up, Khaleda Zia, will be freed. It’s a morality play. Ancient Greeks believed that hubris offended the gods.

There have been only a few instances of an army returning to the barracks voluntarily. What will happen next is anybody’s guess. The army chief himself has been in his job for less than two months.

On July 21, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh watered down the quota system, addressing the students’ main demand. The agitation should have ended at that point, but instead, it got repackaged as a struggle for democracy. Hopefully, Bangladesh will give urgent thought to holding fresh elections, and a level playing field will be made available for political parties. The good part is that 76-year-old Hasina, the monarch of all she surveyed, walked into the sunset without a fight as she saw the writing on the wall. 

The Sri Lankan-style anti-climatic denouement seems to have repeated itself — this was how the Rajapaksa regime ended. Perhaps Anglo-American mediation made it possible in Dhaka. Army Chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman is a finished product of King’s College, London. 

The speed with which the student agitation turned into an anti-government movement was impressive. This raises some troubling questions. There has been an eerie similarity to colour revolutions. From the American perspective, Bangladesh is a priority country for ‘democratisation’ and a lynchpin of US’ Indo-Pacific strategy. Washington has been exerting pressure on Hasina to bandwagon. Hasina’s stubborn refusal to join Quad was probably the clincher. With the failure of the colour revolution in Thailand, the stalemate in the insurrection in Myanmar, and Chinese consolidation in Sri Lanka and the Maldives — Bangladesh’s importance to the Western strategy in the region is second to none.

Interestingly enough, the White House was ready with a statement in real time explicitly welcoming the regime change in Dhaka and commending the army: “The United States has long called for respecting democratic rights in Bangladesh, and we urge that the interim government formation be democratic and inclusive. We commend the Army for the restraint they have shown today.” 

The renowned American strategic thinker wrote the script of the geostrategy, the late Zbigniew Brzezinski, the liberal hawk who influenced the Democratic party’s foreign policy: “Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire … if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people, major resources, and access to the Black Sea, Russia again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state.”

If one interchanges ‘Ukraine’, ‘Russia’, and the ‘Black Sea’ with ‘Bangladesh’, ‘India’, and the ‘Bay of Bengal’, one gets a startling perspective through the fog. Simply put, external forces have a way of amplifying the demands of domestic groups, prying open space for new issues to echo these demands into the domestic arena. This happened in Bangladesh. Unless this modus operandi is understood, India loses the plot. We are at a sensitive global historical moment, and Western inclinations to intervene in regime politics of countries tend to be greater — Pakistan first, Bangladesh now. 

Bangladesh is key to the security of India’s northeast. It is a hotbed of anti-Indian sentiments—especially in these halcyon days of Hindu nationalism. Its strategic location at the apex of the Bay of Bengal positions it as a hub of regional connectivity. India has no choice but to work hard for a friendly government in Dhaka. This is an inflection point. There is a pro-US tilt in many of Bangladesh’s vital state agencies. [My Emphasis]

The typical signatures of a Color Coup are all present right down to the already composed statement by the White House. Perhaps this was anticipated by Modi and forced him off the fence and back onto Russia’s team.

The second was published on the 9th by RT and authored by Kanwal Sibal, retired Indian foreign secretary and former Ambassador to Russia between 2004 and 2007, “A Serious Crisis is Brewing on India’s Doorstep, and the West Has a Role in It: Washington Strategically Pressured Sheikh Hasina, Fully Aware that Her Potential Successors Might be Less Democratic and have Stronger Islamist Ties”:

The forced ouster of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from power by street agitators earlier this week has many dimensions, internal and external, all of which will be problematic in the near to medium term for Bangladesh itself, for India, and the entire region.

Bangladesh politics has been tumultuous, with Sheikh Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, considered the Father of the Nation, killed in 1975 in a military coup, along with all the members of his family – except Sheikh Hasina and her sister, who happened to be abroad at that time. 

Since then, Bangladesh has had a series of military coups until the restoration of civilian rule in 1991. This, however, failed to stabilize the country’s politics because of the unending rivalry between Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League (AL) and Begum Khaled Zia, the widow of former coup leader General Ziaur Rahman, who heads the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

This has deeply polarized Bangladesh politics, making it virtually impossible for proper democratic processes to function. The BNP has not participated in the last two general elections. Khaleda Zia had been under house arrest since 2018 on corruption charges, but was released by the Bangladesh president hours after Hasina’s ouster.

Adding to this complexity of personal rivalry is the presence of radical Islamist forces in the body politic of Bangladesh, such as the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), which is closely linked to the BNP. The JeI believes in an Islamic Bangladesh, unlike the more secular-minded AL.

These radical Islamist elements, which did not participate in the liberation struggle against the Pakistani military in the then East Pakistan, are pro-Pakistan and anti-India by orientation, given India’s role in Bangladesh’s liberation. With the ouster of Sheikh Hasina, her party in political disarray, and the BNP politically revitalized, the JeI and associated Islamist elements will wield much more influence and weaken the more secular-minded forces in the country.

According to reports, the Hindu minority in Bangladesh is already being targeted by radical Islamists. A disquieting sign is the toppling of the statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman by vandals in a copycat version of the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad. The residence of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, which had been turned into a museum, has been set on fire, and the former prime minister’s residence vandalized, just like the Sri Lankan mobs did to the premier’s residence in Colombo and the Taliban did to the presidential palace in Kabul after Ashraf Ghani fled.

It bodes ill for the future of democracy in Bangladesh that the AL, the party of Bangladesh’s freedom struggle, was not invited by the army chief to the meeting to discuss the formation of the interim government in Bangladesh. Whether it can renew itself and what role it can play in Bangladesh politics in the future under a new leadership is unclear. 

The BNP, the product of a military coup, has doubtful democratic credentials, especially because of its Islamist links. It has in the past supported terrorism and insurgency against India from its soil. When in power it opposed mutually beneficial cooperation with India in developing connectivity and transit links, with the clear objective of denying easier access to India’s northeastern states and impeding their development.

The West, especially the US, cynically sought to put political pressure on Sheikh Hasina on the democracy front, in full knowledge that the alternatives were even less democratic, with more Islamist influence to boot. [That’s the Empire’s MO.] The US played a role in de-legitimizing Sheikh Hasina’s rule with many of the steps it took, which no doubt indirectly encouraged her overthrow. This is not to say that there was no democracy deficit in Sheikh Hasina’s functioning, but that does not justify external interference, especially if it is selective.   

Bangladesh was not invited to the Summit for Democracy in Washington, DC in 2021 to which, ironically, Pakistan was invited. The same year, the US sanctioned Bangladesh’s elite para-military force, the Rapid Action Battalion, for human rights violations. In 2016, the US opposed the trial by the AL government of local pro-Pakistan militias who had collaborated with the Pakistan military in murders and rapes during the liberation struggle. 

In 2023, the State Department announced it was taking steps to impose visa restrictions on Bangladeshi individuals responsible for, or complicit in, undermining the democratic election process in Bangladesh. In May 2024, it sanctioned a former Bangladesh army chief for corruption. [After the Coup, it revoked Sheikh Hasina’s US visa.]

Mohammed Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank, who was sentenced to six months in jail for violating labor laws in Bangladesh and had opposed Sheikh Hasina, has now been asked to head the interim government in Bangladesh. He is considered a protégé of the US. The corruption cases against him have been withdrawn by the new dispensation.

The bad blood between Sheikh Hasina and the US has been quite open. The former prime minister went to the extent of recently accusing Washington of seeking to carve a small Christian state out of parts of Bangladesh, Myanmar, and India’s Manipur (where the US has been provocative in its comments on the internal ethnic turmoil there) on the Timor-Leste model. It would be relevant to remember that the US opposed the creation of Bangladesh and militarily threatened India at that time. How much of this legacy has continued to influence US policy towards Sheikh Hasina and the AL is a matter of speculation.

It is clear, however, that US policy on Bangladesh has not been in consonance with the strategic partnership between the India and the US, or the objectives of the Quad group and the Indo-Pacific concept. India’s relations with Bangladesh were a notable success story of India’s neighborhood policy.

India-Bangladesh ties flourished under Sheikh Hasina, with numerous development, connectivity, and transit projects. She eliminated the anti-Indian insurgent groups operating from Bangladesh soil, as well terrorism directed at India by Islamist elements linked to Pakistan. However, she also cultivated ties with China at the same time, with China becoming the country’s biggest defense supplier. Bangladesh was the first country to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative, after Pakistan. India has been concerned about China building a port in Bangladesh as part of the former’s Indian Ocean maritime strategy aimed at increasing its naval presence in the Indian Ocean.

The statements coming out of the US and the UK on the Bangladesh crisis take no note of India’s concerns, especially the security of the Hindu community there. Both countries, especially the US, liberally make statements about the security of minorities in India, but are silent on the issue of minorities in Bangladesh. The UK foreign secretary has called for a UN investigation into the events of recent weeks in Bangladesh, with the seeming intent of internationalizing the developments and targeting Sheikh Hasina on human rights issues.

India is rightfully concerned about the fall-out from the changes in Bangladesh, not only for the Hindu minority, but also because of the potential for the instability to spill over into India’s northeast, already under pressure due to the turmoil in Myanmar. New Delhi will also be concerned about the disruption to Indian projects in the country, especially those of connectivity and transit. With the insurgencies in Myanmar, instability in Bangladesh de-stabilizes India’s neighborhood in the east. India’s Act East policy has also been further disrupted.

In India’s view, both Pakistan and China will gain from the ouster of Sheikh Hasina. Pakistan will have anti-Indian Islamist elements as partners to disturb India-Bangladesh ties in the future. China seems to have distanced itself from Sheikh Hasina lately, judging from reports that during her very recent visit there she was not given a meeting with President Xi Jinping, besides not obtaining the amount of financial assistance she had in mind, which prompted her to cut short her visit. Anti-Indian sentiments in Bangladesh will open more doors for China there. [My Emphasis]

As the additional evidence and context shows, this was certainly a Color Coup. However, IMO the writer is mistaken about China supposedly benefitting from the act. It’s entirely possible domestic events cut short Hasina’s China visit given what’s now transpired. Plus, the escalation in chaos within Myanmar is not at all to China’s benefit. Indeed, the only entity benefitting is the Outlaw US Empire as it tries to undermine ASEAN, SCO, and BRICS by taking out the easy victims.

And the third article focuses on Thailand and Myanmar, “Thailand Aborts the Colour Revolution,” again by M K Bhadrakumar:

The curtain has come down on the abortive colour revolution in Thailand with the country’s Constitutional Court ordering the dissolution on Wednesday of the anti-establishment opposition party Move Forward, widely regarded as a US proxy. 

It coincides with the stunning success of the hastily staged colour revolution in Bangladesh and the fall of the key military base of the Myanmar army’s Northeast Command in Lashio in the Shan state over the weekend to the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the rebel groups armed, financed and trained by the Western intelligence.

The Shan people who belong to the Tai ethnic group of Southeast Asia are the biggest minority of Myanmar (10% of the population) and they have cultural affinity with the Northern Thai peoples and also have a significant presence in the adjacent regions of Assam and Meghalaya in India. 

The capture of Lashio by the alliance of militias of ethnic minority groups supported by the western intelligence is seen as a serious blow to the regime in Myanmar, which enjoys the backing of the military leadership in Thailand and is a strong ally of Russia. 

Lashio is situated on an important trade route and is about 100 kms only from the Chinese border. Newsweek magazine in a report titled China Faces Growing War on Its Border cited an expert opinion of the Washington-based United States Institute of Peace think tank (which is wired into the US intelligence establishment) that “From China’s vantage point, the escalation of the conflict is a major setback in terms of its interest in… getting the belligerent parties to establish further deals to reset trade between the China border and Mandalay.

“China seems very concerned, as it will be very difficult for the Myanmar military to bounce back from this setback, yet the Myanmar military is not signaling a desire to return to the table or an interest in making significant concessions to the northern EAOs (alliance of tribal groups), which is what China has been pressuring it to do.” 

According to latest reports, American and British “volunteers” have been lately joining the ranks of the rebels fighting the Myanmar military — although, these are early days and Myanmar has not experienced yet the same wave of international volunteers seen in conflicts such as Ukraine or Syria, and there are no coordinated efforts apparent to enlist foreign recruits.  

The Myanmar military supremo General Min Aung Hlaing has alleged that the rebel alliance is receiving weapons, including drones and short-range missiles, from “foreign” sources.  “It is necessary to analyse the sources of monetary and technological power,” he said. Myanmar’s military has 14 regional commands across the country, and the Northeast Command is the first to fall to armed rebel groups. 

Meanwhile, the Arakan Army (AA) — a powerful ethnic armed group which is fighting to establish an independent Rakhine polity in western Myanmar — has been on the move committing atrocities against the Rohingya minority population taking advantage of the military’s current overstretch. 

AA has made significant gains in Rakhine State in the recent months and reportedly exercises control over more than half of the state’s 17 townships. By the way, the Arakanese people also exist in Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts and in India’s Tripura state. (Interestingly, Arakan Division was originally a part of British India.) 

Coming back to Bangkok, the Thai generals are evidently circling the wagons sensing the Time of Troubles ahead as the Five Eyes is creating a cauldron in Myanmar that can ensnare the neighbouring regions. Bangkok, a western ally previously, is traditionally a hotbed of western intelligence — Five Eyes — and the authorities are well aware of the resentment in the US that their ties with Beijing have expanded and deepened and assumed a strategic character in the recent years. 

The unkindest cut of all is that Thailand (along with Malaysia) has formally applied for membership of the BRICS, which carries huge resonance in the geopolitics of Southeast Asia and the ASEAN and impacts the regional balance at a juncture when the US is striving to create an anti-China bloc. 

Thailand is a keen participant in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. From a long term perspective, the 873-km high-speed rail project connecting Bangkok with Kunming, capital of China’s Yunnan province, via Laos is expected to be operational latest by 2028. 

The railway project, estimated to cost anywhere up to $10 billion will not only enhance regional connectivity but profoundly reset the economic geography of Asia, given its massive potential for accelerating the increased integration between China and the ASEAN countries. People would be able to travel between Kunming and Bangkok by train for about $100, which is half to a third of the cost of an airline ticket. According to Xinhua, the railway is expected to bring two million more Chinese tourists to Thailand every year.

Washington is livid that its proxy, Move Forward led by a young man educated in the US and groomed to spearhead a colour revolution, has been banned. The Thai authorities understand that the western intention is to break up the ancient crust of their country’s polity, which is the only way to make inroads into what is otherwise a deeply Buddhist culture — specifically, to demolish the so-called lèse-majesté law protecting the institution of monarchy, an institution that dates back more than 700 years and is a pillar of stability in the country symbolising the unity of the Thai communities. By the way, Christian missionary work is active in both Thailand and Myanmar — as in next-door north-eastern region of India. And the evangelicals are an influential pressure group in the US politics. 

The Thai authorities have shied away from confronting the US. Thai culture values serenity and avoids conflict and displays of anger. Even disagreements are to be handled with a smile, without assigning blame. Hence the circuitous route to squash Move Forward on legal grounds. 

Move Forward won 151 seats in the 500 member parliament in the elections in May last year where sixty-seven parties contested but was unable to form a coalition government after being functionally blocked by allies of the monarchy and military. Move Forward made the electoral pledge to abolish lèse-majesté law (which is tantamount to a crime.) 

The US and its allies are furious but cannot do anything about the development. All the good work to stage a colour revolution in phases has come to naught. The exasperation shows in the statements from Washington and Canberra. (here and here) 

However, all is not lost. The regime change in Bangladesh may open a new pathway for the western intervention in Myanmar. India and Thailand refused to back the western-backed rebels fighting the Myanmar military. Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also stayed away from the power struggle in Myanmar. But that may change. 

The Rohingya issue provides an alibi. The ascendance of Pakistani intelligence and the larger-than life role of the Jamaat-i-Islami will trigger an assertion of Bangladesh’s Muslim identity. The Pakistani army chief lost no time to underscore that the developments in Bangladesh underscore the raison d’être of the two-nation theory!

So, the regime change in Bangladesh may turn out to be a game changer for the West’s regime change agenda in Myanmar. On the other hand, at the secondary and tertiary level, any strengthening of the western-backed rebel alliance in Myanmar cannot but cast shadows on India’s northeast, which has a large Christian population with tribal affinities across the border. 

An awareness is lacking that any weakening of Thailand’s state structure or the dissipation of Thai culture rooted in Buddhist traditions will isolate India in the region’s civilisational tapestry. Indians tend to take episodic view of current events in their immediate neighbourhood.

Prior to the rise of Theravada Buddhism, both Indian Brahminical religion and Mahayana Buddhism were present in Thailand, and influences from both these traditions can still be seen in present-day Thai folklore. A colour revolution in Thailand leading to western dominance and the eclipse of the Thai monarchy and Buddhist cosmology will have profound implications for South Asia. 

The seriousness of the situation ought to be clear, but little is being written about these developments outside the region. As we see, the Outlaw US Empire has not given up trying to attain its policy goal of Full Spectrum Dominance by way of Color Coups and outright Terror employed by its Terrorist Foreign Legion. We can see now what strategy was to be employed after the unseating Khan in Pakistan. IMO, the current Pakistani Junta’s friendly face shown to Russia and China is as false as it can be. Bhadrakumar has also published another article yesterday, “Sheikh Hasina was a Time-tested Friend,” about the Bangladesh Color Coup that space constraints won’t allow me to add to this article. Providing further background and context, it begs to be read and opens thusly:

There is a problem, fundamentally, in viewing the regime change in Bangladesh as a ‘stand-alone’ event. The caveat must be added right at the outset that when it comes to processing situations, nothing happens for no reason at all. There is very little awareness in India, especially in the media, about what has been going on. Mostly, it’s ‘cut-and-paste’ job culled out from the jaundiced western accounts from a new Cold War angle.

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