New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India will be unpopular with the new Bangladeshi government and a new generation of students will be kingmakers, barrister Aneek Haque tells Karan Thapar from Dhaka in an interview for The Wire.

In an interview recorded literally as news was breaking that Sheikh Hasina had resigned, her that government had fallen and that she had fled the country, Haque, one of Bangladesh’s recognised voices, has said that Modi and India will be unpopular with the new Bangladeshi government. He said the students who had risen like a powerful peoples' movement against the Hasina regime view her as India’s puppet.

They have grave and deep reservations about the close affinity between the Modi government and Hasina, as well as about the Modi government’s treatment of its own 200 million Muslim citizens.

As jubilation and celebration broke out spontaneously on the streets of Dhaka and other cities of Bangladesh, Haque said he believes a two-stage process is likely in terms of government formation.

First, there will be an interim government and he does not believe the student movement will seek to be a part of it. However, shortly thereafter, there will be full, free democratic elections and he does believe that the students who led this revolt will play a prominent part in that election as well as the new regime that comes to power thereafter.

As he put it, they may not be kings, but they will be the kingmakers.

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