There is sweet irony in the fact that a leader of civil society has been invited to become the facade of a state in crisis. The Bangladesh state, its armed forces and its ruling elite have had no other option but to request Muhammad Yunus, a respected leader of its civil society, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, to take charge, restore peace and unite a divided nation. There’s a message in that for many a divided and beleaguered nation. When a government loses credibility, it is within civil society that the state must first win back its legitimacy.
In the rushed and racing commentary that has emanated from New Delhi, following the escape from Dhaka of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, ending her increasingly authoritarian rule, many have asked if there was ‘intelligence failure’ on India’s part. Was the Indian government well advised when it chose to invite PM Hasina on a state visit as recently as in June this year, making it the first state visit hosted by the new government.
What was the compelling factor that made the Narendra Modi government extend such an invitation to her, soon after she was in Delhi for the swearing-in ceremony of his government? This is such an obvious question for which no answer is readily available in the public domain. Was Hasina’s state visit based on the considered judgment of the Indian state or a consequence of not judging the situation in Bangladesh correctly? Was this a result of ‘intelligence failure’ or political misjudgement?
While the INDIA parties have chosen to stand with the government in its response to events in Bangladesh, at some point they should demand answers to these questions. Why and how did we paint ourselves into the corner we find ourselves in?
While this is a question for the government to answer, there is an equally important question that the Indian media must answer. There is no point in merely complaining about ‘intelligence failure’ on the part of state agencies without also looking inwards and asking why there was a ‘media reporting failure’. Indeed, a larger ‘intellectual failure’ given that all the international relations scholarship in New Delhi’s think tanks and media was also caught napping.
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No major Indian media organisation, print and electronic, has correspondents stationed anywhere in India’s neighbourhood. The Indian public’s opinion about developments in our neighbourhood is, therefore, shaped largely either by the Indian government or by foreign, mainly western, media. This professional reporting vacuum within media has been filled by retired diplomats and officers of intelligence agencies. When something happens in Pakistan, television channels summon retired diplomats who have served there, or retired officials of intelligence agencies who continue to track developments there. Few have any expertise within.
While there have been reporters based in China from time to time, and some very good ones at that, most media analysis about China also comes from retired diplomats and officials. Nepal and Sri Lanka used to have Indian journalists stationed there but no longer. Even when the odd report is filed it does not get much attention from editors in Delhi.
When American troops dramatically pulled out of Kabul in 2021 there was no Indian reporter on the ground till a handful, including the intrepid correspondent Nayanima Basu, then flew into Kabul. When thousands of young people stormed the President’s Palace in Colombo in 2022 the Indian public had to once again see news despatched by western journalists. When a new political leader in the Maldives demanded the exit of uniformed Indian soldiers from the island, Indian media was once again caught unawares as to what was happening in the archipelago. India has a special interest and focus on the Indian Ocean and its littoral but there isn’t a single Indian journalist stationed on any shore around. No wonder then that in August 2024 the Indian public had to once again turn to western media for news on Bangladesh.
The real issue and challenge for Indian media is not about reporting crisis situations and dramatic developments. The real job is in the day to day reporting of life and aspirations of people next door. If political and other developments are reported on a regular basis they keep both society and government informed. Even if diplomats and spooks fail to keep track of events, the media could.
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Foreign correspondents are the eyes and ears of a country and often write the first draft of history. The world got to know what Vladimir Lenin and his comrades were up to in Russia in 1917 from the despatches of a journalist John Reed and what Mao Zedong was up to in China from yet another journalist, Edgar Snow. Both American journalists.
Most of the analysis today of events in Dhaka in 1971 come from the diaries of retired diplomats and declassified files of western intelligence agencies. Most of the columns and voices appearing this past week on Indian media are also of retired diplomats and spooks.
Many analysts from both media and think tanks based in New Delhi have typed out hundreds of words on recent developments in Bangladesh. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, very few among them had much to say about Sheikh Hasina’s declining popularity, her growing authoritarianism and the developing crisis in Bangladesh at the time of her state visit to New Delhi. An analyst based in Goa and another in Bengaluru had a better appreciation of what was to come than counterparts in Delhi and Kolkata.
Postmortem and hindsight are useful. But if our understanding of developments in our neighbourhood is reduced to just post-facto analysis, and scratching one’s head, of what use is such writing in preparing a nation, its intelligentsia and its government to deal with such situations?
Recents events at the South Asian University and the views expressed by Muhammad Yunus on the need to revive SAARC – the moribund South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation – point to a larger failure on the part of the Indian elite in dealing with our neighbourhood.
India has an officially declared ‘Neighbourhood First Policy’ and yet our understanding of our neighbourhood would suggest that media and researchers at think tanks have a ‘Neighbourhood Last’ policy. Why blame only ‘intelligence failure’? There has been an ‘intellectual failure’.
Sanjaya Baru is an economist, a former newspaper editor, a best-selling author, and former adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
