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By:

Vappala Balachandran

19 September 2024 at 11:21:31 am

Where the Krushna Flows

Mohan Deshmukh’s book From the Banks of Krushna River, originally published in Marathi as Krushnakathavarun, reminds me of my stay in Sangli district (1965-1969), which was one of the most memorable periods in my long government service. His book is a delightful account of Sangli’s rich cultural and artistic heritage. It also tells the story of how a village boy from the district - the son of an honest and upright junior police officer - rose to become a leading builder and later president...

Where the Krushna Flows

Mohan Deshmukh’s book From the Banks of Krushna River, originally published in Marathi as Krushnakathavarun, reminds me of my stay in Sangli district (1965-1969), which was one of the most memorable periods in my long government service. His book is a delightful account of Sangli’s rich cultural and artistic heritage. It also tells the story of how a village boy from the district - the son of an honest and upright junior police officer - rose to become a leading builder and later president of the Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry (MCHI), where he sought to bring order to Maharashtra’s often chaotic real-estate sector. More remarkably, it recounts how he walked away from a flourishing business in 2013 in search of inner peace through Vipassana. Although I joined the Maharashtra cadre in 1960, my earlier postings gave me little opportunity to immerse myself in Marathi culture and literature. It was only in Sangli that I came to appreciate, in any depth, the district’s rich traditions of poetry and theatre. In that sense, I was fortunate. Soon after I assumed charge as Superintendent of Police, Sangli, the government acquired a tract of land that had once belonged to the legendary Marathi playwright Govind Ballal Deval (1855–1916). It was chosen as the site for a new police headquarters, complete with a vast parade ground and 300 constabulary quarters, the construction of which became one of my principal responsibilities. Deval wrote at least seven Marathi plays, among them the celebrated Samshay Kallol, broadly inspired by Molière's Sganarelle, or The Imaginary Cuckold. By a happy coincidence, I had watched Samshay Kallol during my district training in Solapur in 1960, long before fate brought me to the land once owned by its author. By 1969 I was able to construct a well-equipped police recreation auditorium and get government approval to name it after the late Deval. The naming ceremony was done by the well-known Marathi writer, the late Padma Bhushan Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar, who later won the Jnanpith award in 1974 for his novel ‘Yayati.’ Sangli was aptly known as Natya Pandhari (“the pilgrimage of Marathi theatre.”) It was here that Vishnudas Bhave, the pioneer of the Marathi stage, premiered Sita Swayamvar, the first Marathi play, in 1843. In my time, nearly every major new Marathi play opened in Sangli. Equally memorable was hearing artistes such as Hirabai Barodkar of nearby Miraj and the poet-lyricist G.D. Madgulkar (Ga Di Mā) of Atpadi, whose Geet Ramayan, beautifully rendered by Sudhir Phadke, became a cherished Sunday ritual on All India Radio. Mohan Deshmukh’s mention of Krushna river, the lifeline of Sangli, its basin and confluence with Warana river also reminds me of my experience of the discordance in Sangli district’s political life. He quotes Ga Di Mā’s wistful poem which had narrated Krushna’s beauty together with its hidden contradictions and sorrows: “Sant vahate Krishnamai, tiravarlya sukhadukhanchi, janiv tijhala nahi” (author’s translation: “Calmly flows Mother Krushna, untouched by the joys and sorrows on her shores”). That was my experience too. Sangli introduced me to some of Maharashtra's political giants—Yashwantrao Chavan, Vasant (Dada) Patil and Rajaram Bapu Patil. Despite my being an outsider, they treated a young police officer with warmth and trust. The pleasantries, however, were brief. Soon after taking charge in 1965, I found myself confronting a violent anti-famine agitation led by the Shetkari Kamgari Paksh in Tasgaon. For days, protesters clashed with the police as they tried to march on the taluka office. During one confrontation, a young demonstrator struck me on the head with a lathi, blaming me for the violence. It was an early glimpse of the defiant spirit that the author captures so well. Sangli, he writes, has long been a land of self-respect and resistance, from its defiance of Mughal rule to the freedom struggle, when "Krantisingh" Nana Patil established the Prati Sarkar, alongside revolutionaries such as Kisan Veer and G.D. Bapu Lad. The book traces the author’s childhood in Tasgaon, Budhgaon and neighbouring villages, his struggle for education, and the timely support he received from the Police Welfare Fund. Running through it is his father’s simple creed: remain honest, however poor, and rise only by lawful means. (The writer is a former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat and member of the two-man high level committee appointed by Govt.of Maharashtra to enquire into the systemic errors during 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. His latest book, ‘India and China at Odds in Asian Century,’ was published by Hurst London and by Pentagon Press, New Delhi)

A Shadow on India’s Eastern frontier

The BNP’s win in Bangladesh masks the deeper peril of radical Islamist consolidation along India’s border.

At first glance, the much-awaited Bangladesh elections appeared to have delivered clarity as the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) swept to power with a commanding majority, decisively outpacing the radical Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami. For many, this appeared reassuring as a mainstream nationalist force had prevailed over a hardline religious party. Yet, the results saw a more troubling development whose implications stretch beyond Bangladesh’s borders and directly into India’s strategic heartland.


Across the western and north-western belt of Bangladesh, in districts that stare directly into India, the Jamaat has managed to establish a continuous electoral footprint by winning in areas that brush the country’s eastern frontier. From Satkhira and Khulna facing South and North 24 Parganas, through Kushtia and Rajshahi abutting Nadia and Murshidabad, up to Rangpur and Gaibandha overlooking Assam and the Siliguri corridor, Islamist mobilisation has acquired democratic legitimacy.


Large swathes of West Bengal including districts like Malda, Murshidabad, Nadia, North 24 Parganas, Alipurduar share deep social, linguistic and familial ties with precisely those Bangladeshi districts where Jamaat has gained in the recent polls.


Inseparable Relationship

Five years ago, during West Bengal’s 2021 assembly elections, the BJP itself registered unexpected gains across many of these same border constituencies. The border belt, in other words, has been politically combustible on both sides. Jamaat’s rise bow adds an ideological accelerant.


Jamaat’s relationship with Bangladesh is inseparable from the country’s violent birth. In 1971 the party opposed independence and aligned with Pakistan’s military rulers. Its cadres were accused of collaborating in atrocities against intellectuals, minorities and pro-liberation activists. This is a foundational legacy. When Bangladesh remembers the genocide, Pakistan and Jamaat are recalled together, as perpetrators of crimes against humanity. No subsequent rebranding has erased that association.


That history also binds Jamaat ideologically to Pakistan in ways that should unsettle India. The party’s worldview which is hostile to secular nationalism, deeply inimical to India, and animated by transnational Islamist solidarity, has long placed it at odds with Indian security interests. Its earlier participation in government coalitions coincided with periods when anti-India militant groups found sanctuary in Bangladesh, and when cross-border networks flourished with minimal restraint.


Jamaat’s present resurgence follows a familiar arc. After being marginalised for years (its registration was cancelled in 2013 and its leaders prosecuted through war-crimes tribunals), it rebuilt itself patiently. The lifting of its ban by an interim government in August 2024 gave it formal breathing space. Over the following year, it consolidated organisational control in rural strongholds, expanded welfare networks and mobilised student wings.


Living Force

By the time of the recently concluded election, it was no longer a relic of Bangladesh’s past but a living force embedded across the country’s western rim.


This revival carries echoes of a much older transnational story. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 globalised Islamist politics in South Asia. Pakistan became the nerve centre of the anti-Soviet jihad, supported by Saudi money and Western strategic indulgence. Islamist organisations including the Jamaat included had built durable networks spanning charities, mosques, student groups and diaspora communities. Those ecosystems did not dissolve with the Cold War’s end. They have adapted, professionalised and dispersed, reaching as far as London and the Gulf.


Legal clashes in diaspora countries, scrutiny of charities and contested narratives of justice reveal an unresolved tension between Bangladesh’s historical reckoning and global legal norms.


The Jamaat is not a purely domestic actor. Its ideological and organisational networks cross borders with ease.


What sharpens India’s anxiety is the political context at home. West Bengal’s Trinamool Congress government under Mamata Banerjee has long been indulging in minority appeasement and avoiding hard questions of border management, illegal migration and voter integrity.


Unlike Assam or Tripura, Bengal’s political leadership has shown little appetite for muscular border enforcement or for confronting illegal migration head-on. A radicalised hinterland across the border would only serve to exacerbate these tensions.


Jamaat’s gains in the border areas naturally acquires additional significance with elections approaching in Assam and West Bengal. Jamaat’s advances in constituencies facing Malda, Murshidabad, North 24 Parganas and Cooch Behar, give organised Islamist forces a deeper social base precisely where India’s border management is weakest.


Heightened Anxieties

Its presence near the Indian border raises the risk of renewed logistical support for extremist groups, ideological radicalisation in border madrassas and the reactivation of old smuggling routes used for arms, fake currency and trafficking people.


In these border districts of West Bengal where economic stagnation, youth unemployment and identity politics already fester, Jamaat’s success will only embolden local hardliners. Radicalisation today is less about formal training camps than about narratives of grievance and victimhood that travel fast in an age of cheap smartphones and encrypted messaging.


New Delhi’s predicament is further compounded by domestic political constraints. Any attempt by the central government to tighten border controls or push for stricter citizenship enforcement in West Bengal risks being portrayed as communal targeting. The Mamata Banerjee government, with its predilection to appease its minority vote bank, has never cooperated with the Centre in the best of times. This Centre–State discord is a glaring structural weakness which lethal actors like Jamaat are poised to exploit.


The other question is just how the BNP will reset Bangladesh’s ties with India? The BNP’s previous stints in power were marked by ambivalence towards Indian security concerns. In the early 2000s, militant outfits hostile to India found sanctuary in Bangladesh; arms consignments meant for insurgents in India’s northeast moved with alarming ease. It took sustained diplomatic pressure and a decisive change of government in Dhaka to reverse that permissiveness


The BNP possibly understands the economic and strategic value of stable relations with its largest neighbour. Yet, street realities may limit its room for manoeuvre. Jamaat does not need cabinet seats to exert influence. Its strength lies in disciplined organisation, ideological clarity and the ability to mobilise pressure from below.


There is also a broader geopolitical dimension. India’s eastern strategy rests on three pillars: stabilising the northeast, integrating it economically with Southeast Asia, and countering China’s influence in the Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh is central to all three. A Dhaka less inclined to align with Indian interests and more susceptible to Islamist pressure complicates each objective. China, ever alert to opportunities, would find it easier to present itself as an alternative partner unconcerned with domestic ideological currents.


Jamaat’s return to electoral centrality thus marks a new and potentially volatile chapter for the entire region. From Satkhira to Rangpur, Islamist mobilisation has gained legitimacy precisely where India’s borders are most porous and politics most fragile.


For New Delhi, the lesson is stark. Border management, intelligence coordination and political clarity in eastern India are no longer administrative matters or partisan disputes. The frontier is stirring again. Ignoring the shadow now would mean confronting something far darker later.

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