Peace Works Better When It's Enforced by Fear

History's dirtiest truth is also its most reliable one: order is rarely restored by morality but by fear disciplined by strategy.

- Ravi Shankar

Nations that survive turbulent neighbourhoods do not do so by being liked. They do so by being believed capable of crossing lines they would rather not cross. In 1971, Indira Gandhi and Sam Manekshaw gave Bengalis a nation for themselves a democracy creating another democracy. Months ago, RAW was taken aback by the speed at which the US-funded Bangladesh student movement-if the leaked documents published by The Grayzone are to be believed-was supported by American agencies working to "destabilise Bangladesh's politics," a direct quote. The US will never learn; the CIA trained the mujahideen in the 1980s in Afghanistan which ultimately led to 9/11. Bangladesh, where the CIA had previously attempted and failed to engineer a regime change and install Khaleda Zia as PM, weaponised incendiary music to inflame youth through anti-government songs, exploiting ethnic and cultural schisms. The result: carnage of Hindus by armed Muslims that no amount of diplomatic euphemisms can sanitise. There are lynchings, targeted attacks, intimidation that empties Hindu neighbourhoods without ever announcing ethnic cleansing as policy.

Hindus lock doors earlier, speak softer, leave quietly. The comic irony is that the documents, submitted to the State Department for clearance, show it cost only $1,35,000 to depose an elected government.