BANGLA WILL PAY A HEAVY PRICE FOR ANIMOSITY TO INDIA

Terrorism is a low-cost enterprise, but has the potential to inflict disproportionate harm to the civilian population of the target country, and that is what India should be worried about.

- JOYETA BASU

If infantilism had a face, it would be that of Bangladesh. At one level, it is amusing to see the tirade coming from across the border. Day in and day out Indians are being threatened that Kolkata would be taken over in four days by Bangladeshi forces; that the Northeast will be separated from the rest of India; India’s economy will be destroyed by purchasing goods from other countries—all of which amounts to daydreaming. But what is not amusing is that this jingoism is being mainstreamed and the minorities, particularly Hindus, are paying a high price for this. The attack on Bangladeshi minorities has to be seen in the context of a country which has low self-esteem and is suffering from an acute inferiority complex, and is thus boosting its ego by hurting the softest of targets, the people who follow a different religion. But this is also symptomatic of the radicalization of a section of Bangladeshi society. Gone are the days when the students of Dhaka University would sit in protest against radical Islamists who were attacking atheists, chopping off their hands. It is the same Dhaka University that has been captured by the radical Jamaat’s students’ wing. In 2024, it is the students who control Bangladesh’s streets, running amok, and resorting to mob rule. The latest demand coming from the streets is that no-beef restaurants should be banned in Bangladesh, which, if implemented means b