Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general Mia Golam Parwar tried rewriting history on Sunday alleging that the killing of the brightest minds in the country during the Liberation War of 1971 was part of a well-planned conspiracy involving the Indian Army and intelligence agencies.
The claim -- made on a day observed as Martyred Intellectuals Day in Bangladesh -- was not a one-off distortion of the past.
If public proclamations of Bangladesh chief adviser Muhammad Yunus, who took charge of the country after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime in August 2024, and his aides are assessed, a clear trend of 'blame India for all the ills' can be spotted.
Sticking to the theme, Parwar blamed India, which supported Bangladesh's war of independence against the aggressor West Pakistan, for one of the darkest chapters in the history of the then East Pakistan.
Between December 10 and 14, 1971, Pakistani forces and their local collaborators, Al-Badr, abducted and killed thousands of frontline teachers, poets, physicians, writers, engineers and lawyers. It was clearly a ploy to cripple the soon-to-be-born nation with a pogrom of professionals.
Since Bangladesh's independence on December 16, 1971, this day – December 14 – has been solemnly observed mourning the deaths and decrying the dastardly acts of Al-Badr and Pakistan.
Times have changed. So has Bangladesh. Ergo, decrying Pakistan is passé. The new rulers of India's eastern neighbour are leaving no stone unturned to woo Islamabad.
The fact that the Yunus regime is more keen on sending an apology message to Pakistan than celebrating the heroics of the Bengali freedom fighters on Independence Day is loud and clear in Dhaka.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner did away with the Victory Day parade last year to please the Pakistani masters. He has taken it to a new high this time, creating an environment of fear in which ordinary people are cagey about flaunting their favourite green and red.
The green symbolises the lush fields, youthfulness and natural beauty (of Bangladesh). The red stands for the rising sun of independence and the blood of the martyrs in the nine-month freedom struggle.
"Earlier, there used to be hawkers on the streets selling the national flag... I couldn't find them today. Both the sellers and potential buyers are scared. There is no celebratory mood. It's fear all around us," said a former journalist, ruing the tectonic shift in Victory Day mood.
Dhaka’s gameplan
Against this backdrop, the Jamaat chief's attempted spin on the December 14 killings -- two days before the ordinary citizens are forced to observe an apology of Victory Day -- was clearly part of a larger "meticulous plan" to demonise India and, in turn, honour Pakistan.
Parwar's perverse narrative claimed that India “organised the killings” of intellectuals because they were opposed to the ideology of India and its local agents.
While even the staunchest Jamaat supporters are cringing in private at this theory, the ecosystem around the former economics professor — acclaimed more for his PR manoeuvres than contributions to the discipline -- is using all possible tools to amplify the anti-India narrative.
From the unrest in the Chittagong Hill Tracts between 1975 and 1996 to the BDR Mutiny of 2008 in which 74 people were killed, all past events are being blamed on India.
The recent assassination attempt on anti-India radical youth leader Sharif Osman Hadi has also been linked to India even amid reports that suggested the involvement of another Islamist party leader in the attack.
Another peeve point for Yunus's regime is Hasina's stay in India after the mass uprising against her government. To drum up the anti-India sentiment to a new high, his ecosystem is planning large protest marches to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka to press for the former Bangladesh PM's extradition.
There does exist a method in the madness as attempts are made to manufacture a consent in favour of giving a befitting reply by "breaking India into pieces".
Brigadier General (retd) Abdullahil Amaan Azmi, son of the late former Jamaat-e-Islami chief and convicted war criminal Gholam Azam, is leading this chorus with his suggestion that Bangladesh will not experience "full peace" unless the Chicken's Neck, the narrow strip of land connecting mainland India to its northeastern states, is severed.
Break India into pieces, is the rhetoric.
Dhaka’s toolkit
The anti-India ecosystem comprises a group of radical retired army officers, a motley group of Islamist youth leaders and interest groups in the Yunus camp who rose to prominence peddling the anti-India narrative.
Though the armed forces, notorious for coups, counter-coups and corruption, have let the country down several times since its independence -- some rogue officers in the forces masterminded the killing of Bangabandhu Mujibur Rahman -- the men in uniform enjoy a special admiration in Bangladesh.
"This reverence is the main reason behind Yunus's gameplan of using retired army officers to spin an anti-India narrative," said an academic who was hounded out of an institution of repute for his pro-India writings.
The choice of the youth leaders -- whom Yunus described as his employers -- to banish India is natural because of their unbridled power, without any accountability, in the post-Hasina regime.
As anti-India rhetoric has been the lone tangible capital of the interest group in the Yunus camp, this lot is leaving no stone unturned to fan feelings against New Delhi.
Two special assistants -- Lieutenant General (retd) Abdul Hafiz and former inspector general of police Khoda Baksh Chowdhury -- in the office of the chief adviser are the links between Yunus and the retired officers.
"The script is from Pakistan and the narrative trickles down using pro-Pakistan elements in the force," a retired officer in the security establishment, now in exile, explained.
Based on conversations with multiple sources in the security establishment, it emerged that the following retired officers are spearheading the spread of the anti-India narrative, both in the force and beyond.
Other than Azmi, the list includes Major General (retd) ALM Fazlur Rahman, the head of the commission probing the BDR Mutiny, Brig General (retd) Mohammad Hasan Nasir, a known Jamaat-e-Islami sympathiser, Lt Col Hasinur Rahman, now a BNP leader, who earned notoriety for his excesses as the commanding officer of the Rapid Action Battalion during the BNP regime, and Col Abdul Haque, who heads the welfare association of retired armed forces officers.
Another important cog in the wheel is Major Syed Ziaul Haque, known for creating smart social media narratives, said a source.
"The special assistants in the office of the chief adviser use these former army officers to spread anti-India narratives. The chosen officers are well connected with the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami, both known for their anti-India politics, and they use the political network to ensure trickling down of their message," explained an insider in the armed forces.
The effort by the men in uniform is complemented by Yunus's trusted aides like law adviser Asif Nazrul, whose still-to-be proven claim of over 26 lakh Indians working in Bangladesh created havoc before Hasina's fall.
Two prominent youth leaders, information and broadcasting adviser Mahfuj Alam and local government and rural development adviser Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuyain, have also been consistent in spewing venom against India. The two young leaders -- eyeing electoral debut -- resigned recently.
Pay-off for Yunus
A strategic affairs expert said that Yunus -- who spoke about the vulnerability of India's northeast due to Chicken's Neck way back in September 2024 -- has consistently used the anti-India card to his advantage during the last 16 months.
"Whenever he felt any threat to his chair, he deployed the ecosystem to fan anti-India sentiment. In the absence of sane voices in the political sphere, his strategy paid off by uniting the non-Awami League political forces as he managed to sell the narrative that India could reinstate Hasina," the expert said from Dhaka.
The latest surge in anti-India rhetoric, many believe, is also timed to rule out any possibility of a surge in support for the Awami League, which in turn is likely to result in appreciation of India's role in the Liberation War.
"Yunus sold his vision of zero poverty, zero unemployment and zero net carbon emissions to the world,” the source said. “In Bangladesh, he successfully managed to convince people that the two main problems were India and its perceived closeness with the Awami League.”
As the ecosystem coerced the media into stoic silence, real-life issues -- rising poverty, economic distress and unemployment, deteriorating law-and-order, growing crimes against women and downgrading of the stature of Bangladeshi passports -- did not come up in the national discourse.
And hardly anyone got the chance to quiz Yunus & Co about the new deal they had promised to offer to Bangladesh.
"A few dissenting individuals like senior journalist Anis Alamgir -- a known anti-India, anti-Awami League voice, who had celebrated Hasina's fall -- were still asking some relevant questions occasionally. But he was arrested on Sunday on terror charges, which will silence a handful of others like him," said a journalist on condition of anonymity.
With the culture of 'no questions can be asked' becoming rooted in Bangladesh, the future looks bleak, he added.
"To deflect people's attention, they are saying absurd things like severing the Chicken's Neck and some of their radical followers, without any knowledge of geography or geopolitics, are cheering. For its narrow gains, the Yunus regime is injecting hatred for India among the young generation," the source said.
According to him, it is time to think whether a country that shares a 4,000-km border with India and depends on Delhi for basic items like rice, sugar and onions can afford such a strategy.
"Our readymade garment sector depends on India for cotton and several other inputs,” he pointed out. “Even the electricity that runs the factories come from plants based in India. Why are we spoiling the relationship?"