<i>US led joint naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal: A gunboat diplomacy</i>
We can recall our history when U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet came to the Bay of Bengal in 1971 to defeat the Liberation War of Bangladesh. It was the time when this fleet tried to intimidate India as it fought Pakistan along with Bangladeshi freedom fighter in a war that led to Bangladesh's birth. It was the period when Indian foreign policy upheld the principles of Non Align Movement and followed the path towards self-reliance. But now, the scenario has been changed.
Ironically, last week, the same Seventh Fleet was back in the same waters, equipped with a second aircraft carrier, a nuclear submarine and scores of fighter jets in the biggest U.S. naval assembly in 36 years. According to Reuters, the fleet anchored under cloudy skies in the middle of the Bay of Bengal was the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, which was involved in the war against Iraq in 2003, while INS Viraat, India's lone aircraft carrier, sailed alongside.
This event clearly signals that by departing from Nehruvian foreign policy, the present government of India is trying to establish a closer military tie with USA and also to put itself in the strategic orbit of USA, which is a long-desired agenda of USA. This new trend of Indian foreign policy has been seriously criticised by the cross section of intellectuals, security analysts and the left political parties of India rather than welcomed by the common people.
After a tense face-off with the UPA government on the Indo-US nuclear deal, the Left parties of India are hitting the streets this week in a nationwide mass campaign against the US led joint naval exercises involving India, Australia and Singapore. According to September 2 report of PTI, the four parties kick-started two simultaneous 'jathas' (processions) on 4th September from Chennai and Kolkata to protest the naval wargames besides organising separate campaigns against the "anti-people" policies of the government. Indian Left parties are of the view that the joint exercises in the Bay of Bengal from September 4-9 was a major step towards India joining a "strategic security cooperation" with the US, Australia and Japan. The 'jathas', led by CPI (M) General Secretary Prakash Karat from Chennai and his CPI counterpart A B Bardhan from Kolkata, had coincided with the joint exercises India had with the navies of the US, Japan, Australia and Singapore which concluded in Visakhapatnam on September eight. Not only the political parties, the high-ranking security experts of India consider this exercise as "a recipe for greater instability in the Asia-Pacific region." According to them it may even instigate a new cold war in this region and also may accelerate the arms race among the neighbouring countries of South Asia in a new level. They even consider this Naval Drill as the first step to establish an Asian NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) aimed to encircle China.
While this is the evaluation of Indian Security experts and left political parties, what would the Bangladeshi security experts say? Will they welcome again the seventh fleet? Will they hail the impending arms race in South Asian Region caused by the recent Indian foreign policy? Or oppose this imperial war game?
Although CPB and some other left political parties of Bangladesh condemned this war game in the Bay of Bengal, but interestingly the major political parties who claim themselves as pioneer of Liberation War 1971 and protector of sovereignty of Bangladesh remained silent over this critical issue. Perhaps they are not so much concerned about the importance of natural resources and geo-political location of Bangladesh or they are very busy with their arrested leaders and cadres! So the national security is not their concern at this moment! But the patriotic and peace loving people of Bangladesh are very much concerned about the intention of this war game in the Bay of Bengal. The voice has been raised by the people of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan as well as the people of this region to build up united resistance against aggressive move by the US.
The author is a Secretary, Bangladesh Peace Council.
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