Khaleda Zia is performing a difficult balancing act. On the one hand, there is an outpouring of public sentiment against the JeI, which stands discredited because of its role in supporting the Pakistan army in the commission of war crimes in 1971. From March to December 1971, when a genocidal Pakistan army killed three million Bangladeshi fighters, activists, students and academics and raped 200,000 women (Bangladeshi figures), the so-called Razakars of the JeI - who identified more with the Pakistani wing of the Jamaat than with their own Bengali identity - played a major role in supporting the brutal crackdown. Few in Bangladesh buy the JeI story that it committed no atrocities.
And so lakhs of Bangladeshis have converged on Dhaka's Shahbagh Circle, or Projonmo Chottor, to demand retribution. Their immediate demand is that the guilty of 1971 must be punished suitably and many want the death sentence. The protesters also want that the JeI be banned, along with its student wing, the Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS). These crowds are driven by a surging nationalism that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has unleashed and tapped into, and which Ms Zia finds herself on the wrong side of.
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Ms Zia has been painted into her corner by ideology and by electoral arithmetic. Her late husband, General Zia-ur-Rahman, who seized power in a military coup and was president of Bangladesh from 1977 till his assassination in 1981, introduced an Islamic character into the constitution of the country. The BNP, which Ms Zia has led since his death, is the inheritor of that conservatism. Besides this link, the BNP's relationship with the JeI is also driven by the latter's political clout. With about 8-9 per cent of the popular vote in Bangladesh, the JeI remains the most influential of the Islamist parties, particularly in the Chittagong region.
Most BNP supporters see that their position is at odds with the popular consensus in favour of war crimes trials. They also understand that they have been comprehensively outmanoeuvred by Ms Hasina, who has made a daringly successful play for the political soul of Bangladesh, which she realises rests on the foundations of Bengali ethnicity and Bangladeshi nationalism at least as much as it does on Islam.
Embracing that tide of ethnic nationalism, Ms Hasina last year enacted the Constitution (15th Amendment) Bill, which makes provision for secularism and freedom of religion. The 15th Amendment is a move back towards the original constitution of 1972, while compromising on some of the Islamisation that Zia-ur-Rahman inserted via the Fifth Amendment. Islam has been retained as the state religion and "Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim" remains in the preamble; even as Sheikh Mujibur Rahman has been given prominent mention in the constitution.
Ms Zia and the BNP know that time is running out, with Bangladesh due for general elections at the end of this year or early next year. Ms Hasina's Awami League is on a strong wicket, riding the popular nationalistic mood and presiding over an economy that is growing at six per cent. The 15th Amendment also eliminates any BNP hopes of winning through the help of a friendly "caretaker government", since the amendment abolishes the practice of caretaker governments, which had been in vogue since 1996. Ms Hasina insists that Bangladesh's Election Commission is competent to ensure an impartial vote.
All this is good news for New Delhi since Ms Hasina has initiated a serious attempt to mend fences, cracking down on insurgent sanctuaries, signing a border settlement, and opening up trade and transport links with India. But the weak link in the bilateral relationship remains New Delhi's historically poor relations with Ms Zia and the BNP. South Block has made efforts to befriend the BNP chief and to dispel the impression of leaning towards the Awami League in Bangladesh. Ms Zia made a successful visit to New Delhi last October, which she termed a "new beginning".
With developments in Bangladesh largely going India's way, it would be counterproductive to make an issue of Ms Zia's discourtesy to President Pranab Mukherjee. It will be difficult for the BNP to reverse Sheikh Hasina's bold new initiatives, since a nationalistic new generation in Bangladesh is clearly throwing out the old baggage of negativism towards India. Bangladesh's business community, which is keen to expand economic links, has been buoyed by India's decision in December to open trade by pruning down the negative list to just 25 items. New Delhi must move quickly to enact the constitutional amendment that will be necessary to operationalise the historic border settlement that Ms Hasina and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have signed. And with Trinamool Congress leader Mukul Roy having been permitted by his party to travel to Dhaka with the president, perhaps West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee might even agree to sign the settlement on the Teesta River waters that Dhaka so badly wants.