Dear Brothers in Pakistan,
We must urgently hold our horses and take a cold, pragmatic look at the ground realities before we delude the people of both our nations with impractical hopes of deep strategic or military collaboration.
The idea that the government of Bangladesh will successfully procure JF-17 Thunder fighters from Pakistan, or fundamentally shift its geopolitical axis away from New Delhi, is nothing more than a castle in the sky. Even if such a deal begins to materialize, the stark reality is that it will likely be canceled long before a single squadron can ever be filled.
To understand why, we must be realistic about the structural definition of Bangladesh today. For over a decade, this country has been meticulously engineered as a de-facto satellite state, heavily bound by an institutional obsession with a manufactured political narrative. The overwhelming institutionalized Indian influence here, has successfully portrayed this country as a land deeply entrenched in this mindset of "Chetona". Hence, now it won't be an exaggeration to address this land as "Chetonastaan."
This "Chetona-obsessed" capture of the state machinery runs incredibly deep. The administration, the political class, the press, the television media, the bureaucracy, the intelligence apparatus, and the broader military leadership remain deeply compromised and hyper-sensitive to regional pressure.
Nowhere is this institutional betrayal more evident than in the very recent conduct of the present Chief of Bangladesh Army, General Waker-uz-Zaman. Despite the rhetoric of the bloody July 2024 revolution, the upper echelons of military leadership remain fiercely tied to the old pro-Awami League, pro-Indian status quo. Consider the shameful episode surrounding the Lalmonirhat Airbase. That proposed airbase would be a strategic asset located near the vulnerable Siliguri Corridor ("Chicken's Neck").
When Post-Revolution interim government's efforts began to revive and develop the Lalmonirhat base for modernized aviation capabilities, New Delhi panicked. In a desperate move to reassure his foreign handlers, the Army Chief personally flew to the airbase, bringing Indian military intelligence personnel along in his helicopter. The mission was simple: to explicitly assure New Delhi that no development was being carried out that could pose any sort of concern to India. Consequently, the proposed development of that critical northern airbase has been effectively halted or indefinitely postponed.
When the highest military commander acts as a guarantor for foreign security interests at the expense of his own nation's defense modernization, it exposes the complete absence of sovereign command. A high-profile visit by the Pakistani Prime Minister or a Field Marshal to Dhaka under these conditions would be treated as an audacious threat, and the institutional inertia inside "Chetonastaan" will never allow it to bear fruit unless this problem is addressed with sincere efforts from the two governments.
Let us not feed our people empty illusions. True geopolitical autonomy requires a level of institutional independence that Bangladesh does not currently possess. As long as the state apparatus chooses "status slavery" over sovereignty, expecting effective, high-level defense collaboration between our two countries is simply too good to be true.
May Allah help us all, Ameen.
We must urgently hold our horses and take a cold, pragmatic look at the ground realities before we delude the people of both our nations with impractical hopes of deep strategic or military collaboration.
The idea that the government of Bangladesh will successfully procure JF-17 Thunder fighters from Pakistan, or fundamentally shift its geopolitical axis away from New Delhi, is nothing more than a castle in the sky. Even if such a deal begins to materialize, the stark reality is that it will likely be canceled long before a single squadron can ever be filled.
To understand why, we must be realistic about the structural definition of Bangladesh today. For over a decade, this country has been meticulously engineered as a de-facto satellite state, heavily bound by an institutional obsession with a manufactured political narrative. The overwhelming institutionalized Indian influence here, has successfully portrayed this country as a land deeply entrenched in this mindset of "Chetona". Hence, now it won't be an exaggeration to address this land as "Chetonastaan."
This "Chetona-obsessed" capture of the state machinery runs incredibly deep. The administration, the political class, the press, the television media, the bureaucracy, the intelligence apparatus, and the broader military leadership remain deeply compromised and hyper-sensitive to regional pressure.
Nowhere is this institutional betrayal more evident than in the very recent conduct of the present Chief of Bangladesh Army, General Waker-uz-Zaman. Despite the rhetoric of the bloody July 2024 revolution, the upper echelons of military leadership remain fiercely tied to the old pro-Awami League, pro-Indian status quo. Consider the shameful episode surrounding the Lalmonirhat Airbase. That proposed airbase would be a strategic asset located near the vulnerable Siliguri Corridor ("Chicken's Neck").
When Post-Revolution interim government's efforts began to revive and develop the Lalmonirhat base for modernized aviation capabilities, New Delhi panicked. In a desperate move to reassure his foreign handlers, the Army Chief personally flew to the airbase, bringing Indian military intelligence personnel along in his helicopter. The mission was simple: to explicitly assure New Delhi that no development was being carried out that could pose any sort of concern to India. Consequently, the proposed development of that critical northern airbase has been effectively halted or indefinitely postponed.
When the highest military commander acts as a guarantor for foreign security interests at the expense of his own nation's defense modernization, it exposes the complete absence of sovereign command. A high-profile visit by the Pakistani Prime Minister or a Field Marshal to Dhaka under these conditions would be treated as an audacious threat, and the institutional inertia inside "Chetonastaan" will never allow it to bear fruit unless this problem is addressed with sincere efforts from the two governments.
Let us not feed our people empty illusions. True geopolitical autonomy requires a level of institutional independence that Bangladesh does not currently possess. As long as the state apparatus chooses "status slavery" over sovereignty, expecting effective, high-level defense collaboration between our two countries is simply too good to be true.
May Allah help us all, Ameen.
