Can a situation like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka unfold in India?

India is surrounded by a volatile neighbourhood.

The opposition parties, mostly non-BJP parties, have been salivating over the prospect of a Bangladesh-type situation happening in India.

Recently there has been a coup against the incumbent government followed by large-scale looting and killing of Hindus and Shekh Hasina supporters.

Videos and images of Hindu houses being plundered and being set on fire and images of corpses hanging down bridges went viral on Twitter/X.

In a grisly video that cannot be shared with this post, a crowd, after having lynched and murdered a man, is checking his penis to prove that by mistake they haven’t killed a Muslim. Youngsters in the crowd are filming and giggling.

In another bloodcurdling video, hijab-wearing Muslim girls are tying up Hindu girls, abusing them, hitting them and screaming at them while the hapless Hindu girls are shivering and crying in terror.

People supporting the coup, including the Bangladeshi Nobel laurate Muhammad Yunus calls the coup a “beautiful moment in history”.

Whether the coup is a genocide or a beautiful moment in history depends on through which lens you see it, but many “civil activists” in India have been daydreaming of such a moment in India too, where they think that major political decisions will be made in the streets and on the roads, and not inside the Parliament.

Expectations were expressed after the government collapsed in Sri Lanka. Then, after the recent fall of the government in Bangladesh, people are again talking about something of the similar sort happening in India.

Can such a “coup” happen in India?

The opposition has been accusing the BJP-led NDA government of fraudulently winning the elections through tampered EVMs (electronic voting machines) even though in the recent 2024 general elections, the BJP-led government failed to get a full majority.

In fact, the BJP supporters have been saying that the party has been at the receiving end of election fraud in which hundreds of thousands of voters were removed from the voting list — all those votes would have gone to the BJP.

40+ petitions so far have been filed in the Supreme Court against the EVMs and the Supreme Court of India. Each time the court has said that there is nothing wrong with the EVMs and they cannot be tampered. But the opposition and the “activists” have been pursuing a relentless campaign trying to convince the public that the BJP does not have the mandate, and it is winning only because it is committing election fraud through tampered EVMs.

The same logic has been used in the recent Bangladeshi coup. People like Muhammad Yunus were able to convince the public that Sheikh Hasina has been winning the elections consecutively through fraud.

Goebbels said that “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

The Congress-led I.N.D.I alliance has been trying to achieve the same thing in India — repeat the lie of the BJP winning the elections by fraud so many times and using so many platforms that many people have come to believe that it is true.

Do the opposition parties believe in anarchy and overthrowing governments through street power?

Their history tells us that they are not as responsible as political parties should be. They can throw the country into the throes of anarchy just to gain political advantage. We have seen it during the CAA protests and during the farmer protests. They don’t shy away from fomenting religious and caste-based hatred for political advantage. For them, grabbing power is more important than the welfare of the country.

So yes, if they can grab power through anarchy, it is not beyond them.

The same is true for the so-called activists. The charlatan activist Arundhati Roy famously called the murderous Naxalites and Maoists “Gandhians with guns”. They want to overthrow the democratically elected government through street power, through instigating people.

So, in that sense, people who scream that the Constitution is in danger, are the biggest danger to the Constitution. Constitution for them is just a convenient tool and they will throw the book in the drain the moment they think that it is becoming an obstacle on their way to grabbing power at the Centre.

Coming back to the question: can the coups that happened in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh also happen in India?

After all, India is surrounded by unstable countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and to an extent, even Nepal. One big stable country, China, isn’t exactly on friendly terms with India.

If China and USA want, with the help of these unstable neighbouring countries, can they trigger a coup in India?

I would say, we shouldn’t underestimate.

It will be churlish to just dismiss the threat saying that India is too big a country for a successful coup to happen or our forces are not as radicalised as the forces in these unstable countries, and so on.

Yes, India is a big country. It is a federal structure. The opposition cannot even organize a united political campaign against the BJP, forget about organising a coup.

India is too divided. People are culturally, linguistically, religiously, and regionally divided. There are many South Indian states that don’t see eye-to-eye. Although hostility among northern states is not as deep as in the southern states, there is a remote chance that they may come together to overthrow a government at the Centre.

What about the army?

The Indian Army, Air Force and Navy are disciplined organizations. Not just anyone can join them. They go through extensive physical and psychological training before people can join these forces.

There may be many corrupt officials at different levels (it happens in every organization) but all in all, nobody can accuse our forces of roguish behavior.

Therefore, a full-fledged coup is a remote possibility although, the country can be plunged into uncontrollable chaos that may cause an established government to fall.

State governments have been dismissed by the central government, but so far, without elections, no central government in India has been dislodged by force simply because the crowds took control of the Parliament.

They have tried to cause large-scale civilian violence, but the BJP-led NDA government very shrewdly handled the situation. I remember when the government didn’t take a tough stand during farmers protests many of us felt very bad and even called Narendra Modi and Amit Shah names.

But after the violence in Bangladesh, everything has suddenly become crystal clear. Just imagine what would have been unleashed upon the country if the government had resorted to violence during farmer protests. There would have been large-scale casualties. There would have been a deluge of visuals of injured elderly farmers including men and women, getting them lots of undeserved sympathy. The opposition parties would have been able to convince the public that we have a draconian government at the Centre.

Instead, the government let the protesting farmers and CAA protesters have their run and let the issue fester and begin to smell. They laid siege to different roads and public areas. They sat there for months. They vandalised historic places. 300 police persons were injured on the Republic Day. They hoisted the Khalistani flag on Red Fort. They constantly tried to instigate the government so that the opposition parties and foreign agencies could get the needed masala against the BJP government, which, the government, very shrewdly, didn’t give them.

What happened? Instead of getting sympathy from the public, these perpetually protesting farmers and activists became a nuisance in the public eye. The government became the underdog. The government became the benevolent elderly who allowed the kids to cause mischief.

That’s why this time when the farmers from Punjab again tried to lay siege to the capital, the public itself stopped them midway. The police didn’t have to do much. The villagers in Haryana chased the roguish farmers from Punjab back into their own state. Now these “farmers” have become so desperate that they try to launch agitations even for those issues that have got nothing to do with farming or farmer issues. The public finds them annoying. Instead of becoming a threat, they have become a nuisance.

Therefore, attempts have been made to cause large-scale anarchy in the country. Whether it may have led to a political coup, cannot be said.

Also, foolishly, the opposition parties have been antagonising the Armed Forces by constantly casting aspersions. They question the martyrs. On many occasions they paint the Army a villain. They issue statements in support of terrorists, extremists, and criminals. When moist slaughtered 70+ paramilitary personnel, these activists celebrated and people saw that.

They’re banking on Muslims. They may have some data that common public does not have. Maybe the Muslim population has crossed the dreaded threshold and the general public is impervious.

Sure, due to ideology and the philosophy of global brotherhood, this particular demography can be used to trigger a violent movement that may be difficult for the government to handle without a bloodbath but in such a situation, since the Armed Forces are on the side of the elected government, the government will have enough power to curb such a coup.

Can such an attempt be made in India? Yes it can be. It’s too tempting not to attempt, especially when they see that democratically they’re not going to assume power.

But they’re not going to succeed because of the size and the diversity of the country. 80% of the population is still not radicalised, and is non-Muslim. Our armed forces are professional. They’re not radicalised. They wouldn’t want their families and loved ones to live in a volatile country.

The best defence India has against a coup is its laid-back population. We are not destructively proactive enough.