US-led naval exercise
We can recall our history when the US 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 fighters in a war that led to Bangladesh's birth. It was the period when the Indian foreign policy upheld the principles of Non Aligned Movement and followed the path towards self-reliance. But now, the situation has changed.
Ironically, 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 US naval assembly in 36 years. According to Reuters, the fleet anchored under cloudy skies in the middle of the Bay of Bengal had the US aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, which was involved in the war against Iraq in 2003, while an Indian aircraft carrier sailed along with it.
This event clearly signals that by departing from the Nehruvian foreign policy, the present government of India is trying to establish closer military ties with the US and also to put itself in the strategic orbit of the US, which is a long desired agenda US agenda. This new trend of Indian foreign policy has been seriously criticised by the intellectuals, security analysts and the left political parties of India.
After a tense face-off with the UPA government on the Indo-US nuclear deal, the left parties of India are hitting the streets in a nationwide mass campaign against the US-led joint naval exercise involving India, Australia and Singapore. According to a September 2 report of PTI, the four parties kick-started two simultaneous processions on 4 September from Chennai and Kolkata to protest the naval war-games, 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.
While this is the evaluation of Indian security experts and left political parties, what would the Bangladeshi security experts say? Will they welcome the Seventh Fleet? Or oppose this imperial war-game?
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