"Bankgate" Picked Up by Daily Statesman of Kolkata
In what might not be an altogether unpleasant twist for the regime, the "Bankgate" story has been picked up by the Daily Statesman of Kolkata. The picture below was sent to me by an Indian Bangali friend residing in the U.S. whose father has a subscription to the print edition, and confirms it. 
"Open American support goes a long way toward discrediting any Arab" - thus spake the Middle East expert, Professor Marc Lynch. One can paraphrase it thus: "Any Indian support goes a long way toward discrediting any Bangladeshi". Yet, the same reasons Arab democrats tend to look outwards - and not necessarily towards America - are now at work in Bangladesh: censorship, viewing all criticism as dissent and all dissent as "anti-state conspiracies". There is no nuance when it comes to government views of its critics, and probably never has been since 1971.
Thus, I predict that this will be a not altogether unpleasant outcome for the regime, given that it can now call all its critics "Indian agents" and point to this article as "proof". Although in the long run, how ensuring transparency in OUR government's processes and functions will help Indians is something I leave the more conspiracy-minded of my readers to imagine.
The other aspect of this is that it will now force the local media to respond to it. I doubt whether PA/DS will touch this with a ten-foot pole. New Age and Naya Diganta will no doubt jump up and down with anti-Indian rhetoric for the next few days, despite the fact that it was their complicit silence that allowed this to happen in the first place. But most of all, I await the Amader Shomoy response with great anticipation and will highlight it on this blog if/when it comes by.
Let the media wars begin and the truth be known!
5 comments:
you are very much right Asif. Let's see what our NIK (Naimul sialam Khan) says.
Tnx for taking the story.
Hope, our main stream media will be awoken soon.
The "phuler moto pobitro" general could not have done this, and was surely framed by RAW. The post in Statesman is convincing proof of that.
Too bad - that this guy's position is now a little shaken outside the supressed media groups of Bangladesh.
I am glad that the Indian press have put some light on this matter - I hope more media would pick this up and at the end of the day, the people of Our country would get a little better hold on things.
Thanks for the image - a little hard to view though, but confirms that it did took place :).
I actually prefer Amader Shomoy to Daily Star. If I was a newspaper editor, and I didn't really support the military government, but was coerced into a submissive publication policy, I think I'd act just like Mr. Naimul Islam Khan. Support the military government, but do it dumbly and crassly enough so that everyone knows what's really going on, and use your access to print scoops and interviews where people can read between the lines to find out about what's really going on.
Much more insidious and poisonous is the role of the Daily Star. Them I condemn.
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