NEW DELHI: (Oct 27) Muhammad Yunus, the interim head of the Bangladesh government, has caused a new controversy by reportedly giving a Pakistani general a map that wrongly shows Assam and other northeastern Indian states as part of Bangladesh. On Sunday, Yunus posted photos of his meeting with the general on X (formerly Twitter). One image showed Yunus presenting a book titled ‘Art of Triumph,’ the cover of which displayed a “distorted map” of Bangladesh that included India’s seven northeastern states.
This is not the first instance of Yunus gifting the book with the same cover to other high-profile figures. Notably, this map aligns with calls from radical Islamist groups for a “Greater Bangladesh” that includes India’s northeastern territories.
Netizens Criticize Yunus Social media users heavily criticized Yunus for using the distorted map to insult India. The interim chief had previously stirred controversy during a visit to China in April when he claimed that Bangladesh was the “only guardian of the ocean” for the region because India’s northeast was “landlocked.”
He told Chinese diplomats, “The seven states of India, the eastern part of India, are a landlocked country. They have no way to reach out to the ocean. We are the only guardians of the ocean for all this region. So this opens up a huge possibility. So this could be an extension of the Chinese economy.”
Responding to this, India’s External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar countered, “We, after all, have the longest coastline in the Bay of Bengal, of almost 6,500 km. India shares borders not only with the five BIMSTEC members, and connects most of them, but also provides much of the interface between the Indian sub-continent and ASEAN. Our North-Eastern region in particular is emerging as a connectivity hub for the BIMSTEC, with a myriad network of roads, railways, waterways, grids, and pipelines.”
He added, “We are conscious that our cooperation and facilitation are an essential prerequisite for the smooth flow of goods, services, and people in this larger geography. Keeping this geo-strategic factor in mind, we have devoted increasing energies and attention to the strengthening of BIMSTEC in the last decade. We also believe that cooperation is an integrated outlook, not one subject to cherry-picking.”
With input from TV9
For more details: Navamalayalam.com
