Political instability in Bangladesh

Speaker 1: Welcome to The World of Intelligence, a podcast for you to discover the latest analysis of global military and security trends within the open source defense intelligence community. Now onto the episode with your host, Harry Kemsley.

Harry Kemsley: Hello and welcome to this edition of World of Intelligence by Janes. Harry Kemsley, your host as usual, and my cohost as usual, Sean Corbett. Hello Sean.

Sean Corbett: Hi Harry.

Harry Kemsley: Good to see you, Sean. Now Sean, we seem to have done recently quite a few topical contemporary episodes of this podcast, and we've circled around key events that are going on the world. And of course the events ongoing in Bangladesh are very much in the news, certainly in the news that I've been seeing. So I thought it would be helpful for us to look at that event. Have you been seeing what's going on in Bangladesh, Sean?

Sean Corbett: Yeah, although... I think we mentioned this before actually, it hasn't really hit the headlines in the UK because there's so many other things going on, and this is an important element of it. Recently we've covered quite a lot of things that aren't right in front and center in the news, but certainly from an international perspective and even the Western perspective actually are really important, and we have to keep monitoring them.

Harry Kemsley: Very good. So to help us with that, I've invited three of our colleagues at Janes based in our Bangalore office in India. Puja. Hello Puja.

Puja Banerjee: Hi, Harry.

Harry Kemsley: Puja, just for the audience, can you give the audience a line or two about what it is that you do in Janes in the Bangalore office, please Puja?

Puja Banerjee: Sure, Harry. So I'm Puja Banerjee. I am leading the geopolitical risk events team in Janes. So what my team essentially does is they cover location specific incidents and indicators that have already occurred, or are stated to occur in the future scenario. And that can threaten or impact the internal security and stability of a country. I have been personally involved in this domain for the last 10 years or so, and yeah, I've been enjoying my time in Janes.

Harry Kemsley: Thank you, Puja, we'll come back to you, I'm sure, in terms of methodologies, but also in terms of looking forward in terms of what might be happening. Next, Sarbhanu. Hello.

Sarbhanu Nath: Hello, Harry. So my name is Sarbhanu Nath. I'm a member of the APAC desk of Jane's Country Intelligence. We look at the PMESII model for countries and create profiles on the countries which cover all the aspects of it. And because of this issue in Bangladesh, I've been studying this for the past two weeks in quite detail.

Harry Kemsley: Very good. And we'll come back to you shortly. I know in terms of giving the audience an understanding of what's happening. And then last, but by no means least Shivani.

Shivani Gayakwad: Hi everyone. So my name is Shivani Gayakwad and I'm the senior analyst for the country intelligence APAC desk. Sarbhanu and I are in the same team, and again, we've been looking at the situation in Bangladesh specifically for the past two weeks. Personally, I've been with APAC desk for two years and my focus area has been South Asia. So closely looking at India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, all of the countries.

Harry Kemsley: Very good. And Shivani, we'll probably come back to you then in terms of some of that wider perspective that might be going on around the Bangladesh situation. So Sean, as you said, not everybody listening to this podcast will have really understood or even know much about what's happening in Bangladesh. So for the team, could you give us first of all an understanding of what's happening? I know that the prime minister stood down in recent days. The parliament has been, let's say, reorganized into an interim state. What's been going on in Bangladesh, why have we got the situation we have?

Shivani Gayakwad: So what we've seen is that as you mentioned, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has resigned and left the country on 5th of August. The next day, President Mohammed Shahabuddin dissolved the parliament and then he announced the process to form an interim government. The army stepped in to cover the operational control of the administration to fill in that vacuum until an interim government was sworn in. So the interim government was sworn in with Muhammad Yunis as the chief advisor on 8th of August. So this is what has happened so far. I will let Sarbhanu talk a little bit about how Sheikh Hasina resigned, what happened before that.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah, please do. Sarbhanu just as you get started, sorry to cut in front of you there. What I'm particularly interested in understanding is what's driven this, the Prime Minister stood down, what is the background? What's actually been the cause of this situation?

Sarbhanu Nath: So the roots of this current crisis can be traced back to a decision by the government to restore a quota system. So they had under a system of quotas where 30% of the civil service jobs for Bangladesh would be reserved for the freedom fighters and their families. So that was the system, but that led to significant protests from the civil society because they argued that it was unfair. And on June 5th, the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh ordered the reinstatement of this quota system and this triggered immediate protest. Now while the protests were peaceful, they eventually started escalating and led to a heavy- handed response from the state. And one critical misstep from Sheikh Hasina's part during this protest movement was when she labeled the protesters... Insinuated that the protesters were Razakars. So the term Razakars here refers to collaborators from the 1971 Liberation War. The Razakars were a group which supported the Pakistani army in carrying out massacres of the civilian population in Bangladesh. So this is something which is deeply insulting in Bangladesh to be labeled as such. And this is one of the pivotal moments of the protest movement and can be classified as a major misstep on Sheikh Hasina's part. So these protests escalated and on 5th of August, the protest movement... We must keep in mind that this protest movement was not political in nature initially. So this was led by student groups who declared that apolitical nature very early on in the protest. And on 5th of August these protesters issued a call to march on the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka. And around hundreds of thousands of people started the march. And on the morning of the march there were actually clashes with the police in which they fired and a number of people died. But the critical event over here was that the army withdrew its support from Sheikh Hasina at that moment, on the day after the march to Dhaka. Most likely because, this is our assessment that the army would consider that the number of casualties that would occur if the army tried to stop the protestors would be at unacceptable levels. And eventually the army withdrew its support to the Prime Minister and issued her an ultimatum to resign, which she had to take. So this is how the events unfolded, ultimately leading to shock resignation of the Prime Minister.

Harry Kemsley: Couple of questions if I can just for clarification, why would the prime minister, the previous prime minister have declared the protesters as having been quote, " collaborators"? Why would she have done that do you think?

Sarbhanu Nath: So here the main thing is that the opposition party, the main opposition party, the Bangladesh National Party and its ally, namely the Jamaat- e- Islami. So the Jamaat- e- Islami is Islamist party and they were known to have been collaborators during the 1971 war. And towards the end of the protest, I mean towards 5th of August, the Jamaat- e- Islami and its student groups, they had also become involved in the protests and were instigating violence all across the country. So that might have played a factor on Sheikh Hasina to declare that these are Razakars, " You are Razakars, and you are violating the right of the freedom fighters to have jobs." And we must also keep in mind that Sheikh Hasina's father, Mujibur Rahman, he was the main freedom fighter, he was the leader of the independence movement in Bangladesh. The Awami League is his party. So Sheikh Hasina claim that history of being on the side of the freedom fighters, she's directly descended from them. And that is why she's trying to do something for the people who helped create the country.

Harry Kemsley: That's very helpful, thank you. Puja, just before I come to you in terms of how are we tracking this using open source, before we come to that, just one further question Sarbhanu if I may. The student body seems to have had a big, big influence on this. Are there student bodies particularly influential in Bangladesh? Is there something about the student body in Bangladesh that makes them so powerful or apparently so powerful?

Sarbhanu Nath: So Bangladesh has a huge youth population. And the political parties like mainly the Awami League and the BNP when it was in power, the universities and to an extent senior schools, these act as major pools for recruitment of political cadres. So it makes sense that the students would have a large role to play in these protests. And this is not the first time that the students have come out in protest. Previously as well, in 2018 when there was another quota movement protest, they had come out in numbers. And then there was an incident where rash and negligent driving on Bangladesh's streets, the capital Dhaka, that led to a few deaths of students. Even then there was a large student movement. So the students have throughout the history of Bangladesh starting from 1971 being quite intimately involved in the national matters, so this is an extension of that.

Harry Kemsley: Interesting. So just turning Puja to yourself just for a second. And then I'll come to you very shortly, Shivani, in terms of the wider implications of this in the region. And then Sean, perhaps you and I can have a couple of words then about what this might mean more internationally. But Puja, just for the benefit of the audience, this is an open source intelligence podcast, we're talking about the power of open source. So what kind of open sources are we using in the events team that you are using that help us understand what's been going on, the buildup to this and so on?

Puja Banerjee: Yeah, sure. So as I mentioned previously that my team, the central events team covers location specific incidents. And to look at the situation in Bangladesh, we monitored location specific protest incidents to create trend analysis that helped us to determine the stability of the country. Now if I could mention a point here that we've been seeing a spike in the number of protests since October 2023 when the 2024 parliamentary elections in Bangladesh were being held. And at the time the protests were against the then incumbent government and was launched majorly by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the opposition party there. Demanding the resignation of the government and the conduct of the election under a neutral caretaker government. So we've been seeing a spike since then. Of course there was a reduction in the number of protests between 22nd July to 28th of July, which again spiked up post that. But to monitor the situation, we refer to our internal master source list that consists of credible, primary, secondary, and social media links. Now in addition to this, we maintain an internal rating system for the sources in terms of credibility and we call those as gold, silver, and bronze sources. We also assign a confidence level internally for each of the sources to ensure transparency and neutrality. We review the sources and update them as and when the source credibility is perceived to change. So this is the usual method that we follow in Janes. Now specifically to look at the situation, this specific situation, we looked into verified open media sources, mainly the local media sources, official government websites and agencies. Because these provided context specific information including interviews, on the ground reports and official government responses. A very, very important part of the process also included cross- checking and corroborating the information across multiple sources to ensure accuracy and reliability. We monitored regional and international news agencies to have a broader perspective of the situation and also to maintain unbiasedness. In addition to this, we also monitored social media platforms that served as a source for realtime updates and firsthand accounts. And also helped us to understand the scale and the nature of the protest and the public sentiment around it. However, I would want to mention here that we don't really use social media as a primary source. We just use social media platforms to keep ourselves updated. And as and when we receive updates, we would go back to the original source and make sure that the source that we are referring to are corroborated by multiple sources. One of the-

Harry Kemsley: Sure. Just before we go any further, Sean, I can almost hear your tradecraft conversation rolling in your head. So we'll definitely come back after Puja's great exposition there of the various aspects of tradecraft. Before we go to that, Sean, because I know that you're dying to get into the tradecraft conversation. Let me just come if I may, to Shivani then, in terms of... We've seen now the situation in Bangladesh, we've understood from Sarbhanu the origins of it. And we've even heard from Puja there in terms of the gentle uptick and then the severe upticks we've seen in terms of events in and around Bangladesh. What's happening in the region? What's the reaction to this going on in countries associated with and adjacent to Bangladesh?

Shivani Gayakwad: So what's happening in the region? I think the political instability and the crisis that is seen in Bangladesh, I think the most impact of it will be seen in India because of its geographical proximity. The immediate implication of this is the breakdown of law and order, that has kind of seen the violence against minority groups in the country. And that has also resulted in people wanting to escape the country for obvious reasons, that the law and order has broken down. We've seen that there were unidentified mobs that have vandalized houses specifically owned by minority communities, especially the Hindu communities. And on one day itself, we witnessed incidents in about 27 districts across the country. So this is something that India very much cares about. And again, for India, Bangladesh has been at the most converging point of its neighborhood first policy. So again, what happens now with the vacuum and the interim government in place, I think the Indian government will have to work more on resetting the ties with the country. Because India had very close ties with Bangladesh, given Sheikh Hasina's relations with the Indian government. They've been really close. A lot of economic partnerships and projects were sort of signed during her entire tenure. So yeah, this is... I think the most impact will be felt on India.

Harry Kemsley: And is there any wider implications if you go outside of India, I get the geographical adjacency of India and equally the background politically. But are there any other wider, slightly more distant countries that are likely to be directly or indirectly affected by this instability in Bangladesh?

Shivani Gayakwad: So the wider implications I think will also be felt for China. I think China recently in June or July, I think they elevated their partnership with... They elevated their relationship with Bangladesh to an enhanced partnership. I think China has also viewed Bangladesh as one of the most important points for port and transit of cargo. And again, during Sheikh Hasina's tenure, I think she worked on really hard to develop that relationship with China. So yeah, I think the other implication that can be seen will be for China as well.

Harry Kemsley: So there's a political impact as you've mentioned. There's the human impact, of course, not least the movement of people trying to get away from the strife within the country, but there's also this economic impact. So Sean, let me bring you in at this point. So given your background, I'm obliged to ask you the question, what will be the thinking going on in some of the more Western powered organizations that you will be very familiar with? What's their view of this particular situation? Is it seen as a significant event they really need to be very carefully watching, or is there somewhat more distance involved in terms of their perspective?

Sean Corbett: Yeah, so there will have been an initial triage by probably small teams actually when the tactical event first happened in terms of, " What are we looking at here? Is this important? Do we need to put some more resources?" Right now, I would argue that there is just not the capacity to put great deal to it because of all the other things that happen in the world. But it is important, and this is why open source intelligence organizations like Janes is coming really into their own on this one. Because you can get that continuity of effort, but also that regional perspective. I mean I think I looked at Bangladesh twice in my career. Once was to do some humanitarian relief because as you know the large areas are below sea level. So there was a lot of flooding. And the other one was a particularly virulent pathogen, which made Ebola look like a common cold frankly, and we are monitoring that as well. So the background won't necessarily be there. So this is where the OSINT piece comes in and seeing what's going on. But just to really reflect what's been said already. When I started to look at this in any depth, I look at most things as elements of great regional power competition. And particularly in this case actually in terms of, as has been said, China's pretty heavily influenced or has influenced the development of Bangladesh, which has been going pretty well actually. You've got sort of 6% increase in the economy every year, which is pretty impressive actually. But they've been part of the Belt and Road initiative for a number of years now, I think since 2015, 2016, something like that. So there's the sort of the relationship with China, but also there's the historical relationship with India, which has always been positive and the trade between the two is absolutely huge. So looking at the different types of influence there, and I will always go to regional reporting. So what do the Chinese think about this, what do the Indians think of this, what do the Russians think of this, et cetera. To see A, how pervasive it could get, but B, who is going to gain from this? What I found in this case actually is a lot of the reaction is fairly balanced and quite nuanced, which is quite unusual. Because normally you get one side going, " This is really good, let's push it." And another side that say, " No, no, this is not good at all." But certainly the diplomatic rhetoric that's come out has been pretty balanced. So yes, there's the individual basis and there's the internal security aspect. And of course there are some Islamist organizations in there that we need to keep an eye out to make sure that the economy doesn't get derailed in that respect. But at the moment things seem okay, so this is a classic case for me of, right, what do we know, what do we need to know, how important it is in the big strategy things? And if we're informing political decision making or even diplomatic activity, getting that balance because it would be very easy to say this is either the worst thing ever or this is the best thing ever. But getting that balance is really important.

Harry Kemsley: So let's just turn then to a bit more about the technique in here. So Puja, I would come to you in just a second to help the audience understand a bit more about how we classify the way we look at countries using the PMESII framework. And I'll get you to explain to the audience what PMESII stands for and how we basically look at the elements of PMESII in the work that we do. And then Sarbhanu, I'm curious on your perspective here. Of course we've been looking at this region, this territory in this country for very long time. To what extent is that long term look, the ability to look at a country or a region or a territory for a long time beneficial in terms of making assessments? So first Puja, in terms of the country intelligence, the events that we collect, the information that we put in front of the analyst, like Shivani and Sarbhanu. Can you just help the audience understand a bit more about the PMESII framework please?

Puja Banerjee: Sure. So to determine the stability of the country, we look at six factors and the acronym for this is PMESII, which means political, military, economic, social, infrastructure and information. So yeah, looking at the events from the events perspective, these are the broadly classified categories that we look into while determining the stability of a country.

Harry Kemsley: Right. Now, the stability looked at through that PMESII framework, as you just said, political, military, et cetera, is going to give us an understanding of risk. And if I turn now to you Sarbhanu, in terms of how you track that risk for you to then to begin to understand that the risk is becoming higher, instability is becoming more likely. How important is it to have that long- term perspective, Sarbhanu?

Sarbhanu Nath: Yeah, so the PMESII factor, the PMESII strand rather, it helped us gain a macro understanding of the situation in Bangladesh. So it's not just that we are looking at the rising number of protest events that directly threatens the stability of the government. We have to look at other factors like social events over here, what is motivating the protesters. And then now that the protests have started and the government has collapsed, how does that social factor play into the international implications? So to give an example, over here, Bangladesh is 99% Muslim, but the one percent that remains, for a country of 170 million people, even 1% is quite a lot. So in that 1% there are a significant number of minorities, primarily Hindus. And from post 5th August, there have been a increasing number of attacks on the Hindu population in Bangladesh. And some of those Hindus are now trying to flee into India. So I think on 7th or 8th of August there was an incident where around 6, 000 people, Hindus mostly, they congregated at the borders with India and tried to cross over. So now obviously that leads to an international incident wherein India is also involved. What would they do? So the social factor plays over here as well. And then we look at infrastructure strand where there were multiple attacks in Dhaka, which targeted infrastructure facilities. Wherein metro station was completely burned down, which stopped and affected the entire metro rail transit of the city of Dhaka. So all of these factors play in while looking at the picture and help form an analysis.

Harry Kemsley: Shivani, does that roll across to you then in terms of the wider territory, the wider region? Are you also looking across multiple risk factors in the PMESII framework in terms of how this ripples out from Bangladesh?

Shivani Gayakwad: Yes. So the way Sarbhanu explained how these factors play into, sort of help us understanding how things have unfolded and what has happened and how it affects the region. I also want to add over here that one of the underlying issues with the protestors and the protest that we've been seeing in Bangladesh is a high rate of unemployment, a high rate of inflation, and sort of a high level of perceived corruption. This is one of the major frustrations that the protestors have had with the government. So in terms of unemployment, Bangladesh's average unemployment in 2023 was about 15%. And this has only increased since Sheikh Hasina came to power in 2008, 2009. There were only two instances in her entire tenure where the unemployment rate dropped. But again, it was really a small amount. Another burden that directly impacts the people, which leads to protests is a high rate of inflation. So again, World Bank has said that consumer inflation in 2023 was the highest in the decade, that Bangladesh has witnessed. Again, because we are looking at these factors, it also helps us understand what are the underlying issues that the protestors want and why they're demanding for a change.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah, very good. Well let's now turn our mind, Sean, towards the future as we've done in other topical podcast episodes recently. It's not just about understanding what's happened in the past or even drawing insight in terms of what's happening now. It's about reducing the uncertainty in the minds of those that needs to understand the environment looking forward. So Sean, what are the kind of questions people will want to understand looking forward into the situation in and around Bangladesh? What are the kind of things people will be looking for? And then with those questions in mind, I'll come to each of you in terms of... Puja, how would you go and collect, again, those kinds of questions to get an insight for the future? And then for the two of you as analysts, Sarbhanu and Shivani, what are your predictions, what are your thoughts about the future in terms of the situation of Bangladesh in country and around it? So Sean, what are the kind of questions we would want to answer looking forward?

Sean Corbett: So the initial thing will be stability of the state while they sought out new elections. So are the protests going to continue, are they going to increase, are they placated now that the prime minister has left? So the sentiment analysis piece, the looking at incidents of particularly protesting and if they get violent. But also looking at how the elections are going to be run, whether they are free and fair and open. Who's going to be allowed to run, who isn't going to be allowed to run? Be looking at the refugee side as well, of course. So that's in the short term. And then the longer term will be, okay, who would we expect to be in power? What will that mean? And then what will the likely reaction be from the other great powers, India, China to a less extent... Well no, the US as well, lesser extent Russia, because they've all got relationships with all those other players. So looking at the rhetoric and the potential support that comes out. So will China increase its aid and its investment in infrastructure, which it's done a lot of. What will Pakistan's approach be? Because they've been quite quiet right now because it actually suits them being a 99% Muslim country, then actually they're in a reasonable position. But what will India's approach be? So I'll be looking... There's almost layers within the international setting that are going to trigger what happens next, really. So it is quite a lot to look at.

Harry Kemsley: So Puja just turning to you then, I think you covered this in your earlier description about how you do what you do. Is there anything different about the indicators, the kinds of data, the kinds of sources you would be looking at. That might allow you to start helping Shivani and Sarbhanu actually understand what might happen in the future? Is there anything different about that future look from your perspective?

Puja Banerjee: So we have our in- house internal machine learning capability, which helps us to deal with large volumes of data. And that will also allow us to look at the granular parts of it, which means every move by the government would be recorded. And that would help to create a trend analysis of the situation, even if that's peaceful and at least provide some kind of broader perspective to our country intelligence colleagues. And also continuously updating the data I would say, and refining the data based on emerging trends, that I think inaudible-

Harry Kemsley: The trends... The trends piece, I can see how you would be able to extrapolate into the future as a trend of rising amounts of unrest might point towards yet more unrest. Or indeed the indicators that have been mentioned earlier, like the economic situation, the unemployment. Interesting that the unemployment should be so resilient at about 15 or more percent in a country that, as Sean mentioned, has had relatively strong growth in recent years. But even so, if the unemployment is high, then there is a level of dissatisfaction in that population that is unemployed, which is fertile ground for unrest. So Sarbhanu, let me come to you first. What do you see as being the most likely scenarios for Bangladesh through we hope the recreation of a stable government and beyond? And then for you Shivani, what about the implications in the future for that territory and region? Sarbhanu, first.

Sarbhanu Nath: Yeah, so the immediate outlook would be that violence will continue, but it's tapering off right now. So we can expect to see sporadic incidents of violence and occasional flareups. So the main ruling party, the Awami League, it's essentially leaderless right now. Most of the leaders are in hiding or have fled the country, but that does not mean that the Awami League as a political force is finished. Because if I take an incident on 10th of August Awami League members, they blocked a highway at a major road in a district of Gopalganj in Bangladesh, and then had a confrontation with the... So these protestors, they were demanding the return of Sheikh Hasina to the country and were protesting for that. And the army had to move in to disperse the protestors. But it led to violent clashes where shots were fired and around 15 people, including four Army personnel were injured. And the mob also set fire to an army vehicle. And on the next day, the district... The Awami League office for the district, they issued a press release in which they stated that they are in contact with Sheikh Hasina still. And she's instructing them to carry out protests but make sure that they are peaceful. So seeing such things, we can understand that the Awami League, while it is significantly weakened, it is not finished as a political force. And maybe five years down the line we can see a resurgence. But in the immediate term, it's very unlikely that in the upcoming national elections, which are scheduled to be held within 4th of November, that's the constitutionally mandated limit since the dissolution of parliament. So we most likely won't see the Awami League being able to make electoral gains in the general election if it is held within stipulated timeframe. So the gainers over here would primarily be the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the main opposition and its allies such as the Jamaat- e- Islami. So these political parties, they have the advantage that they are established political parties, they have been around for a long time. The BNP has been in power for a number of years. Its leadership is largely intact. In fact, the leader of the BNP who is Khaleda Zia's son, he's coming in from London to Bangladesh to take over the reins of the party. And most importantly, the BNP also has all its grassroots level workers still in place. So they have a strong grassroots connect, which would help them in the eventual election. But there is another factor here, which is the student groups. So the student groups had categorically stated that they would not want to return to a form of governance wherein it inaudible the same old parties. It's essentially two sides of the same coin, Awami League and the Bangladesh National Party as per the students. So that is something which they would not want to return to. So over here we can see a scenario in the next three months where in these students groups they field their own political party in opposition to the established political parties. And try to contest the elections and to create a new system, which has been the stated objectives, the reform of the political system completely. So it's a bit of an uncertainty over the next three months what would happen regarding elections. But what we can say for sure as a Janes perspective is that the established political parties have a significant advantage over the students groups, in that they can contest the elections more effectively. And I think this has been reflected in the formation of the interim government. The interim government is composed entirely of technocrats bar one person, a religious leader from the Hefazat-e-Islam. So the Hefazat- e- Islam is a hardline Islamist political advocacy group. So it's very likely that the government included that particular person to placate the Islamists. But none of the political figures from the Bangladesh National Party or the Jamaat have been given positions in the interim government. So it's very likely that these two political parties and the other political parties, by extension, they agreed to this arrangement of not having representation in the interim government. For the sole reason that they're expecting elections to be held as soon as possible and then they can exploit on that and form the subsequent government. And one more factor to consider over here is the army, so inaudible supposed to have elections within the 4th of November, but we must also keep in mind the army has a history of interference in Bangladeshi politics. So to quote a figure, from 1975 to 2011, Bangladesh experienced at least 29 military coups or counter- coups because. And it also experienced direct military rule from 1977 to 1981 and between 1981 to 1990. So the military is quite heavily involved in Bangladeshi politics. And if the military feels that the interim government is creating policies which are inimical to its interests. Or the subsequent government which will be formed, will be in opposition to its policies, then we can probably expect some intervention from the army.

Harry Kemsley: Very good. And turning to the more territorial regional perspective Shivani, what do you see as the most likely prospects for this territory and region and what factors you're considering as you say that?

Shivani Gayakwad: So as Sarbhanu mentioned that the most that parties can gain out of it are the Islamist parties and the BNP. And in this likely scenario, because they are established parties and they have more to gain when the elections do happen. This situation presents a better opportunity for China because these parties have had... They're considered to be more pro- China and slightly anti- India. So again, this scenario presents a better situation for China, which has already enhanced their relationship with the country. For India, this situation will present a more challenging sort of a path, that India will have to work more in terms of actions to reset the ties that they've built with Sheikh Hasina's government. And again, India has also expressed that the country should make better the situation about the minorities. Because again, that has an immediate impact on India in terms of people wanting to come inside the country. So these are the two things that will happen in the region, that we see implications.

Harry Kemsley: Very good, thank you. That's really clear. I think what we'll do as time is now starting to evaporate on us is focus on, as we always do at the end of these podcast editions, is give the audience the one thing you want them to take away from this. Sean, I'm going to unusually let you go first from your perspective. The key thing here is that we give the audience something that they can take away that is of particular importance. And I'll come to you second Puja after I've gone to Sean. So what's your one takeaway, Sean, from this situation and fascinating description of what's going on from the two?

Sean Corbett: That's difficult question because I actually chose five, but I won't because steal everyone else's sandwiches. But because it's such a fascinating subject for me, it's one that I'm not particularly close to. So why don't I go for the obvious one that in a world which is difficult, complex, security is a really difficult situation at the moment. Open source intelligence has a real role in something like this which has got local and regional and global implications. But is not necessarily going to be a priority for some of the bigger intelligence collection organizations and countries. So keeping an eye on it from an expertise perspective and that includes a regional one is really important.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah, I'd agree with that. Puja, what's your one takeaway for the audience today?

Puja Banerjee: I would say open source intelligence plays a very, very important role in bringing out their timely analysis. And in this respect I feel that the Bangladesh analysis was very timely. In addition to this, if I may highlight, there might be other groups, Islamist groups that were also involved in that students protests, they were allegedly involved. I think two incidents, if I may point out would be the two notable prison outbreaks. One was in July, 19th of July where about thousand protesters stormed the Narsingdi District Jail in Velanagar area. And they release 826 prisoners that allegedly included Ansarullah Bangla Team, also known as Ansar- al Islam and Jamaat- ul- Mujahideen Bangladesh militants. The second notable incident was the prison outbreak in the Chattogram Central Jail in the Chittagong division on 9th of August. Now, although the attempt was thwarted by prison guards, reports suggest at least 30 Kuki- Chin National Front militants were lodge in the jail at the time of the attack. So yeah, that would be it from me.

Harry Kemsley: That's probably one to watch in terms of a greater understanding of what's happened and why it's happened for the future. Sarbhanu, what is your main takeaway from the situation that you'd want the audience to remember from this conversation today?

Sarbhanu Nath: The main takeaway I think that the audience should remember is one, the Janes' language skills. So that is something which I wanted to bring up. So a lot of us at Janes speak different languages and here in case of Bangladesh, because we are aware of how... We speak Bengali. So it helped us analyze the situation in a much deeper manner. So for example, the main students' organization, the Students Against Discrimination, who were the main organizers behind the student protests. They frequently came on to Facebook and showed live speeches. So being able to monitor that and understand the language helped us gain a very detailed understanding of what their demands were and what their vision was, which would not necessarily be available in a news report which would be scanned the next day. So this in- house expertise of Janes helped understand the situation quite well.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah, I very much like that. And Sean, we had a conversation, didn't we recently with Claire on the importance of language in the analytical process. The ability to understand in first language is to be able to see the nuance in what's been communicated, not just the raw words. And I think in fact, Claire gave us some examples of how a deep understanding of a language, the culture with the language makes it such you can actually understand things quite, quite differently than you would if you simply had a transfer to English, for example, in the translation.

Sean Corbett: Indeed, and this is still one of the weaknesses of AI right now anyway, in terms of understanding that nuance.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. So Shivani, what about yourself from a slightly more territorial, regional perspective, what's your one takeaway from this situation and what we talked about today?

Shivani Gayakwad: So one takeaway that I think that what we were able to do in a very timely manner was one, to understand from the events what has happened. And again, having that language expertise really helped. It also helped us to... Because we look at it from the PMESII factor, so it helped us to understand what are the kind of situation that fuel the protest, what will happen in the region? Looking at it from an infrastructure perspective, we know the kind of projects that have been planned in Bangladesh that are likely going to be affected because of this instability, and the likelihood of who's going to take into power. So I think for the region, I think that is important and I think that's my takeaway.

Harry Kemsley: Very good. I think for me, the takeaway apart from the obvious ones that have been said already, which are really powerful, is the situation in Bangladesh was clearly becoming more and more unstable. Which, you've detected through the kind of tracking you're doing over a period of time and then a small moment of ignition. And Sarbhanu, you talked about that ignition point being when the Prime Minister makes a statement based on her historical context probably, and her association with her father. She makes a statement that ignites the situation and allows all those situations that have been building up to now become focused into protest. So I suspect with the benefit of hindsight, we'll be at a point, at that as being the moment of ignition. But of course it's the understanding of the context that allows something to ignite that is actually the real key here. So without further ado, thank you to all three of you and of course to you Sean as well for your contribution. Fascinating insights. As Sean said, it's not a part of the world that I know as well as I would like, nor indeed that I understand as well as I would like. And I've really, really come to understand situation in Bangladesh much better as a result of this. So thank you each of you for your contribution. Thank you also to the listener for listening to this podcast. And for the questions that we're starting to get coming in from you in terms of what you've heard today or indeed what you would like to hear more about. So we can shape this podcast around what it is you're listening for. Thank you all very much and we look forward to speaking with you again. Goodbye.

Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us this week on the World of Intelligence. Make sure to visit our website, janes. com/ podcast, or you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. So you'll never miss an episode.