Bangladesh- The Cloudburst Revolution
The recent uprising in Bangladesh that resulted in former PM Sheikh Hasina’s hasty resignation and flight to India was a cloudburst - an extreme amount of precipitation in a short period, sometimes accompanied by hail and thunder, which can create flood conditions. The analogy to cloudbursts here is partially appropriate because though the storm that ultimately drowned Hasina’s government looked like a cloudburst, it was brewing for many years. Hasina fled from Dhaka in a military helicopter to Agartala and boarded a C-130 transport aircraft for IAF’s Hindon Air Force Station near New Delhi. From Mujib Ur Rehman to Sheikh Hasina, Agartala has a symbolic significance for the Awami League politicians. It was in Agartala where Sheikh Mujib had secret meetings with the Indian intelligence agencies during the early 1960s to plan for the secession of East Pakistan . Soon after the 1965 war between India and Pakistan, riots erupted in East Pakistan when the Awami Leag...