By Muhammad Shoaib, Dhaka
It appears that after Maldives, Bangladesh, another neighbour of India, has joined the ‘India Out’ movement. The call for boycotting Indian products is gaining momentum in Bangladesh. It is noteworthy that Dr. Mohamed Muizzu, a Maldivian politician, came to power riding on the ‘India Out’ campaign in Maldives.
After the elections on January 7 in Bangladesh, some of the first YouTubers, including Pinaki Bhattacharya, called for a boycott of Indian products. Pinaki Bhattacharya can be considered one of the leaders of this movement, being among the first to initiate it. In response to his call, many popular figures joined this campaign, leading to its gradual increase in popularity.
They say that India has unfairly deprived the people of Bangladesh of an electoral right and is unfairly supporting the current government. With the support of India, the current government has seized power and is not conducting any elections under non-partisan neutral supervision. Rather, they have seized power with the support of india. In the last election, the opposition parties, including the main opposition party of Bangladesh, boycotted the election, but the government formed an opposition party from within its own party and came back to power. India’s support was the main driver behind this. Therefore, their claim is that the democratic right of the people of Bangladesh to vote will not return until India can be completely removed from Bangladesh.
Although this campaign has been on individual level and social media for a long time, today BNP, the main opposition party in Bangladesh, officially started participating in this movement.
BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Advocate Ruhul Kabir Rizvi formally started the boycott of Indian products by throwing his Indian sheet in front of the public.
Today, Wednesday, he threw the Indian product sheet he had in front of the BNP central office in Nayapaltan.
Rizvi said, India Out campaign is abuzz everywhere including social media. People are protesting by boycotting Indian products. The wave of boycott of Indian products visible on social media seems to show that a large population of the country has taken a firm stand in favor of boycotting Indian products. So 63 pro-democracy parties including Bangladesh Nationalist Party-BNP as a people’s party and patriotic people are expressing solidarity in this movement of boycott of Indian products.