After Bangladesh lost the 2012 Asia Cup title to Pakistan, the Bangladeshi premier, Hasina Wajed claimed in an interview to a local daily Amardesh that her country could have won the final had “lovers of ISI and Pakistan” not come to the stadium to see the match.

It was a derogatory reference to the BNP leader and former Bangladeshi PM Khaleda Zia’s presence at the occasion. How exactly could one person or party’s presence affect the outcome of the match was not explained.

These were not just the remarks of a livid politician, heartbroken by her country’s defeat — granted that earlier, during the final minutes of the match, she broke down into tears — but from the tone of the interview, it was clear that she meant what she said.

Bitter rivalry between Hasina Wajed’s Awami League and Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh National Party now threatens not only to polarise the society, but to cause more violence, destabilise the country’s struggling democracy again, and in doing so, also strengthen religious radicals.

Some Bangladesh watchers view it as an extension of the India-Pakistan confrontation that never ceases to exist.

The India-Pakistan hostility has a life of its own.

Since I began this piece by narrating a cricket anecdote here is another one for you:

The Pakistan Cricket team was in India from December 25, 2012 to January 6, 2013 for a cricket tour that took place after a 5-year hiatus.

Comprising of two T20 matches and three ODIs, this tour went in Pakistan’s favour as its team after the drawn T20 series managed to win the ODI series.

The last match was played on January 6 and within hours, violence broke out between the two nuclear rivals across the Line of Control in the troubled Kashmir region.

It wasn’t the first time such a development took place after a cricket match between the two countries. People who have served in places like Siachen often speak of similar skirmishes, following a win or loss in matches.

Cricket in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh is not just a game. It is politics. Almost everything else here is too.

And there lies the tragic flaw that threatens to undermine the great potential of this otherwise gifted region.

This piece is about the debilitating trends of the three nations of South Asia which once were together and how, if allowed to grow unchecked, these trends can give the world a pounding headache.

Please notice that while eight countries are now officially a part of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), it is the instability within these three that destroy the entire region and the SAARC initiatives.

The madness within

Books upon books have been written on the creation of these three nations, most of which narrate harrowing tales of the bloodbath in 1947.

In their book Freedom at Midnight, Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre tell about the human toll and suffering.

Whenever communities fought they took it out on the women and children. Collins and Lapierre mention episodes of violence where hordes of women from the opposite community were forced to run around naked; their mutilated bodies slowly very slow deaths.

The corpses of newborns and toddlers were brandished about atop spears.

This wasn’t peculiar to one community; this was what the people of these countries were capable of when angry.

The madness witnessed before and during the days of independence never quite went away. It was only suppressed as the focus shifted to the more pressing issues of state formation.

Hate, cruelty, misogyny, infanticide all still lurk quietly in the corners of public subconscious, and stage a comeback whenever law and order breaks down.

An estimate 200,000-500,000 thousand lives were lost in this carnival of hate witnessed in the religious riots in Punjab alone. According to UNHCR’s estimate, some 14 million Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims were displaced during these riots in 1947.

While the division of a country is painful in itself, what exactly forced people, of more less the same racial stock, to turn on each other in such violent manner?

Something similar was witnessed during the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. While Pakistani and Bangladeshi sources differ wildly on the responsibility of the violence they both agree on the nature of it all.

The year 1971 witnessed a mass massacre of the worst sort. Let me also point out that this wasn’t for the first time such episodes had occurred in Punjab or Bengal, divided and undivided.

The original sin

In a violent pre-modern society, 90 years are nothing when it comes to the evolution of indigenous political thought.

India, which was ruled by various kings and emperors, many of them of foreign origin, through repression knew only a tense calm. Then, during the last days of the Mughal era, it was invaded by the British colonial forces.

In a fractured society, political thought worked on a subconscious level. And when after the failed rebellion of 1857, it raised its head again, it internalised the elements of communal hatred.

I am sure the divide between the religious communities must have been actively encouraged by the colonial masters. But mostly, it was the pre-Mughal era misgivings that resurfaced in the disjointed society