Who Is Veena Sikri? Former Indian Diplomat Says Bangladesh Clashes 'Worrisome For India'
Speaking to NDTV, Sikri said that students' movement for abolition of quotas in the neighbouring nation had turned into a political protest.
Former High Commissioner to Bangladesh Veena Sikri on Monday said the instability in Bangladesh is "worrisome for India." She also told The Tribune that the Indian government is maintaining heightened vigilance along the nearly 4,000-km-long border with the violence-hit nation.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled her country in a military aircraft and landed in India on Monday, while the army stepped in to fill the power vacuum.
Speaking to NDTV, Sikri said that students' movement for abolition of quotas in the neighbouring nation had turned into a political protest. "I must say that now when I see this, there is clearly some outside influences coming in. I would say that the army and the government is one," Sikri said.
Veena Sikri's Background
Veena Sikri was born on October 27, 1948. She studied in St. Mary's School, Pune in 1963, where she was awarded National Scholarship by Government of India. She completed her bachelor's degree in statistics (first division) from the University of Pune in 1967. Sikri completed her masters of economics (first division) from Delhi University in 1970.
Veena Sikri is married to Rajiv Sikri, a former career diplomat, who retired as Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi. They have a daughter and a son.
Veena Sikri's Career
Veena Sikri has served for 37 years (1971-2008) as a career diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service. Her positions included High Commissioner to Bangladesh (2003-06) and to Malaysia (2000-03), as Consul General in Hong Kong (1996-2000), and Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), New Delhi (1989-92). She is the only woman to have served as High Commissioner to Bangladesh.
She has held challenging assignments at the Indian Embassies in Moscow, Kathmandu, and Paris, and at the Permanent Mission of India to the UN in New York (1977-81), where she represented India in the UN Security Council, ECOSOC, and at Summit meetings of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
After retiring from the Indian Foreign Service, Veena Sikri joined academia as Professor, holding the Ford Foundation endowed Chair, Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi and is the convenor of South Asia Women Network.
Unrest in Bangladesh
In an authored piece in India Today, Sikri had said that protests by college/ university students over the abolition of reservation for government jobs had resulted in a tragic series of events, which has not only affected every citizen, but also weakened Sheikh Hasina and all of Bangladesh.
After Hasina fled the country, hundreds broke into her residence, vandalising and looting the interiors, providing dramatic expression to the anti-government protests that have killed more than 100 people in the last two days. At the centre of people's anger is the Hasina government's controversial quota system reserving 30% jobs for families of veterans who fought the 1971 liberation war.
With volatile crowds taking to the streets -- some clambering on Hasina's father and Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's statue and smashing it with hammers in a lasting image underscoring the fickleness of history -- Army chief General Waqar-uz-Zaman announced that the 76-year-old prime minister has resigned.
An interim government will be taking over, Zaman said in a televised address.
