If good atmospherics, sweet diplomatic phrases and glossing over differences alone are the ideal recipe for setting right the strains and suspicions that have clouded relations between India and Bangladesh in recent years, the visit of Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to India can be described as a resounding success. But beyond the references to a shared destiny and nostalgia about cooperation in 1971, there was pretty little to show as a concrete achievement during the Prime Ministerial visit. The Trade Agreement of 1980 was replaced by a new trade agreement. There was also a routine agreement on measures to jointly cooperate in drug trafficking and abuse. All this glossed over the fact that there have been, and remain, serious differences on highly emotive and sensitive issues.
While sweet phrases were being exchanged in New Delhi on March 22, India’s Border Security Force (BSF) was exchanging fire with its Bangladesh counterparts the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) at the Goldach outpost in the North Dinajpur District of West Bengal. While the Joint Press Release of March 22 spoke of activating bilateral discussions in forums like the Joint Rivers Commission, the Bangladesh Minister for Cooperatives Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan proclaimed on the same day that India is creating a water crisis by constructing dams on 52 of the 54 rivers flowing into Bangladesh from India. He added that 80 rivers and many canals in Bangladesh have dried up because of India’s denial of water to Bangladesh. At the same time, it was reliably reported in Dhaka that, while the Bangladesh Government had identified 20 “strategic corridors” by road, rail and river to facilitate trade with India, no decision had been taken on providing transport facilities to India. This made it clear that the Khaleda Zia dispensation did not regard references in the newly signed trade agreement to “mutually beneficial agreements for the use of their waterways, railways and roadways for commerce” as constituting any basis to provide transit facilities to India, for transporting goods to its northeastern states.
It is evident that while the Khaleda Zia visit will give the ruling dispensation in Bangladesh electoral mileage by being able to claim that New Delhi has welcomed its leader with open arms, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies have no intention of toning down anti-Indian rhetoric or sentiments in their country, and India-bashing will remain a useful electoral tool. It is pertinent to note that Bangladesh never tires of claiming to be an aggrieved party because of its trade deficit with India, but it expresses no such complaints about its even larger trade deficit with China. In the long term, as a member of BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation), Bangladesh will have to display far greater realism on issues of regional free trade, or find itself marginalized in this forum. New Delhi does, however, need to recognize that it sullies its image as an emerging economic powerhouse by placing a number of non-tariff barriers restricting exports from countries in its neighbourhood. Similarly, a more accommodative approach needs to be adopted by India on issues like border demarcation and adverse possession of enclaves.
Interestingly there was no mention either in the Joint Press release or in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s banquet speech, of the most serious issue that today clouds India-Bangladesh relations, namely the support that the Bangladesh establishment, often in collaboration with Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), provides on its soil to separatist and terrorist violence directed against India. More surprisingly, the External Affairs Ministry spokesman observed that both India and Bangladesh are “victims of terrorism”! Just on the eve of Begum Khaleda’s visit, the West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhatacharjee, however, observed: “The Bangladesh Government is encouraging two kinds of terrorism. There are religious, fundamentalist groups functioning from within Bangladesh. There are also groups like the ULFA and the KLO that have taken shelter there”. There is no dearth of evidence to establish that, till over 450 bomb blasts triggered by the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) shook Bangladesh on August 17, 2005, this terrorist outfit enjoyed close links with and support from the ruling BNP and its allies like the Jamaat-e-Islami. If Bangladesh is at all a ‘victim’ of terrorism it has only itself to blame, because the violence it has faced on its soil has arisen from the nexus between its political and military establishment, on the one hand, and radical Islamist groups, on the other.
A major factor behind the recent crackdown by the Begum Khaleda Government on the JMB has been the threat by the European Union and other western donors that economic aid to Bangladesh would be curtailed in the absence of effective action against terrorist groups. The US and its NATO allies recognize that groups like the JMB and the Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-BD) have connections with the Al Qaeda and its affiliates operating in South East Asia. These countries would like to see tougher action against those involved in assassination attempts against the Awami league leader Sheikh Hasina and the British High Commissioner Anwar Chowdhury.
While one can understand New Delhi’s desire to give diplomacy yet another chance by laying out the red carpet for Begum Khaleda, it would be naove to presume that large sections of the BNP and its allies like the Jamaat-e-Islami, which thrive on anti-Indian rhetoric and policies, would be amenable to back any quest for good neighbourly relations with India. Further, the present generation of leadership in the Bangladesh Armed Forces has little interest in what transpired during the liberation struggle in 1971. By inclination, the armed forces in Bangladesh adopt postures domestically and in their approach to India which are not very different from those of their counterparts in Pakistan. And the BNP is a product of the maneuverings of the country’s military establishment. This political and military establishment believes in ideas like creating an Islamic Emirate in the Muslim majority districts of Assam and of severing the northeastern states from the rest of India. It would be pertinent to remember that, not too long ago, the Bangladesh Foreign Minister Morshed Khan proclaimed: “Bangladesh is India-locked. Delhi has also to remember that seven of its northeastern states are Bangladesh locked”.
In these circumstances, any approach to Indo-Bangladesh relations has to combine the carrot with the stick. There is no room for sentimentalism about what happened during the liberation struggle of 1971, though there is a strong section of public opinion in Bangladesh that favours good relations with India. It remains, however, to be seen how the Bangladesh establishment responds to the views of this section of its people. In the meantime, efforts to promote economic cooperation and resolve differences with Bangladesh must be coupled with a readiness to raise the costs domestically, diplomatically, strategically and economically for Bangladesh, should it persist on its present path of promoting separatist and terrorist violence in India. It needs to be remembered that, like India, Myanmar is also a victim of separatist and terrorist violence sponsored by Bangladesh. Cooperation with Myanmar and other ASEAN countries such as Thailand can be a vital constituent in dealing with Dhaka’s more adventurist propensities.
The writer is a former Indian High Commissioner / Ambassador to Pakistan, Myanmar and Australia.
Courtesy : South Asia Terrorism Portal
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