Rhetoric And Reality

If good atmospherics, sweet diplomatic phrases and glossing over differencesalone are the ideal recipe for setting right the strains and suspicions thathave clouded relations between India and Bangladesh in recent years, the visitof Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to India can be described as aresounding success. But beyond the references to a shared destiny and nostalgiaabout cooperation in 1971, there was pretty little to show as a concreteachievement during the Prime Ministerial visit. The Trade Agreement of 1980 wasreplaced by a new trade agreement. There was also a routine agreement onmeasures to jointly cooperate in drug trafficking and abuse. All this glossedover the fact that there have been, and remain, serious differences on highlyemotive and sensitive issues.

While sweet phrases were being exchanged in New Delhi on March 22, India’sBorder Security Force (BSF) was exchanging fire with its Bangladesh counterpartsthe Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) at the Goldach outpost in the North DinajpurDistrict of West Bengal. While the Joint Press Release of March 22 spoke ofactivating bilateral discussions in forums like the Joint Rivers Commission, theBangladesh Minister for Cooperatives Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan proclaimed on the sameday that India is creating a water crisis by constructing dams on 52 of the 54rivers flowing into Bangladesh from India. He added that 80 rivers and manycanals in Bangladesh have dried up because of India’s denial of water toBangladesh.

At the same time, it was reliably reported in Dhaka that, while theBangladesh government had identified 20 "strategic corridors" by road, railand river to facilitate trade with India, no decision had been taken onproviding transport facilities to India. This made it clear that the Khaleda Ziadispensation did not regard references in the newly signed trade agreement to"mutually beneficial agreements for the use of their waterways, railways androadways for commerce" as constituting any basis to provide transit facilitiesto India, for transporting goods to its northeastern states.

It is evident that while the Khaleda Zia visit will give the rulingdispensation in Bangladesh electoral mileage by being able to claim that NewDelhi has welcomed its leader with open arms, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party(BNP) and its allies have no intention of toning down anti-Indian rhetoric orsentiments in their country, and India-bashing will remain a useful electoraltool. It is pertinent to note that Bangladesh never tires of claiming to be anaggrieved party because of its trade deficit with India, but it expresses nosuch complaints about its even larger trade deficit with China. In the longterm, as a member of BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-SectoralTechnical and Economic Cooperation), Bangladesh will have to display far greaterrealism on issues of regional free trade, or find itself marginalized in thisforum. New Delhi does, however, need to recognize that it sullies its image asan emerging economic powerhouse by placing a number of non-tariff barriersrestricting exports from countries in its neighbourhood. Similarly, a moreaccommodative approach needs to be adopted by India on issues like borderdemarcation and adverse possession of enclaves.

Interestingly there was no mention either in the Joint Press release or inPrime Minister Manmohan Singh’s banquet speech, of the most serious issue thattoday clouds India-Bangladesh relations, namely the support that the Bangladeshestablishment, often in collaboration with Pakistan’s Inter ServicesIntelligence (ISI), provides on its soil to separatist and terrorist violencedirected against India.

More surprisingly, the External Affairs Ministry spokesman observed that bothIndia and Bangladesh are "victims of terrorism"! Just on the eve of BegumKhaleda’s visit, the West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhatacharjee,however, observed: "The Bangladesh Government is encouraging two kinds ofterrorism. There are religious, fundamentalist groups functioning from withinBangladesh. There are also groups like the ULFA and the KLO that have takenshelter there". There is no dearth of evidence to establish that, till over450 bomb blasts triggered by the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB)shook Bangladesh on August 17, 2005, this terrorist outfit enjoyed close linkswith 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 betweenits political and military establishment, on the one hand, and radical Islamistgroups, on the other.

A major factor behind the recent crackdown by the Begum Khaleda Government onthe JMB has been the threat by the European Union and other western donors thateconomic aid to Bangladesh would be curtailed in the absence of effective actionagainst terrorist groups. The US and its NATO allies recognize that groups likethe JMB and the Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-BD) haveconnections with the Al Qaeda and its affiliates operating in South East Asia.These countries would like to see tougher action against those involved inassassination attempts against the Awami league leader Sheikh Hasina and theBritish High Commissioner Anwar Chowdhury.

While one can understand New Delhi’s desire to give diplomacy yet anotherchance by laying out the red carpet for Begum Khaleda, it would be naïve topresume 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 anyquest for good neighbourly relations with India. Further, the present generationof leadership in the Bangladesh Armed Forces has little interest in whattranspired during the liberation struggle in 1971. By inclination, the armedforces in Bangladesh adopt postures domestically and in their approach to Indiawhich are not very different from those of their counterparts in Pakistan. Andthe BNP is a product of the maneuverings of the country’s militaryestablishment. This political and military establishment believes in ideas likecreating an Islamic Emirate in the Muslim majority districts of Assam and ofsevering the northeastern states from the rest of India. It would be pertinentto remember that, not too long ago, the Bangladesh Foreign Minister Morshed Khanproclaimed: "Bangladesh is India-locked. Delhi has also to remember that sevenof its northeastern states are Bangladesh locked".

In these circumstances, any approach to Indo-Bangladesh relations has tocombine the carrot with the stick. There is no room for sentimentalism aboutwhat happened during the liberation struggle of 1971, though there is a strongsection of public opinion in Bangladesh that favours good relations with India.It remains, however, to be seen how the Bangladesh establishment responds to theviews of this section of its people. In the meantime, efforts to promoteeconomic cooperation and resolve differences with Bangladesh must be coupledwith a readiness to raise the costs domestically, diplomatically, strategicallyand economically for Bangladesh, should it persist on its present path ofpromoting separatist and terrorist violence in India. It needs to be rememberedthat, like India, Myanmar is also a victim of separatist and terrorist violencesponsored by Bangladesh. Cooperation with Myanmar and other ASEAN countries suchas Thailand can be a vital constituent in dealing with Dhaka’s moreadventurist propensities.

G. Parthasarathy is former Indian High Commissioner / Ambassador to Pakistan,Myanmar and Australia. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the SouthAsia Terrorism Portal