Taking Bangladesh-India relations forward
AS a keen observer of India-Bangladesh relations over the years under different governments on both sides of the border over the last two decades, I could not agree more with the view that the dominant theme of Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's recent visit to Dhaka (June 25-27) was connectivity.
It was a theme that permeated Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's letter she handed over to his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina and also in the speech Swaraj gave at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies and in the set of confidence-building measures announced during her visit, like multiple-entry visa to Bangladeshis below the age of 13 and above 65, additional 100MW of power, proposed bus service between Guwahati and Dhaka and increasing the frequency of Maitree Express train. Connectivity in power, train, bus, water ways, the people of India and Bangladesh through visa, power grid has been defined by Swaraj in a sense much larger than just India seeking transit from Bangladesh.
On issues of core concern to Bangladesh such Teesta water-sharing and land boundary agreement implementation, Swaraj repeated the old assurances of trying to build a domestic consensus. It would have been unreasonable to have expected anything more than that because she undertook the visit to Dhaka within a month of a new BJP-led government assuming charge in India. One month is too short a time to make any breakthrough in solving the long-pending issues, especially when there has been a change of government in India. One must recognise that Swaraj's visit was largely exploratory in nature and carried forward Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's neighbourhood first policy which was evident in the invitation to South Asian countries heads of state and government to his swearing-in ceremony on May 26.
It may be tempting to write off the measures announced during Swaraj's visit to boost India-Bangladesh relations as “peripherals” but they do signal the new Indian government's intent to, as Modi said in his letter to Hasina, usher in a “new era of cooperation and connectivity across the South Asian region.” But the fact remains that these confidence-enhancing steps are side dishes and both countries must move to the main course of bilateral relations epitomised by Teesta water-sharing deal, stalled three years ago by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, implementation of LBA and Bangladesh granting transit right to India for easier connectivity with northeastern Indian states. It is here that Modi government's neighbourhood policy faces its first key challenge.
A solution to the core issues like transit, Teestam transit and LBA has the potential to transform India-Bangladesh ties into a model to emulate in South Asia.
Swaraj spoke to Mamata Banerjee on phone hours before her departure for Dhaka. There was no official word from either of the two leaders, who have good rapport with each other, but it does indicate that the BJP-led NDA government, much like the previous UPA dispensation, is keen to keep on board a state's ruling party on a foreign policy issue.
Can the Modi government get Mamata Banerjee on board for the Teesta deal after former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had failed to do so for three years? The challenge to ratify LBA through a constitution amendment bill is perhaps even more complex because the opposition to it is not just from Trinamool Congress and Asom Gana Parishad but also from BJP's Assam and West Bengal, the two states where the saffron party is eyeing bigger political stakes after the impressive show in the recent Lok Sabha elections. The BJP leadership will have to convince its own nay-sayers by explaining the long-term benefits of Teesta deal and LBA.
Modi and Hasina have invited each other to visit their respective countries and it remains to be seen if the two visits can see the two agreements through.
If Modi has shown boldness in outlining his neighbourhood first approach after having indulged in high political rhetoric against illegal migrants from Bangladesh, Hasina too has shown courage and statesmanship by persisting with deeper engagement with India irrespective of the party in power in New Delhi. She showed no rancour ever even though the UPA government failed to deliver on Teesta and LBA deals, and stuck to her course of scaling up the ties with India.
Hasina addressed India's major securing concerns by turning over top ULFA insurgent group leaders, cracking down on militant groups in Bangladesh and making major arms hauls in the last six years. She also allowed equipment for Palatana power project in Tripura to pass through Bangladesh waterways and decided to permit transhipment of food grains to India's northeast from the mainland.
Hasina reached out to Modi by being among the first foreign leaders to facilitate him on his and his party's election victory and urging him to make Bangladesh as his first overseas visit. If Modi and Hasina can walk the talk further, it will mark a paradigm shift of politics in South Asia.
The writer is New Delhi correspondent of The Daily Star.
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