Indian think-tank for Teesta sharing

A leading think-tank of India has favoured the country making concessions to Bangladesh on Teesta water sharing saying it can "generate the impulse for big change in the region".
"It remains a fact that as the upper riparian, India has to be mindful of the just requirements of Bangladesh as a lower riparian," said Dr Ashok K Behuria, Research Fellow at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses.
He said the opposition to the Teesta water sharing agreement by Paschimbanga Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and by a section of people in Assam state to the land boundary agreement "is unfortunate".
According to Behuria, "The forces of economy and imperatives of geography demand that India and Bangladesh need to unfreeze their mindsets and set out on a task of mutual development. No leader with vision can afford to swim against the current today. Those opposing the process of change are missing the big picture."
He said, "The positive reactions in the media, in the immediate aftermath of the visit, are being displaced by scepticism and ultra-nationalistic concerns. The inertia of mistrust and small-mindedness threatens to outpace whatever mutual goodwill and trust the visit seemed to have generated a few days back."
"Does it mean that we may get back to the square one despite visible progress on many issues at the bilateral level? Will the governments in both the countries be able to sell their ideas to their people?" he questioned.
Behuria said it has to be acknowledged that the leaders of the two countries were able to scale the boundaries of distrust and make significant moves on trade and border related issues.
He admitted that two major agreements on Teesta and transit could have lent further legitimacy to the process of normalisation and silenced the critics in both the countries. "However, keeping the years of distrust in mind, the achievements have been no less spectacular," he added.
Behuria said the last minute refusal of Mamata Banerjee to approve of the Teesta deal and be part of the Indian PM's entourage must have been a huge embarrassment for Manmohan Singh.
"This was also quite an emotive issue for Prime Minster Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh and she was under pressure to act tough. However, the final outcome of the visit in the shape of the boundary demarcation agreement shows that there is more to India-Bangladesh relationship than river waters and transit," he noted.
He said more and more people in India today believe that the country has to find a way of addressing the concerns of its neighbours and invite them to participate in its own growth story and India's decision to allow duty-free access to 46 textile items signifies the new mindset in New Delhi in this regard.
"There is also a strong constituency in Bangladesh which now realises that any effort to stall the process will harm Bangladesh more than India," said Behuria.