Holiday,
Friday, October 26, 2012
M.
Serajul Islam
The
Centre for Foreign Affairs Studies (CFAS) and the Independent had jointly held
a Round Table soon after the “state visit” of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to
India in January 2010. Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni presented the
keynote address at the RT. She was upset by the remark
of Ambassador Reaz Rahman, an Adviser to the BNP Chairperson Begum
Khaleda Zia at the RT that the relations the Government was building was
between the Awami League and India and hence would not be sustainable. He made
the remark because Sheikh Hasina had gone on that extremely important visit
without even a word with the opposition and on that trip she committed
Bangladesh to provide India land transit on a trial basis; gave India complete
assurance to meet its security concerns and made other promises/concessions
with long term repercussions without seeking reciprocity.
In
fact, the AL led government carried out negotiations with India up to the ill
fated visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Dhaka in September 2011 believing
there was no opposition in the country. India also did not help in this
regard. It was too happy that Sheikh Hasina was in the “giving and
pleasing India” mood and side tracked the realities of Bangladesh’s
politics. Indian negotiators failed to realize that more than half of the
people of Bangladesh, and perhaps much more, are suspicious of India because of
its past failures to keep promises and commitments and its unfair and
condescending attitude towards Bangladesh. They thought they could accept and
sustain concessions from Bangladesh on issues critical to it, namely security
and land transit, from just the AL led government alone with the opposition not
even consulted let alone being taken into confidence. They also thought they
could accept these vital concessions without reciprocity particularly on the
issue of sharing of waters of the common rivers that is a bipartisan concern in
Bangladesh against India.
For
nearly 3 years, New Delhi and Dhaka heralded that a new era of Bangladesh-India
bilateral relations was emerging where Bangladesh would become the regional
connectivity hub with major economic prospects in the offing. It was Mamata
Banarjee who sent the high hopes stumbling and forced the two sides to come to
grip on reality, in particular on the Indian side by refusing to allow the
Indian Prime Minister to sign the Teesta deal during his Dhaka visit. The
BJP also joined later to destroy the prospects of Bangladesh-India
relations moving towards the paradigm shift that Sheikh Hasina wanted and India
supported. Although Mamata Banarjee was the immediate cause why Bangladesh-India
relations failed to move forward; the relations floundered because the AL
carried less than half the nation and India failed to take the necessary
political risks.
Mamata
Banarjee/ BJP thus combined to deny Bangladesh-India relations from “living
happily ever after”. They forced the Congress led government to rethink, first,
that it cannot build sustainable relations with Bangladesh just with one
political party given the country’s highly partisan politics and, second,
sustainable relations cannot also be developed without consensus in India on
the issues. These realizations dawned on India by the way the Teesta deal was
taken off the table and Bangladesh’s refusal to sign the long term agreement on
the land transit in retaliation and the sudden pall of gloom that descended
over the development of relations after initially raising high hopes. The
Congress led government also realized that India had never come so close to
getting from Bangladesh two concessions that are critic to its national
interests, namely the land transit from its mainland to its fragile but
strategically important Northeast and a commitment from Bangladesh on its
security interests, considered by India to be the soft underbelly of its
security concerns. If domestic politics had not interfered, this time, India
would have given Bangladesh the Teesta deal and ratified the land boundary
agreement (LBA) for its own sake.
India’s
frustrations notwithstanding, it realized that the three years of conducting
negotiations with Bangladesh were not completely wasted. India watched positive
changes in the BNP; that it believed India was serious about assisting
Bangladesh to become the regional connectivity hub in exchange for the land
transit and security cooperation/commitment. The BNP expressed support for both
the Indian needs but also demanded that New Delhi would do its fair share on
critical issues of water sharing, trade and demarcation of the LBA. New Delhi
also watched the AL wasting its massive electoral victory and felt that as it
entered into its fourth year in office, it was hardly in a position to deliver
to India the promises and commitments it had made. In fact, in New Delhi, the
view was that even if India would have delivered the Teesta and LBA deals, the
AL was no longer popular enough to give India the land transit and total
security assurance/commitment without the support of the opposition. In fact,
Indian intelligence agencies advised the political leadership that the AL would
lose the next elections and India should not “put all its eggs in one basket”
and should look beyond the AL for building long term and sustainable relations
with Bangladesh.
This
new thinking in New Delhi was un-mistakenly underlined when Pranab Mukherjee
came to Dhaka in May this year as India’s Finance Minister. After a meeting
with Khaleda Zia, he said in a press conference that India was interested in
building relations with Bangladesh and not with just a political party. The
official visit that Begum Khaleda Zia would be undertaking later this month
flagged that new line of thinking in New Delhi because it was not easy for the
Congress led government to have extended the invitation to Khaleda Zia knowing
how upset and unhappy it must have made Sheikh Hasina. New Delhi has been
forced to this new line of thinking for sake of its national interests because
it now accepts that without support of the BNP on Bangladesh-India relations,
it would not be able to develop long term sustainable relations with Bangladesh
where it would also be happy to deal with the party even if it formed the next
government in Bangladesh.
Begum
Zia would therefore be meeting an Indian leadership eager for BNP’s support for
sustainable relations with Bangladesh. She would be visiting India when
international politics in the region has changed fundamentally. Myanmar’s
willingness to come out of the cold and USA’s overtures towards it has suddenly
made Bangladesh’s geopolitical location of immense importance to the United
States. The flurry of visits to Dhaka by top US diplomats including Hillary
Clinton in recent times flagged this newly acquired strategic geopolitical
importance of Bangladesh to the United States. The US Ambassador in Dhaka has
also left no secret of this now focus of the US on Bangladesh. Interestingly,
India and the US are together on the newly acquired strategic geopolitical
location of Bangladesh because of the strategic partnership pact they recently
signed to deal with China in the Asia and the Pacific. For their own interests,
the two countries would also seek political stability in Bangladesh and would
like the next government to reflect popular will.
The
BNP leader would therefore find New Delhi receptive for her to
state the case of Bangladesh for a new era of mutually reciprocal and
beneficial relations that the AL failed to achieve partly because of over
eagerness to please India and partly because of India’s failure to deliver. She
would do her party a great service if she would state clearly whether in power
or in opposition, her party would support India on its security concerns and
provide it land transit but only in exchange for resolving Bangladesh’s
concerns on water sharing, trade, land boundary and Tippaimukh together with
the commitment to make Bangladesh the regional connectivity hub. She should ask
for a package deal on a quid pro quo basis and not allow India concessions for
promises. Begum Zia should also impress upon India the need of supporting in
Bangladesh her party’s move for national elections where the BNP would be able
to participate and not one where these would be conducted by an interim
government headed by the AL that were likely neither to be free nor fair.
She should convey her fear that without her party participating, the country
would slide into a dangerous political situation where not just Bangladesh
would suffer the consequences; such a situation would also affect India
directly.
The
Indians are likely to treat her visit with added importance because she would
be visiting India after her visit to China where she would be holding
discussions with the new leadership soon to take power In Beijing. India is
aware that in China President Zia is regarded with respect because of his role
in laying the foundations of Bangladesh-China relations that has withstood the
test of time. New Delhi is also likely to view a BNP government friendly with
it, should it win the next elections, and also close to China as an advantage
worth exploring.
New
Delhi’s invitation to Begum Zia points to a policy shift that it explained
during the visit of HM Ershad to India; that it would like to reach out to the
“multi party democratic polity of Bangladesh” instead of just one political
party. In truth however, Begum Zia scheduled visit to India suggests that New
Delhi is in no position to deliver the Teesta and LBA deals to the AL before
the next elections in Bangladesh. Its policy of reaching out for Bangladesh’s
multi-party polity also reflects its suspicion that the AL would not be able to
return to power and that India’s interests would be better protected by
extending a hand of friendship to the BNP, particularly as the latter has
significantly toned down its anti-Indian rhetoric, as a sort of insurance
policy in the event it came to power. It would be wise for Begum Zia and
her team to keep in mind that New Delhi has invited her risking offending the
Awami League because it has taken due note of new realities in Bangladesh-India
relations and regional politics. If Begum Zia and her team work within
these new and emerging realities, the visit would be useful for future of
Bangladesh-India bilateral relations no matter which party would form the next
government in Bangladesh.
The
writer is a former career Ambassador to Japan and retired Secretary
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