EDITORIAL COMMENT: Indian Foreign Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee Visits Dhaka

The Indian Foreign Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee completed a one day visit on February 9th to Bangladesh as an Envoy of Prime Minister Manmohon Singh. He met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, held official talks with the Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni and met a few other senior Ministers of the Bangladesh Government.

Two agreements were signed during the visit. The first was the Agreement on Investment Promotion and Protection and the other the Bilateral Trade Agreement. The first one was a new agreement and the second one was a renewal of an agreement that the two sides had signed earlier. At the official talks, the Bangladesh Foreign Minister and his the Indian counterpart went over a whole range of bilateral issues such as security, border management, strengthening connectivity ; trade and investment and water sharing issues.

No joint statement was issued after the talks. The two Foreign Ministers held separate press conferences. In his press conference, the Indian Foreign Minster did not respond positively on Sheikh Hasina’s call for a Joint task Force to Combat Terrorism. He said that political will, sincerity were more important than setting up any task force. The issue was again raised by Sheikh Hasina when the Indian FM called on her at her official residence. The Prime Minister’s Press Secretary, after the meeting, told reporters that the India FM agreed with the proposal that contradicted what Mr. Mukherjee himself told journalists earlier after his talks with Dipu Moni. In her own press conference, the Bangladesh Foreign Minister faced difficulty and tricky questions related to security and involving Pakistan. An Indian journalist queried her about Bangladesh being used by Pakistan as a “buffer state” for importing terrorists against India to which the Bangladesh Foreign Minister was unable to respond in a way to defend Bangladesh’s case that raised quite a few eyebrows from the Bangladeshi journalists present.

Prior to the visit, the Bangladesh media was full of speculation about issues such as trade and transit, both controversial where relations have remained stagnated. At least two Bangladesh ministers had contradicted on Government position on the issue of transit. The Minister for Commerce and the State Minister for Foreign Affairs were involved in contradicting each other.

The Indian Foreign Minister who arrived in a special aircraft was given protocol given to a visiting Head of State/Government as he was received in the VVIP terminal at Dhaka airport. An explanation given by the Government said that as Mr. Pranab Mukherjee is looking after some of the responsibilities of his Prime Minister, this special gesture was made to him. The Indian FM’s trip was just for a day and was very hectic. He also visited Dhaka University for a ceremony in connection with a floor being built in Dhaka University’s Arts Building with Indian assistance for the Drama Department. Mr. Mukherjee, however, could not find time to meet Begum Khaleda Zia, the leader of the Opposition.

Going by the media hype in Bangladesh, the visit of the Indian Foreign Minister was quite an anti-climax. The tough issues were glanced through without any decisions to move relations ahead. Given Indian concern on terrorism, one expected some agreement on the proposal of Sheikh Hasina on the joint task force. This did not happen. One can surmise that the Indians are not clear whether the Bangladesh Prime Minister was proposing a South Asian initiative or a bilateral one and hence the lack of interest. Given the well known Indian mindset that one has seen over the years, India is never forthcoming on any initiative on controversial issues that are multilateral, always preferring the bilateral approach. The issues of water sharing between Bangladesh and India is a case in point where India has stubbornly refused to bring Nepal into negotiations , despite the fact that with Nepal, this region could just not solve its problem of shortage of water in the dry season but also flood in the rainy season.

The Bangladesh side also showed during the visit that it has no clear sense of direction about dealing with India. The team work is just not there and there are still too many people at government level talking about the issues in a manner that just not shows a lack of professionalism but to add a cliché; here are too many cooks making the broth. In an age of globalization, foreign affairs need much more professional handling. Knowing that India is going to have an election very soon, the Foreign Ministry should not have allowed the media hype by killing all the speculations and instead should have advised the media to see the visit as a goodwill visit and nothing more. The Indians have done just that.

UPCOMING EVENTS: The Centre for Foreign Affairs Studies (CFAS)

Ambassador Serajul Islam also co-founded the Centre for Foreign Affairs Studies (CFAS) along with two other former Ambassadors from Bangladesh. CFAS was founded on the intent to develop awareness that foreign policy issues are not necessarily issues that need to be kept away from the public and handled in secrecy. Such issues often need to be aired publicly and foreign policy formulated objectively to serve the best national interest and this can be done by taking public opinion on board. In this context, the CFAS intends to work with the relevant committee of jatiya sangsad, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, other Government Ministries dealing with Bangladesh’s external relations; political parties, interest groups and eventually with the public through meetings, seminars, publication of reading materials and eventually town-hall types of meetings with ordinary citizens to integrate and articulate their views on crucial foreign policy issues.

The following are upcoming CFAS events that may be of interest. To view past CFAS events, visit the CFAS events page.

November 22, 2008: Future Directions of Bangladesh Foreign Policy

The Centre for Foreign Affairs Studies, CFAS, in collaboration with the Daily Star will hold the Second Round Table on the “Future Directions of Bangladesh Foreign Policy” with the political parties, business groups, media and academia as stakeholders, on Saturday, November 22^nd at 10 am at the conference room of the Daily Star. The first Round Table was held with the retired Ambassadors in May this year.

January 2009: Dialogue on Bangladesh-India Relations

CFAS will also hold a Dialogue on Bangladesh-India Relations in January, 2009. The objective of the Dialogue is to bring out a paper for presentation to the next elected government of Bangladesh and will be the outcome of discussions between a team of experts from Bangladesh and India. A delegation from India led by Ambassador Abhyankar, former Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, with Ambassador Dev Mukherjee, former High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh as a member, will visit Dhaka for holding preliminary meeting with CFAS on 23^rd November, 2008.