Unheard Voice

In three years of publicly writing on Bangladesh-related stuff, I have not received a stronger reaction than that on my assessment of the Prime Minister’s India trip.  And it’s not just me, other fellow UV writers have also had similar experience publicly and privately.  In this post, I respond to some comments from well connected political analysts. 

The comments can be paraphrased as follows.

The summit has cemented the gains of the past year in terms of confidence building from the Bangladeshi side, and has laid a firm foundation for resolving the major outstanding issues from the Indian side.  This is a considerable achievement and something to get enthused about — a qualified hoi hoi if you will.  In that sense the visit really has been significant and successful.  While communiques are generally what policy wonks focus on, in the current context, the communique alone is neither a very meaningful statement nor a useful way to look at / measure the success of the trip.  Atmospherics and context are key here.  And if you consulted people involved in the trip from either side of the border, you would appreciate the success much more.

My responses in detail are over the fold.  Quick take away:

1. Agree that in the past year, Bangladesh has taken immense measures in confidence building — measures that are good for Bangladesh regardless of tepid public reactions from India.

2. Concede that I have no inside information, and thus can be missing the atmospherics completely.

3.  Stress that if the above view of qualified hoi hoi is correct, then we should see some concrete steps from India reasonably soon.

Read more…

(Published in the Guardian CIF on 19 January)

There was a sense of history at the Bangladeshi prime minister’s office on Saturday. Sheikh Hasina, in a show of strength, flanked by the top members of her government, was addressing the country’s editors and reporters. In an unprecedented White House-style press conference broadcast live on all the TV channels and radio stations, her mood was combative. She was defending the agreements she had signed in India the previous week. “Are we to let our resources remain unused forever?… The deals will fight South Asia’s common enemy – poverty,” she said, trying to defuse opposition to the deals.

The Prime Minister’s India trip, that is.  And this isn’t the first time the trip has been delayed — first it was going to be in the middle of the year, then September, then December, now January. 

The official reason is Indian government requested it because Dr Manmohan Singh will be tired after Copenhagen.  But this sounds hardly credible.  For one thing, it’s not like Copenhagen popped up as a surprise.  Indians didn’t know about the summit until last week?  And it’s not like the two prime ministers are expected to be engaged in intense closed door Camp David or Tashkent style negotiations that Dr Singh will find tiring.  With all the Dhaka-Delhi flights of the two countries’ foreign ministers and secretaries and their functionaries/minions/underlings, surely the PM’s trip would have involved photo ops, state dinners, and signing various agreements “on security co-operation, on Bangladesh’s purchase of electricity from India and on the creation—virtually from scratch—of transport links across a common 4,100km (2,500-mile) border, the world’s fifth-longest” (The Economist, see here).

So, the trip has been delayed because Dr Singh will find our PM too tiring after Copenhagen doesn’t sound very believable.  What might be the real reasons then?

The most obvious reason is that no deal has been reached.  It’s clear that the current Bangladesh government has done more than any in history to assuage Indian security fears.  As such, if there is no deal, then perhaps it’s because the Indian expectations from Bangladesh is too unrealistic?  Or perhaps, after taking unprecedented measures to extricate herself from the mess that is northeast India, Bangladesh is now playing hardball on the issues such as water or trade?  Or perhaps, as reported in the Indian media, India is unhappy that Bangladesh is exploring rail links with China via Myanmar?

Politically, if there is no deal, it will make little difference to the Congress-led coalition as there is no vote in Indo-Bangla relations.  And the failure to get a deal may well be a huge boon for the AL government — what better way to silence anti-India noises than to walk away from a deal?  Presumably it is this political calculation that had prevented deals in the past. 

Given the political incentives, it is hard to see exactly what more any government in Bangladesh could do to meet Indian expectations.  In the long run, Bangladesh may well have more to gain from a deal, but the absence of a deal will hurt India more.  Farooq Sobhan says a deal will accelerate Bangladesh’s growth rate from 6% to 8% — even if this assertion is taken at face value, status quo is hardly a bad performance.  For India, status quo means continued political instability in its northeastern states.  After all, troubles in those regions are not Bangladesh’s creation, and solution lies only in the sustainable development of the region, and this requires India to make a deal with Bangladesh.

Bottomline then: play hardball Madam Prime Minister, and let the Indians come to the table.

The Bangladeshi Foreign Minister recently visited India, and the Prime Minster is supposed to visit New Delhi shortly.  This follows a highly publicised visit by the Indian Foreign Minister in February, after the new government took office in Dhaka, but before the Indian election.  There are media speculations about a ‘package deal’ being negotiated resolve various outstanding issues. 

There is no foreign relationship more important for Bangladesh than that with India.  Therefore, whatever is in this deal (if a deal is indeed being negotiated), it is imperative that it is scrutinised carefully.  And every conscious citizen — regardless of technical expertise, political affiliation, or access to the media — has a responsibility to participate in the discussion.  Indeed, a discussion needs to happen in India too, because if Bangladesh develops a permanent antipathy towards India, the consequences will be bad for everyone.

Any discussion on this topic should begin with two points.  

First, this need not be a zero sum game.  Bangladesh’s gains do not have to come at India’s expense, or vice versa.  India and Bangladesh are not locked in some Manichean, existential conflict.  Win-win solutions are possible on all the issues.

Second, it is easy, and pointless, to spend endless amount of time in a dialogue of the deaf discussing how one country has never done the right thing by the other. 

This post is an attempt to summarise the issues, with some tentative views.  They are by no means exhaustive.  Nor are they beyond debate.  In fact, I am actively soliciting debate.

With the long introduction out of the way, over the fold are what I think the issues that need to be resolved.

(More at Mukti)