India looks east to
Bangladesh By Siddharth
Srivastava
NEW DELHI - Tackling terror and
building confidence are the two prominent themes
of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia's
visit to India. Zia, who arrived in New Delhi on
Monday, is the first Bangladeshi premier to visit
India in nine years.
"I look forward to
very candid and constructive discussions with our
friends in India," Khaleda said in a statement on
arrival in New Delhi. "I hope that as a result of
our discussions it [will] be
possible for us to create
conditions for perceptible improvement in the
content of our cooperative relations."
New
Delhi is looking at relations with Bangladesh in a
new light with the twin goals of tackling terror
in the latter country and implementing a series of
confidence-building measures, including promoting
trade relations. The aim is to replicate some of
the efforts that have gone into the peace process
with Pakistan, which has built a momentum of its
own (through rising subregional trade), despite
the known political differences.
Relations
between India and Bangladesh have deteriorated in
the recent past. Indian intelligence agencies have
reported for quite a while that terrorist groups
inimical to Indian interests were operating from
various camps in the Chittagong Hills and that
Bangladesh has become a hub of various terrorist
groups, a fact the Bangladeshi authorities refuse
to accept. Last year, the annual report of India's
Ministry of Defense said that instead of Pakistan
and China (against whom India has waged wars in
the past), Bangladesh is the country that India
needs to guard against the most, because of the
fertile ground that terrorists have been provided.
India has long insisted that Bangladesh
needs to come clean on the terrorists operating
inside the country. New Delhi feels that away from
the heat of US attention and troop presence,
Bangladesh is providing a safe haven for
terrorists and militants to hide, bide their time
and reappear when things cool off. So far the US
"war on terrorism" has concentrated its efforts in
Pakistan and Afghanistan, thus providing a free
run for extremists in Bangladesh. Proximity with
the military regime in Myanmar with its poor
record against terror outfits as well as a weak
law-enforcing apparatus has made the situation
worse. Last year, the 13th summit of the South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)
at Dhaka was postponed after Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh's refusal to attend because of
threats from terrorists.
It is in this
context that India has never been comfortable
dealing with Zia. An indication of the misgivings
is the fact that this is the first visit of Zia to
India, despite being at the helm in Dhaka for more
than four years. In the general election in
October 2001, the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami
emerged as Bangladesh's third-largest party,
capturing 17 of the 300 seats in parliament. The
secular and leftist Awami League led by Sheikh
Hasina, which had been in power since 1996, was
defeated. New Delhi was comfortable dealing with
Hasina.
To New Delhi's chagrin, the new
government headed by Khaleda included
Jamaat-e-Islami in the government. While
Jamaat-e-Islami may not be directly involved in
terror attacks, being part of the government has
meant that the extremists feel they have the
protection of the authorities.
However,
increasing domestic opprobrium, international
pressure as well as strong evidence presented by
India of terrorist operations in Bangladesh
(including the plotting of recent attacks at
Varanasi and Ayodhya) have forced Dhaka to
rethink. General elections are due in Bangladesh
next year.
Observers also point to a
failure of India, which is predominantly a Hindu
country, to address some of the concerns of its
neighbor, thus making it easy for extremist groups
to stoke anti-India feelings. While India has
progressed as an economic power and made
substantial efforts to build relationships with
the United States and the European Union, its
relationship with its much smaller neighbor, with
whom it shares cultural affinities as well as
borders, has been less than adequate. There is a
feeling of hurt among Bangladeshis that while
India has advanced, the nature of its dealings
with its close, smaller and less powerful neighbor
has been ad hoc and neglectful.
It is in
this context that a range of issues between the
two countries regarding Bangladeshi refugees,
river-water sharing, reduction of tariff walls by
India and opening rail and road connections will
be discussed during Zia's visit. New Delhi is
expected to extend concessions on a number of
niggling issues.
India and Bangladesh
share a 4,000-kilometer border, which India has
been fencing off with barbed wire to stop illegal
immigration and cross-border infiltration.
Bangladesh sees this as a hostile move and the
issue is likely to figure during the summit. The
two countries share 54 rivers, and Dhaka has
always been unhappy that a water-sharing accord
has been limited to just one river.
Bangladeshi Foreign Minister M Morshed
Khan has termed the Zia visit a milestone. "Our
relations with India are very important
economically, geographically and strategically
too," Khan said at a press briefing ahead of the
three-day visit. A senior Indian official has been
quoted as saying, "We want to make sure there is
sustained engagement with Bangladesh."
As
the experience of Pakistan shows, rail and road
connections give rise to trade of goods and
people-to-people movement. Observers say that
rather than aiming for a big push for transit
rights and tariff concessions, India and
Bangladesh should initiate local-level border
trade as a first step, a move that is also being
studied by India and China in the northern passes.
Among the rail and road links on the agenda are
revival of the Sealdah-Tongi and
Agartala-Akhaura-Chittagong rail lines as well as
a bus service between Shillong and Sylhet with
onward connections to Guwahati and Dhaka.
Trade between India and Bangladesh is
estimated to have crossed US$1 billion so far this
fiscal year. Illegal trade between the two
countries has been reduced by 50% with the
implementation of the South Asian Free Trade
Agreement (SAFTA) and an opening up of rail and
road linkages, the Indian industry body Assocham
said recently. The illegal trade, estimated to be
$2 billion in 2004-05, is projected to have come
down to $1 billion as of last month, the chamber
said. On the other hand, official trade had
increased by $400 million at the end of February.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New
Delhi-based journalist.
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2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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