Krishnan Srinivasan
SOME state leaders invoke the federal principle
for their parochial purposes and put at risk India’s relations with
important neighbours. Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of West Bengal,
declined to accompany Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Dhaka last year,
vetoed an agreement on sharing the Teesta river waters, and now
jeopardises the Land Boundary agreement with Bangladesh that has been
hanging fire since 1974.
The common border of over 4,000 kilometers
required not only demarcation and exchange of 5000 acres of adverse
possessions, but exchange of about 150 enclaves in both territories.
While both census and media investigations have shown that the people in
the enclaves would like nothing better than to have their ambiguous
situation (that has lasted since 1947) rectified, Miss Banerjee now
belatedly claims the agreement will result in a ‘massive influx’ of
refugees from Bangladesh. The Land Boundary agreement requires a
constitutional amendment, which necessitates prior approval by
Parliament and the states and, therefore, makes the Chief Minister’s
objections even more salient and yet another roadblock with Bangladesh.
Bangladesh
is the most coherent of all the countries in India’s neighbourhood.
Nearly all of it comprises one ethnic group, nearly all of it worships
one religious faith, nearly all of it speaks one language. It is nearly
surrounded by Indian territory, and the fact that it can identify with
adjacent India in terms of ethnicity, religion and language makes it a
natural friend of India’s. For multiple reasons, quite apart from the
traumatic history of its nationhood, in which the Indian people and
Armed Forces played a role, it deserves the highest priority for India’s
hand of friendship.
The friendly government of Sheikh Hasina in
Dhaka, that has taken bold steps to mitigate the activities of
terrorists threatening India and facilitated the peace process with the
militants in the North-east, is left completely bemused and frustrated
at the lack of progress in settling bilateral issues that have been
agreed upon at the level of both capitals, but are being obstructed by
an Indian state government.
Bangladesh is a country divided by
politics, class and identity. Both India and Bangladesh profess that
whereas India and Pakistan are real or potential enemies, India and
Bangladesh enjoy the most amicable relations ~ or rather, would do if
some minor irritants were removed. In reality, this bilateralism is
complicated by, and rooted in, Bangladeshi domestic tensions for which
it becomes a surrogate and paradigm. The inherent contradictions between
the two countries transcend inter-governmental and Track-2 activity; it
is a post-Partition contest for men’s minds. Neither the events of 1947
nor 1971 have resolved this dilemma in East Bengal. The contenders are
Indian-type secularism on the one hand and Pakistani-type conformism on
the other.
On one side, there are the liberals, who believe their
existence as ethnic Bengalis is more important than the faith they
practise: and on the other side, the separatist fundamentalists, who
cling, despite all evidence to the contrary, to the notion of solidarity
of the Islamic ummah. For the latter, the break with the Hindu majority
of 1947 was vastly more significant than liberation from Pakistan in
1971. But those who emphasize their destiny as Bengalis are drawn to the
spiritual, cultural and literary pull of India, and take inspiration
from great secularists like Lalan Fakir, Rabindranath Tagore and Nazrul
Islam. They see the future of Bangladesh as inextricably linked to the
other side of the border, whether cultural, social or economic, which
necessitates the closest ties with India. But those who derive their
motivation from separation mentally leap-frog India, pretend it does not
exist, try to counter-balance it with relations with the USA, Pakistan,
China, Saudi Arabia, or anyone else available, to create the illusion
that they can do without India and confront it, despite being
practically an enclave in North-east India.
Complicating this
underlying contest are various other complexes and pre-dispositions at
work; that of a small country almost surrounded by a big one, and of a
nation that has had few heroes in its short history. As a weak and
least-developed country, the involvement of foreign powers finds a ready
response among clients seeking position, status or money. Insecurity
breeds corruption. Every Bangladeshi leader wants to be seen parlaying
with India as an equal and bringing some negotiation to a successful
conclusion. India has always failed to turn this situation to mutual
benefit by refusing to talk seriously about our common problems.
It
may take generations for the scars of Partition and liberation to heal
and a self-confident Bangladeshi identity to grow. But India must exert
its influence towards a positive outcome of that purely domestic,
internal process. Stability and economic progress in Bangladesh are
essential for the security and prosperity of India, and specifically of
our neglected North-east. The redress of Bangladesh’s grievances, such
as river waters, trade facilitation, visa procedures and the land
boundary, which cut across all party lines there, would be to India’s
advantage because none of these issues constitutes a serious security or
economic risk to India. But political will and attention-span are
lacking both in New Delhi and West Bengal, even when the bureaucracy has
been willing to impart momentum in the right direction ~ which is, to
be candid, rarely the case.
Citing so-called ‘political compulsions’,
India has allowed short-sighted hardliners, Hindu chauvinists and
regional politicians, apparently unaware of the grave consequences of a
hostile government in Dhaka, to set India’s agenda towards Bangladesh
when the rational approach would be to address Dhaka’s grievances
constructively and speedily to bestow stability on Hasina’s government
there, and to strengthen cultural and economic exchanges with Bangladesh
so that our cultural bonds fortify the hands of the Bengali
nationalists. Economic and transport connectivities will inevitably lead
to progress and development on both sides of the border, provided all
impediments, human and physical, are removed.
Whether India will
succeed in the struggle for the hearts and minds of the Bangladeshis
will depend on several factors, some having little to do with the
relations between the countries. Good relations between India and
Pakistan will strike at the root of fundamentalist Islamic ideology in
Bangladesh and diminish its faith in the sanctity and efficaciousness of
the Islamic ummah. Stronger ties between India and major powers like
China and the USA will have a sobering effect on Bangladesh since they
will weaken Pakistan’s links with Dhaka. Deft handling in India of the
problem areas between the two nations, as seen not only from India’s but
from Dhaka’s standpoint, would disarm the genuine Bangladeshi jingoists
and the habitual anti-Indian propaganda issuing from certain circles in
Bangladesh.
There can be no early final conclusion of this a priori
tension; it will resolve itself as the subcontinent matures from the
events of Partition and gains more economic self-confidence. Much will
depend on the political will in India, both at the Centre and in the
states bordering Bangladesh, to grasp the existing opportunities and
exercise generosity and goodwill towards Bangladesh with non-sectarian
sympathy and humanitarian sensitivity.
The writer is India’s former Foreign Secretary
Courtesy : The Statesman
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