New government at the Centre disturbing improved relations with Bangladesh would lose credibility internationally

SUBIR BAUMIK

Whoever forms the next government in Delhi will have to face a host of serious foreign policy issues. Repairing frosty relations with the US without surrendering to Washington and carrying forward improving relations with China, simultaneously, would be the biggest foreign policy challenge for the new government. But the immediacy of settling the line on Bangladesh cannot be underestimated. 

Former MEA secretary (east) Rajiv Sikri has observed that Bangladesh is India's most important neighbour — more important than Pakistan in many ways. India's military intervention in 1971 to create this new nation was motivated by her concern for its own insurgency-ravaged northeast. 

A friendly Bangladesh was seen as the best guarantee for the security of India's east and northeast — a region afflicted by underdevelopment and prone to ethnic separatism, which was fuelled by strong support from both Pakistan and China. 

Indira, Mujib's Legacy 

Indira Gandhi's wisdom was carried forward by Manmohan Singh when he sought to carry bilateral relations with Dhaka to a new high. With Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's daughter Sheikh Hasina in power and willing to deliver on India's security and connectivity concerns, Manmohan's 2010 Dhaka visit set the stage for a huge breakthrough. 

But Mamata Banerjee's fierce opposition scuttled the Teesta water-sharing treaty and made it difficult, if not impossible, to implement the land boundary agreement signed during Singh's visit. The security situation in India's troubled northeast is better than ever before after Bangladesh's crackdown on northeast Indian rebel groups based there. 

A Chittagong court has awarded death sentences against two former ministers, two former intelligence chiefs and Ulfa military wing supremo Paresh Barua in a 2004 arms smuggling case, underscoring the importance of a friendly regime in Dhaka for India's security. 

Delhi-Friendly Dhaka 

That the two ministers belonged to the BNP-Jamaat alliance and the arms were being smuggled with the connivance of senior functionaries of Khaleda Zia's government stands in stark contrast to the crackdown on the rebel groups after Hasina took charge. But a change of regime in Dhaka could make a lot of difference. 

It is payback time for Delhi and the next government would have to find ways to carry forward the Teesta water-sharing deal and implement the land boundary agreement. BJP hardliners like Subramaniam Swamy have gone to the absurd extent of demanding Bangladesh land for settling illegal migrants from there. 

The party will have to distance itself from such positions. Narendra Modi will have to refrain from talking about sending all Muslims in Bengal back to Bangladesh. If he takes his Rajdharma seriously, there is no way Modi can reverse Manmohan's Bangladesh policy. 

If India fails to push the Teesta and land boundary agreements, no other country would take India seriously or come forward to resolve contentious issues. The BNP is already stepping up the heat on the Teesta issue. 

On April 22-23, it organised a Long March to the Teesta barrage at Nilphamari in northern Bangladesh, blaming the Awami government for failing to clinch a deal with India. A low waterline in the Teesta is an emotive issue with farmers in northern Bangladesh. The BNP wants to corner the Awami League on this, after failing to dislodge it through an agitation leading to a poll boycott. 

Tripping Over Hard Line 

Hasina is understandably worried. A coalition of regional parties with Mamata Banerjee as an important player is her worst-case scenario because the Bengal chief minister would do all to block the Teesta and land boundary agreement. 

With Congress looking on its way out and the Left not as influential as before, her only hope is a BJP government that does not pander to its hardliners like Swamy or Assam unit chief Sarbananda Sonowal, and implements India's sovereign commitments. Failure to do that would not only undermine India's credibility but also adversely affect its most trusted ally in the region. 

In 2001, the BJP decided not to put its eggs in one basket and A B Vajpayee's national security adviser Brajesh Mishra rushed to congratulate Khaleda Zia on taking over as Prime Minister, even as Hindus were suffering one of the worst recent pogroms inflicted by BNP-Jamaat hardliners. 

If Vajpayee got Kargil for Lahore, he was rewarded by heightened Bangladesh support for northeastern insurgents, a point the 2004 Chittagong arms case drives home. 

Modi or any other BJP prime minister should not repeat that mistake because there is nothing to suggest the BNP-Jamaat combine would address India's security and connectivity concerns like Hasina has. 

It is easy to argue Indian policy should not be regime-specific but what can Delhi do if some regimes warm up to it while others remain perpetually hostile. Bangladesh should be the first priority for the next government in Delhi.

The article was first published in The Economic Times, 8 May 2014

Subir Baumik is a writer, a veteran journalist, is now senior editor with Dhaka-based bdnews24.com

Gearing up for a change of guard

SUBIR BHAUMIK

 

INDIA HAS, in recent weeks, formally hosted two senior leaders from Bangladesh - both from the opposition parties. First it was the country's former ruler HM Ershad and then the former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, who was hosted for a whole week. Both met top Indian leaders and expressed satisfaction after the discussions. These discussions may not solve any of the bilateral issues that were discussed - but India's hosting of two opposition figures from Bangladesh at this juncture seems to be significant.

In Dhaka, the political class puts this down to "serious doubts" in the Indian establishment about the ruling Awami League's chances of coming back to power. Since democracy returned to Bangladesh after the ouster of Ershad's military regime, the Awami League and the BNP has turns, winning elections every five years. So a change of guard next year may not surprise anyone, except those who feel the Awami League's massive mandate in December 2008 may have helped it consolidate its position in a nation that was largely frustrated with Islamist excesses, murderous vindictive politics and rotten governance. That has not happened - and for various reasons. Poor leadership, corruptions scams, the needless spat with micro-credit guru Mohammed Yunus - and much more.

But some say the  Awami League has been badly let down by India, after all it has done for its large neighbour. In a country where agriculture is still the occupation of most, water is an emotive issue. India's failure to deliver on the Teesta Water Sharing Treaty has hit Hasina's government below the belt. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was forced to back off on the issue due to the sudden opposition of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. This has become a national embarrassment for Singh and India - but it has become favourite ammunition for attacking Hasina back home.

The same is true about the much-awaited, but the much-delayed, Land Boundary  Agreement involving the exchange of enclaves. Those who follow India's murky coalition politics may appreciate why Singh's hands are somewhat tied, but most in Bangladesh, specially those who gun for the Awami League, have a huge issue to run down the party as an "Indian stooge" that has got nothing for all it has done for India.

The present Awami League government has gone after Islamic radicals and separatist rebels from northeast India with a vengeance after it came to power. Most of the top guns of the northeastern insurgency, except the ULFA's elusive military wing chief Paresh Barua who perhaps fled Bangladesh at the right time, have been nabbed and handed over to the Indian authorities. Some of these leaders have been forced to start dialogues with Delhi after announcing ceasefires.

Bangladesh's security services have started massive operations against Pakistan-engineered operations to use Bangladesh for pushing in huge quantities of Indian counterfeit currency. Hasina's government is also ready to concede to most Indian demands from transit to use of Chittagong port - all that augurs well for India's northeast. But in diplomacy, one has to get something to be able to give something. This is where Hasina has been left high and dry and that, in no small measure, is contributing to the possible erosion of the Awami League's popularity.

As a major regional power, it is natural for India to anticipate a change of guard in a neighbouring country and prepare for it. But why not do it discreetly? The way Begum Zia and Ershad were hosted in Delhi has only convinced Bangladeshis that India has written off the Awami League's chances in the next parliament polls and so is preparing for the inevitable. It was natural for a trusted ally like Hasina to expect a payback from India, Teesta et al, in the run-up  to her poll campaign. The last thing she could have bargained for are the current signals from Delhi that India is preparing to change sides if she does not win.

First published in The Hindustan Times, November 18, 2012

Subir Bhaumik, a veteran journalist, is a Senior Fellow with the Kolkata-based Centre for Study in International Relations and Development

Bangla Begum’s India Visit: Real or Ephimeral?

BHASKAR ROY

Can ideology and political agenda change overnight? At least, that is the message Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Chairperson and former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia carried when she arrived in India on October 28 for an eight-day visit.

Begum Zia came at the invitation of the Government of India.  There have been some comments that this is a change in India’s Bangladesh strategy.  This is not correct.

Certainly, following the assassination of Sk. Mujibur Rahaman in August 1975, New Delhi felt betrayed.  The operation to kill Sk. Mujib was a cooperative venture between the USA (read mainly Secretary of State Henry Kissenger), Pakistan, and a group of Bangladeshis who pretended to be pro-liberation but were trying to reverse history.  Hence, not only the government of India but the Indian people at large burst out with a series of emotions.

Relations began to improve when Gen. H.M. Ershad became president of Bangladesh.  From the 1990s, the Indian government adopted the policy that India will be nice to Bangladesh and ‘hope Bangladesh’ would reciprocate.  And this policy was irrespective of the political party in power at the centre.

With economic liberalization in the early 1990s under Prime Minister Narsimha Rao and architected by Finance Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, India began to grow.  But the growth story would be a greater success if the neighbours also grew together.

But that did not happen.  Pakistan expectedly remained the spoiler.  But there was a great opportunity for Bangladesh to join India.  The entire Bangladeshi policies went through a regressive storm, especially during the BNP’s rule from 2001 to 2006.  The ruling four-party alliance comprising mainly of the BNP  and JEI marked India as the main enemy.  Those were tense years.  The JEI spoke about winning the majority in Parliament by 2013 and bringing Bangladesh under Sharia law.  Some BNP leaders also floated an idea of confederation type of relationship with Pakistan.

The BNP-JEI coalition gave enough opportunities to India to react strongly on the ground.  It was not only of attacks on Hindus just after the elections which saw Hindu migration to India.  An Indian Border Security Force (BSF) officer was abducted from Indian Territory by Bangladeshi villagers assisted by the Bangladeshi border force, the BDR, tortured and killed, and his body taken around tied to a bamboo pole, and photographs widely printed in the media.  Had the BSF retaliated, the BDR would have been routed.  But calmer political counsel prevailed in New Delhi.  Then were many other incidents of provocation.

A major insurgency in North-East India was prevented when ten-truck loads of arms landed in the Chittagong port in April 2004 was accidentally detected.  The BNP-JEI government tried to paper over the incident.  These arms were meant for the Assam insurgents ULFA, the Naga insurgents and others.

This case is in the court now, and witness’ statements  reveal that those involved include Begum Zia’s elder son Tareq Reheman, de facto leader of the BNP, the then Minister of State for Home, Lutffozaman Babar, JEI Chief Motiur Reheman Nizami, and a host of intelligence officers.  Pakistan’s ISI funded the operation through a media front.  The arms were brought from China.

During her meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid, Begum Zia assured they will support anti-terrorism policy and would not allow Bangladesh’s territory to be used against India.  When asked by journalists on the BNP’s position on the Chittagong arms haul case, one of Khaleda Zia’s spokesmen said if they returned to power the case would be reinvestigated by an independent body.  This gives lie to all the nice pronouncements.

Khaleda Zia is on record to say that if her party came to power all agreements with Indian signed by the present Awami League government would be annulled.  The BNP opposed the transport corridor for India to its North-East on several grounds.  The most important reason proferred was if an India-China war broke out, India will be able transfer arms and troops quickly through Bangladesh to its border, and it would annoy China.

The BNP cannot do without the JEI and the other anti-India radical parties.  The JEI has its fixed agenda and has close relations with the terrorist organizations some of which have begun to stir against.  Connections of some of the BNP leaders including that of Tareq Reheman with terrorist organizations is well known and recorded.  BNP-JEI terrorists form a triangular relationship which Khaleda Zia cannot discard.  She knows that if she does so, she will be creating two new and dangerous enemies.  She is caught in that vicious trap.  Khaleda cannot afford to support the Liberation War Crimes trial because it would be counter-productive.

Begum Khaleda Zia’s sudden change is a riddle.  Before coming to India she visited China on a party invitation and a high level Chinese led by Politburo Standing Committee member Li Changchun was in Dhaka and held discussions with her and her party leaders.  At the moment the Chinese do not want instability in South Asia and would have advised Khaleda to mend relations with India.  China had in the past months also advised Pakistan to improve relations with India. For Beijing, Indian influence is preferable to American influence.

After a whole history of anti-Indianism, a sudden showering of goodwill from the BNP is difficult to digest.  For India it will be good if the BNP adopts a normal relationship with India.  If not, the status quo will remain and Bangladesh’s economic development will be hurt.  It will be for the voters of Bangladesh to judge that at the next elections just over a year ahead.

The article is first published in South Asia Analysis Group, Paper No. 5281, November 6, 2012

Bhaskar Roy is a New Delhi based strategic analyst. He can be reached at e-mail grouchohart@yahoo.com