Manmohon's visit to Bangladesh: Challenges and opportunities

2 September 2011, 18:00 PM

Sultan Mohammed Zakaria

Photo: Gurumia And Subashindu.instablogs

INDIAN Premier Dr. Manmohan Singh is scheduled to make a two day official visit to Bangladesh on 6th September 2011. During the visit, he is expected to discuss the entire range of bilateral issues including cooperation in trade, connectivity, water resources management, land boundary demarcation, border management, security, etc. Expectations are running high that some ever lasting disputes will be settled, at least the process would start. Many say that this is one of the unique opportunities for India to convince its small worried neighbour that it pays heed to Bangladesh's concerns and it does so with positive intent. India has to do it for its own sake. The state is aspiring to be one of the upcoming leaders in the regional and global stage -- both economically and militarily. But it will face a fierce challenge from another great Asian giant China. The geographic location of Bangladesh and its contiguous maritime spaces are of growing strategic importance to many, especially to China. Besides, the increasing economic and military presence of China in South Asia has caused a lot of irritation to its Indian counterpart. However, experts would rather like to term it as a good balance of power in the region that has been the catalyst for the security of other small neighbours and buffer states situating in-between China and India. Now, for India and China, an antagonistic approach to address any bilateral problems with neighbours will only cost their own securities in the long run and they must have to realise that. For Bangladesh's point of view, maintaining good relations both with China and India is an imperative for a small state like Bangladesh. Besides, both giants have proven-strategic-ties with Bangladesh that largely defines the internal and external political dynamics of the country. But it has also to be remembered that there is always a greater risk to annoy your next door neighbour than the one residing at arms length. India and Bangladesh should realise this sort of risks and rather see their inter-dependency from a positive slant. Ironically, while talking about India-Bangladesh relations, there has been less to cheer about until recently. Therefore, for a meaningful cooperation and a sustainable relation, both India and Bangladesh have to do their own part without being too late. During the Bangladesh PM's recent visit to India, Bangladesh has shown a lot of positive intents to ameliorate the fragile relationship and started to deliver whatever it realistically can. Now when the Indian PM is reciprocating, there are a number of issues that his country immediately needs to address to quell the tense of the other side of the border and to give the changing mood a more sustainable frame. The most prominent one is the water sharing and maritime boundary disputes. Of the water sharing disputes, sharing the water of Teesta River and Gajoldoba barrage project has been the second-most serious concerns for Bangladesh, only after Ganges, for decades which affects the river flow downstream and disrupts the navigability of the Teesta and ecology of the northern districts. The Tipaimukh dam project is the new addition to the river-dam-problems. Disputes surrounding maritime boundary also need to be settled for strategic reasons. Three issues that impede maritime settlement include claim over New Moore (South Talpatti) island, flow of the river Haribhanga, and the demarcation of sea boundary. All these have to be settled sooner rather than later. Border demarcations, management of border and its security, and transfer of enclaves remained as other major sources of concerns over the decades. Un-demarcated 6.5 kilometres border including some riverine parts in Comilla-Tripura area, enclave issues -- Bangladesh has 51 enclaves inside Indian Territory and India has 111 enclaves inside Bangladesh -- also demand immediate resolution. Although Mujib-Indira Agreement of 1974 provided the framework to address and resolve the boundary and enclave issues, many experts blame the Indian governments for their sheer unwillingness and indifference to comply with the agreement. Killing people along the border line is also a very nasty element that is jeopardising all other good initiatives. Regarding the transit issue, one of the main reasons Bangladesh has been reluctant to permit such facilities to India is that it was asking for similar facilities from India to access Nepal and Bhutan. There are also security issues that must be addressed while brokering any deal on transit. Steps to minimise the trade gap and imbalances will surely be an agenda in the upcoming dialogue. There are plethora of allegations from the Bangladeshi exporters that their products often face severe tariffs, para-tariff and non-tariff barriers and other bureaucratic hurdles in India. There has been a case that even had to be initiated in the WTO dispute settlement process (anti-dumping duties on Rahim Afroze Batteries, Dispute DS306, WTO). Despite the fact that Trade Complimentary Index between Bangladesh and India is quite low (5.42 now), one needs to understand that New Delhi's lenient approaches is not the panacea to redress this mammoth imbalance, rather Bangladesh needs to diversify it export items that can secure the greater access to Indian market. Bangladesh and India have to learn to live with their unavoidable neighbours and subsequently should create an enabling environment -- inside and outside -- where both countries can negotiate with ease and confidence. For Bangladesh, a broad-based national consensus amongst the political actors must be reached about its external relations and some of its political actors must have to come out of negative politics. For India, it has to find a balance in maintaining relations amongst the political actors in Bangladesh as well as it needs to correct its own indifferent and sometimes dominating attitudes towards Bangladesh. Both the countries have to acknowledge that playing zero-sum game may not help each other, instead may prove counter-productive as both countries have some strategically significant elements that made them very much inter-dependent. A win-win situation will help the both to grow faster in a world which is rapidly shifting its balance from the West to East. In this era of globalisation where the world is becoming promisingly much closer and borderless, there is also a risk that the problems of any society can spill over across the border and spoil the party of the others. Nobody can really deny this new reality. Therefore, it is imperative for both Bangladesh and India to realise that the fruits of cooperation will not only serve their positive interests but will help diffuse the negative elements as well. The task is challenging, but if you have a visionary look at the opportunities, you will always strive to go for it. The writer is an analyst on strategic affairs and a freelancer.