Facing up to Modi

It’s time for Narendra Modi to get down to business – to deliver on what he promised his countrymen. The new Indian premier is entrusted with an overwhelming mandate to promote the best national interests in keeping with the BJP’s polls manifesto.

For Sheikh Hasina, who retains premiership through constitution of the 10th parliament even without a ballot, it’s time to react to the “unwanted” regime change in New Delhi. She lacks a popular mandate and thus seeks blessings from the BJP the way Congress patronised her Awami League.

Modi invited Saarc leaders to the swearing-in ceremony and US President Barack Obama was welcome. Hasina, who failed to manage the West after her “reelection,” described Modi as a “great friend of Bangladesh” and her country as his second home. The appeasement suggests her team is Modi-fying party policy.

The landslide has presented Modi with the luxury to become rude or generous, whatever deemed suitable, with others. Contrarily, Hasina, handicapped by deficiency in legitimacy, cannot afford to assert what a national leader should bargain for.

Opinion analysts are locked in debates over whether Narendra Modi, after assuming office, would really deport illegal migrants or infiltrators. I don’t find any reason why it would be a concern for Bangladesh.

As someone who has earned a reputation for his service as Gujarat’s chief minister, Modi can’t afford not doing something on this issue. He should be appreciated for any move to send back Bangladeshi criminals from India for we will then be able to try them.

But, in his references, Modi is wrong on a few counts. The number of illegal migrants is exaggerated, and the absconding criminals are not infiltrators as they chose India as a safe haven. Hindus who migrated to India after 1947 would be excluded from the deportation drive as the BJP manifesto confirms.

Now, Delhi should be told to take back more than 420,000 of the Indian nationals who are working illegally in Bangladesh (out of 500,000) and are sending money through dubious channels. Is it a matter of pride for a bigger country to have a smaller one as the fifth largest source of remittances in such a manner?

India has been a beneficiary of smuggling that often instigates Bangladeshis being killed. Indian authorities should be ashamed of the factories manufacturing illicit drugs (ie phensidyl) near the border, to be smuggled into Bangladesh.

These issues may not draw the attention of the Modi government as the Hasina administration is far from making eyeball-to-eyeball arguments, so the prospect of issues such as sharing the waters of common rivers and settlement of land boundary disputes being resolved is not bright.

Those who say that Modi’s post-polls policy would be different from his pre-election rhetoric are probably unaware that the crackdown on the so-called illegal migrants is an electoral agenda. BJP will, its manifesto says, “address the issue of infiltration and illegal immigrants in the Northeast region.”

Modi’s corporate backers would want to see Bangladesh as an undisturbed market. Accordingly, his men have started the propaganda – BJP is making a U-turn, or a Teesta deal is in the offing.

Modi may be proactive, only to serve corporate India, about removal of some barriers to trade in selected cases. He may act restlessly on issues such as road transit through Bangladeshi territory or the use of Chittagong port by Indian traders. “Now or never” may be Modi’s overture to Hasina.

Dr Gowher Rizvi ruled out a regime-centric perception in Indo-Bangladesh relations. But he addressed a gathering at Dhaka University a few years ago, saying that with Congress ruling India and AL Bangladesh, it was the golden opportunity to strike deals like the one on transit. Professor Harun-or-Rashid contested him, saying it was a matter of the foreign policies of two nations.

It was more of a relation between Congress and the AL. If New Delhi wants friendship with Dhaka and if track-II diplomacy of people-to-people contact is to be upheld, a shift in India’s policy towards Bangladesh is essential.

If Delhi strives for mere gains from Dhaka by initiating, for example, a transit from India-to-India through Bangladesh (to connect seven sisters), it will not be sellable to the Bangladeshi people. Transit or trade cooperation through multilateral arrangement is not a choice for India, as bilateralism is the mantra of not only the Indian establishment, but also of the intellectuals.

When India’s President Pranab Mukherjee refrained from voting in the national elections to maintain neutrality, External Affairs Secretary Sujatha Singh took an arrogant position in the electoral affairs of another country only to rescue an unpopular AL. The top Indian diplomat has offended the Bangladeshi people by joining the conspiracy to hold a farcical election on January 5.

If MODI (modern outlook for development of India) means business with Bangladesh as a whole, the new administration has to break the status quo built in an atmosphere of honeymooning between Congress and the bureaucracy. He has the authority to bring changes.

What will the equation between a politically bankrupt regime and a representative government be? Well, Sheikh Hasina can follow India and allow the election of a strong, popular leader in Bangladesh who can best serve the national interest.