Prime Minister Modi of India is finally visiting Dhaka after a year of his taking office in Delhi. He made a departure from the neighbourhood policy of his predecessors by inviting all SAARC heads of state or government and the head of state of Mauritius to Delhi to attend the swearing-in of his cabinet. Our prime minister was visiting Japan and could not attend. Thereafter, he officially visited Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, with goodwill messages and economic cooperation packages. The new Indian leader was and continues to be perceived as signalling, as he expressly did in the last SAARC summit, that Delhi will no more be overbearing in its neighbourly conduct as it used to be under the Nehruvite hangover of colonial legacy of British imperial geopolitical outlook. He has put forward a version of “Indianism” or hindutwa which is claimed to be inclusive (although as yet proving to be intolerant on the ground) and proud of its antiquity projected more by myths than historical evidence, but nonetheless canonized in a sustained social order.
Modi exudes pragmatism
Modi has also been maintaining a level-headed working relationship with Pakistan, setting aside the contentions Kashmir dispute and despite provocations on both sides, and set a not unreasonable precondition for his visit there of detention and speedy trial of a Mumbai attack suspect freed on bail. The Prime Minister of Pakistan, on the other hand, has been warmly received by Modi in Delhi and elsewhere, presumably sending a clear message to all neighbours that the new Indian leadership is committed to regional stability and co-operative development more than throwing Delhi’s weight around.
Modi also warmly received the new Afghan President in Delhi and worked out a steady bilateral relationship with the potential of providing a window for India to the Central Asian theatre. In Maldives, Modi’s scheduled visit was cancelled by Delhi over an unforeseen development of jailing of the former India-friendly president of that country on a questionable charge. The Maldives government, however, has expressed regret over the cancellation of Modi’s visit and eagerness for closer engagement with Delhi.
In the broader Asian context, Modi’s visits to Japan, the USA (as an Asian pivot), Myanmar and China, and visits to Delhi by leaders of those countries and other leaders of the world stage and BRICS brotherhood ahead or in return, has also set the tune of Modi style of new Indian diplomatic engagement with a clear priority of image building for obtaining a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, and a balancing act that has already obtained for India the assurance from USA and China for inclusion in the exclusive club of Nuclear Suppliers. Essentially, the parameters of Modi statesmanship has been articulated in the Obama-Modi joint vision statement of liberal connectivity and inclusive growth for the Asian century, modified somewhat but not deflected by later Modi visit to China where the unmistakable realities of the dynamics of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative, BRICS New Development Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank could not be ignored by a pragmatist Prime Minister of India.
India’s security state
Modi’s Bangladesh visit will in effect complete the cycle of India’s new neighbourly policy reorientation, far out Maldives being more a sideshow of Indian Ocean maritime strategy than a neighbourhood feature. That policy reorientation claims to be inclusive, and responsive to not only concerns of the ruling elite but also aspirations of common people in the regional theatre, if we go by the words of the Obama-Modi vision statement, and its declared intent of both vertical and horizontal inclusion. What may be noted, however, is that the security state of India has not yet changed its extended security zone policy, which directly affects Bangladesh, as it does Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, and possibly Tibetan parts of China.
While the fast-changing geostrategic flux in Asia and the economic and technological developments impacting thereon may in the long run make that security state orientation of India redundant, in the short run we have to live with hurtful consequences of the Indian security state orientation.
The compulsion that drives Indian psy-war agents to invade our folk culture and religious traditions to be overwhelmed by Indian heartland symbols and rituals of unfamiliar and unimaginative superiority posture, the way our border population are cowed by trigger-happy Indian Border Security Force and killed as cow-slaughterers at random, the pain that is being felt by our peasantry and rural folk by diversion of natural water levels over-ground and underground, the singular Indian backing for an authoritarian government with despotic tendencies in Bangladesh marked by what is perceived to be covert Indian collusion in extrajudicial killing and kidnapping practices like in the case of BNP leader Salahuddin’s disappearance for two months and reappearance in Shillong Golf Club grounds in a dazed state, are all matters that cannot but turn the average Bangladeshi mind against Indian power, with or without swagger.
Glib rhetoric for personal gain
Would there be someone tell the Indian Prime Minister that during his Dhaka visit that the government leaders, the fake opposition leaders in parliament, and the mainstream opposition leaders out of parliament all seem to be suppliant, reaching out of all bounds to flatter the visiting Indian Prime Minister and draw his attention to their game of internal power struggle, each side soliciting his tilt in its favour in what is perceived to be India’s kingmaker role in Bangladesh after 1/11. The ordinary citizen in Bangladesh does not accept any such role for any external power. It would be a mistake to take people for granted by any power-lobby in Bangladesh, betting on external support for right to rule Bangladesh.
Under the current regime, notwithstanding the glib rhetoric of politicians in power, those in the services of the Republic have quietly steered many policy directions to protect the interests of the nation-state, the political masters claiming credit but essentially remaining unawares and unable to barter away those interests for petty personal gains. The geopolitical ambience has improved for Bangladesh, yet as the greed of politicians for power as well as material gains appears now to have crossed the bounds of all restraints, one has to appeal to the manoeuvrebility and the watchfulness of the services of the Republic to ensure that national interest may not to thrown to the winds by self-seeking political lobbies soliciting hegemonic indulgence.
Source: Weekly Holiday