M. Shahidul Islam
It’s time to comprehend the reasons behind Delhi’s staunch backing of a political regime in Dhaka that is devoid of legitimacy and is accused of destroying the very democratic fabrics of the nation, including the judiciary and the media, which must remain independent of authoritarian interferences in any functional democracy.
The visit last week to Dhaka of India’s junior external affairs minister, General VK Singh, and a host of other dignitaries from the Indian Northeast states occurred at a time of increased Pakistan–India tension and amidst looming threats against the incumbent Awami League-led regime from the BNP-led 20 party compact that enjoys much more popularity within the voters, according to the outcome of a series of local elections.
Focus on Bangladesh
VK Singh is a former army chief and considered to be an expert on the geopolitical dynamics of Bangladesh and the Indian Northeast vis a vis China. The visit came on the heels of Delhi cancelling the August 25 scheduled meeting between the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan on the pretext that the Pakistani High Commissioner to Delhi, Abdul Basit, had met with Kashmiri leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq.
Basit maintains his meetings with the Kashmiri leaders aimed at building confidence to resolve the Kashmir dispute while Indian external affairs ministry accused Basit of acting contrary to the 1972 Simla Agreement and the 1999 Lahore Agreement that had identified the stakeholders in the Kashmir dispute none other than India and Pakistan.
As the ceasefire violations in the disputed Kashmir border increased many folds in recent weeks, Delhi has begun to focus more on Bangladesh to remove any shred of threat from this benign neighbour which occupies its geo-strategic under valley in the Northeast.
Experts fear that the increased skirmishes at the disputed Kashmir borders could fizzle into an accidental war between the two nuclear armed South Asian neighbours who had fought three major wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.
A nuclear holocaust may be looming in the region, but we must exercise caution about what we write and say. Bangladesh’s new broadcast and media policy has a vague clause that allows interpretation of any writing critical of a friendly government as an offense.
Then again, who shall talk for the interest of this nation when the parliament is bereft of opposition forces; judiciary is under the squeeze of the judges facing the prospect of impeachment by the law makers of a virtual one-party rule; and, the media is being bulldozed to silence? Last week, another journalist named Rabiul (from the Daily Inquilab) has been arrested, taken to remand, tortured and charged of fuming communal hatred for penning the corruption of a Hindu police officer.
Geopolitics on the agendas
However, curiously, General Singh’s visit to Dhaka was touted as a ‘private one’ although much is learnt to have occurred behind the scene. Under the rubric of attending a business seminar, organized by the India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industries (IBCCI). Singh and his team have had all the state protocols and the ostentations, culminating into a series of meetings on the sideline with all the concerned government officials, including PM Sheikh Hasina.
More so, it’s as yet unclear why Singh’s entourage had to include so many dignitaries from the Northeast states – including Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma, Tripura’s industry minister Tapan Chakravarty, Meghalaya’s Parliamentary secretary Kennedy Khyriem, among others.
Sources say the IBCCI seminar and the visit by such a high power delegate aimed at propping up a number of geopolitical agendas undertaken by the Indian ministry for the development of the Northeast. No wonder that the seeming importance attached to Bangladesh – Northeast trading during the publicly-made utterances made little reference to the lopsided status of the bilateral trade in which Bangladesh’s paltry $563.9 million exports to India in the last fiscal stood nakedly exposed against a staggering, and recurring, $4.5 billion worth of exports India had pitched in the Bangladeshi markets; aside from the smuggled goods worth equal amount if not more, pouring into Bangladesh simultaneously.
Instead of addressing such an unacceptable, diabolic status of the existing bilateral trading, Delhi has been continuously harping on the agendas that are aimed more to improving India’s geopolitical advantages and have little to do with improving bilateral trades with Bangladesh. Over 36 items of Bangladeshi export to India face lingering tariff and para-tariff barriers while sharing of waters from common rivers is not an issue deserving Delhi’s focus and attention.
Physical connectivity stressed
According to the Indian ministry of development of the Northeast region, the agendas being pursued aggressively in Bangladesh include (1) Building of inland container port at Ashuganj (2) Widening of Ashuganj-Akhaura road to establish connectivity with Tripura (3) Building Akhaura-Agartala rail link (4) Identification and inclusion of additional routes in IWTT Protocol (5) Building bridge over river Feni (at Sabroom, Tripura), and, (6) Upgrading of infrastructures at all border crossings to facilitate fast moving of heavy vehicles and marine transports through Bangladesh to the seven Northeast Indian states.
Since 2009, a number of MoUs and agreements have been signed between the AL-led regime in Dhaka and the Indian provincial and federal governments to execute this grand vision, which, in reality, had already relegated Bangladesh’s geopolitical stature to an Indian hinterland.
Now look from the geo-strategic prism the ultimate intent of Delhi in attaching little importance on bilateral trade while focusing aggressively to getting a plethora of binding international agreements signed by Dhaka. The law requiring such international treaties’ ratification by the Bangladesh parliament, the main reason behind the stubbornness of the AL regime in holding an inclusive election lay in the same geo-strategic scheme pursued by Delhi.
India’s scheme aims at overcoming the handicaps that Delhi has been encountering since independence. During the 1962 Indo-China war, Chinese troops moved near Tejpur, Assam, while Beijing’s claim of sovereignty over the entire Arunachal Pradesh remains un-relinquished.
This geo-strategic handicap is caused by the lack of space/depth for a lateral movement of troops of the Indian Eastern Command based in Kolkata. Reinforcement from the mainland is also blocked by a constricted Siliguri Corridor straddling between Nepal and Bangladesh that is the only land connectivity under Delhi’s sovereignty.
Northeast: Delhi’s military nightmare
As the Northeast India remains a military nightmare to Delhi, the remedy lies with Bangladesh. Bangladesh’s subservience is viewed as of utmost importance by the Indian strategists and the government alike. Few might be aware that, of the three corps stationed under the Eastern Command (3, 4 and 33 corps), Delhi had disposed all of them against other perceived enemies, not Bangladesh.
And, this paradigm shift occurred since the AL’s coming to power in 2009. The Siliguri (West Bengal)-based 33 Corps is responsible for Sikkim and Western Bhutan while the Tejpur (Assam)-based 4 corps is tasked to focus on Western Arunachal Pradesh and Eastern Bhutan. The 3 corps, based in Dimapur (Nagaland), is positioned to aim at Eastern Arunachal Pradesh and Indo-Myanmar border.
In totality, Delhi has 11 divisions forces stationed in the Northeast, mostly known as mountain divisions (MDs), while another new Striking Mountain Division (SMD) has been added to the force lately.
Any future war with China having the prospect of severing the Siliguri corridor to starve Indian forces of reinforcements, only a pliant regime in Dhaka can help Delhi avoid that grisly prospect by offering a lateral depth to its forces in the Northeast. That being the main preoccupation of Delhi, India-Bangladesh bilateral trade is likely to remain lopsided, and in the backburner, unless Dhaka changes its foreign policy stances.
Source: Weekly Holiday
