M. Serajul Islam
Syed Akbaruddin, the Spokesman of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, is a superb diplomat. Nevertheless he too, with all his diplomatic acumen, had to dig deep into his inner self to articulate and answer the journalist who asked him recently about the recent visit of the Indian Foreign Secretary to Bangladesh and in that context the present state of India-Bangladesh relations and keep a straight face. The exact words of the spokesman were: “India and Bangladesh relationship today is amongst the best it has been.”
The spokesman made the comment without batting an eyelid and in denial of a few things that have happened to the contrary in the recent state of affairs in Bangladesh-India relations. In doing so, he underlined that there is a great degree of truth in quotes of famous men about who diplomats really are; that they paid to lie for their country.
Modi’s Bangladesh card
For Syed Akbaruddin, who was also the MEA spokesman under the Congress led UPA Government, the snags should be even clearer. Under the Congress, New Delhi and Dhaka were in a hand in glove relationship about which he spoke many times to the media. He was the spokesman when the Indian Foreign Secretary Sujata Singh visited Dhaka before the January 5, 2014 elections and had openly supported the AL Led government to the extent of getting caught pressing HM Ershad to participate in those elections to keep the BNP/Jamat from participating and to ensure that the Awami League would return to power at any cost.
That hand in glove relation is now a matter of distant past that Syed Akbaruddin should know better as an insider. The BJP came to power in May 2014 in the Indian national elections by serving the Indian National Congress its worst defeat ever. Narendra Modi had openly played the “Bangladesh card” with many others to win the elections. The theme of his “Bangladesh card” was that there were 20 million allegedly illegal Bangladeshis in India who would be “pushed back” to Bangladesh from day one of the BJP Government.
The BJP Government moved away from that anti-Bangladesh rhetoric upon assuming power. Instead, it expressed the desire to build upon the excellent relations it inherited from the Congress led government. Its desire to do so is nevertheless a part of the SAARC initiative of the new government for which all SAARC heads of state/government were invited to the inaugural ceremony of Narendra Modi. Sheikh Hasina was the only SAARC leader who was unable to attend the event because she was then on an official visit to Japan. But other than lip service, the BJP Government has so far made little efforts at all to follow the Congress’ footsteps on India-Bangladesh relations and it is now close to a year that it has been office.
Modi, Mamata and politics
It took Sheikh Hasina many months to meet Narendra Modi and that too on the sidelines of the UNGA in New York in October. Many times in was stated in the media in both Bangladesh and India that Sheikh Hasina would visit New Delhi and Narendra Modi would come to Dhaka. That has not happened. It was stated unofficially in the Bangladesh and Indian media that the Indian Prime Minister would visit Dhaka to celebrate with the people and the government of Bangladesh their National Day. It was even speculated that he would on such a visit hand to Bangladesh the Teesta and the Land Boundary deals.
Narendra Modi did not visit Dhaka on Bangladesh’s National Day celebrations. No official explanation has been given because no official dates were announced. However, there was unofficial explanation in the media that the Indian Prime Minister did not visit Dhaka because the LBA and Teesta deals that he wanted to deliver to Bangladesh on his visit to Dhaka were not finalized. The personal problems of Shashi Tharoor, the Chairman of the relevant Parliamentary Committee, were given as a reason for delay in finalizing the LBA. There was no news whether the Teesta deal was ready for delivery although Mamata Banarjee on a visit in Dhaka in February had said that she had given green signal to New Delhi on both the deals. Readers are no doubt aware that under the Congress government, New Delhi had told the AL led government that the West Bengal Chief Minister was using her constitutional power to hold the deals that it was ready to deliver.
That Mamata Banarjee has no constitutional power over the deals has meantime been established. In Dhaka, she had said that she would meet Narendra Modi in New Delhi upon returning from Bangladesh and convey to the Centre personally West Bengal’s no-objection to the deals. Mamata Banarjee duly met the Indian Prime Minister but the two issues were not discussed. In fact, Mamata Banarjee met Narendra Modi not for pushing Bangladesh’s case as she pretended in Dhaka but to plead for waiver for West Bengal’s debts that the Prime Minister rejected summarily.
Delhi not ready to deliver
The Modi-Mamata meeting nevertheless finally established that Mamata Banarjee never had any constitutional power over the Centre to hold the deals. The Indian Constitution gives the Centre both the powers under foreign affairs because the deals involve signing agreements with a foreign country. Water sharing of rivers that rise and flow within India is a state subject; water sharing of an international river is not; it is a central subject. Nevertheless Mamata Banarjee had held up the deals during the Congress led UPA government to extract political concessions by threatening to bring it down by withdrawing TMC’s support; a threat she could have easily carried out. The Congress used the constitutional argument that Mamata Banarjee never herself put forward to bluff the AL led government by passing the blame to Mamata Banarjee.
There is no confusion anymore that political will alone would now decide whether New Delhi hands the deals to Bangladesh or not. Thus Narendra Modi did not visit Dhaka not because of personal problems of Shashi Tahroor or because of any issue related to Mamata Banarjee but because the BJP Government has not yet made up its mind to deliver the deals to Bangladesh. And that does not suggest what Syed Akbaruddin wanted to be believed: “that India and Bangladesh relationship today is amongst the best it has been.” Like the quintessential diplomat, he had lied.
Syed Akbaruddin had also gone into denial about developments over cricket and diplomacy in his assessment of current state of India-Bangladesh relation. Mustafa Kamal, the Bangladesh Minister for Planning who is also the President of the International Cricket Council (ICC) sarcastically and accusingly called the ICC, the Indian Cricket Conference and also accused it for conspiring with the Indian officials and the umpires to defeat Bangladesh in the World Cup India-Bangladesh quarterfinal match. Those accusations went much beyond ICC, cricket and umpires and directly maligned the good name of India.
Cricket, emotions and politics
Prime Minister Hasina backed the accusations of the Minister that hinted strongly that the hand in glove relation between India and Bangladesh established under Congress rule was all but over. Any small doubt that such a relationship was still there was dismissed over the incident concerning the Indian diplomat who was apprehended in Dhaka airport and US$ 38,000 was seized from him because he was unable to produce receipt for it! And the news was promptly released to the media. Dhaka authorities set aside the fact that the diplomat enjoyed diplomatic immunity under which he could not have been apprehended except if Dhaka wanted to send a message of displeasure to New Delhi. During the Congress’ term, Dhaka would not have even in a state of insanity apprehend an Indian diplomat violating his immunity or bring India’s good name into question in protesting a cricket decision.
There is of course no insanity issue here. The AL led government’s actions over cricket and the Indian diplomat were taken deliberately because the BJP Government has not supported it like Congress although its need of such support is now extremely critical to deal with national and international pressures that have mounted upon it for holding fresh elections that it does not want to give knowing it would lose. Meanwhile, it has, absurdly ironical though, also noted the depth of anti-India feelings in Bangladesh that cricket helped to bring to the surface.Even if emotions explained the public outbursts after the India-Bangladesh match; the spontaneous bipartisan jubilation and celebration in the country when India lost to Australia when shoes were thrown in the air was different. Kader Siddiqui acknowledged the paradigm shift in Bangladesh about India when he said publicly that India has never ever been as unpopular in Bangladesh as it is today.
AL and the new reality
The AL has thus deliberately played the “India card” to underline the new reality in Bangladesh concerning India that Kader Siddiqui has underlined. There are also other substantive issues that belie Syed Akbaruddin’s statement and points at deep resentment against India in present day Bangladesh. One is the fact that thousands of Indians whose presence in Bangladesh is not even documented are repatriating humungous amounts of money to India. According to Indian Reserve Bank statistics, Indians in Bangladesh repatriated close to US$5 billion to India officially in 2013! The other news in wide circulation in Bangladesh is that in the wake of political disturbances in the country, close to 30% of Bangladesh RMG market has already shifted to India!
Bangladesh and India, all the above notwithstanding, are neighbours whose futures are embedded in each other for geopolitical reasons where pro-active and mutually beneficial relations are in the interest of both the countries. Unfortunately the Congress while in power decided that only the Awami League could further its interests in Bangladesh. The Awami League reciprocated by giving New Delhi carte blanche support on its critical security interests and a willingness to make it happy over a host of other bilateral issues. The way the Indian Foreign Secretary Sujata Singh conducted herself on her visit to Dhaka created widespread misapprehensions in Bangladesh about India’s intentions as well as that of the Awami League. And when the Congress failed to deliver the two deals, the belief of the people in Bangladesh that the AL was making a mistake by trusting India was reinforced.
Whither Dhaka-Delhi ties?
Congress Government’s way of conducting relations with Bangladesh was both unnatural and wrong. The BJP government by its coolness to Dhaka’s overtures for giving it the same sort of support as the Congress underlined that it too perhaps thought that the way Bangladesh-India relations were conducted during the Congress rule was unnatural and wrong. However, the AL’s use of the “India card” for the first time ever should wake New Delhi for its own sake and seriously reassess its relations with Bangladesh because India has deep-rooted security interests in Bangladesh that are not going to ever disappear. India also needs a friendly Bangladesh for land transit upon which the development of the seven Indian states on Bangladesh’ northeast fully and squarely rests.
The BJP Government should therefore revisit the Congress’ strategy of dealing with Bangladesh; acknowledge it was a mistake and convince the people of Bangladesh that it places the interests of the country ahead of that of any political party. Towards that, it should not delay delivering the two deals any more because it can do so alone with show of political will, and encourage the resolution of Bangladesh’s current dangerous political problems democratically because it was the Congress’ unnatural way of conducting relations with Bangladesh is a major reason for the dangerous political turmoil in Bangladesh today. Perhaps, the MEA spokesman while making his statement had a touch of amnesia and had forgotten that he was representing the BJP Government and not the Congress.
The writer is a former career Ambassador. His email id is ambserajulislam@gmail.com
Source: Weekly Holiday
