Border Crossing

DURING A RECENT BOOK LAUNCH, former diplomat and Congress minister Mani Shankar Aiyar had said that one of the biggest foreign policy failures of post-colonial India was to “live up to the spirit of 1971.” But even as he elaborated on how India had steadily lost ground in Bangladesh and had failed to consolidate a friendship born of the shared experience of a war of liberation, in December 2009 the Bangladesh police nabbed Arabinda Rajkhowa, the ‘chairman’ of the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and his entire entourage at the coastal town of Cox’s Bazar and dragged him back to Dhaka.

Two days later, the ULFA ‘chairman’ and his family, along with a senior military wing leader, Raju Baruah, and his personal bodyguard, Raja Borah, were quietly handed over to the Indian border guards at Dawki in Meghalaya. Unknown to Aiyar, a new chapter was opening in India-Bangladesh relations. And the initiative for that change came from Dhaka – from none other than Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who had personally ordered the crackdown on the Northeast Indian separatists and had it done with the utmost secrecy.

This was the worst setback for the ULFA since it was thrown out of Bhutan in December 2003. In fact, this was worse. In Bhutan, during  ‘Operation All Clear,’ the ULFA had lost four of its best ‘field commanders,’ and some top leaders were arrested. In Bangladesh, however, its entire top leadership, with the exception of military wing chief Paresh Barua, have been nabbed and handed over to India. And this, despite the absence of an extradition treaty between the two countries at that time. The other rebel groups in Tripura and Assam are also feeling the heat.

So when Sheikh Hasina came calling on Delhi this January, it was clearly payback time for India and an opportunity to revive the ‘spirit of 1971.’ This was the first time since Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s assassination in 1975 that the parties running the two nations were the same as in those in 1971 – the Congress is in power in New Delhi, pretty much on its own steam, while the Awami League is back in power in Dhaka with a massive mandate. In fact, the joint communiqué issued during Sheikh Hasina’s visit spoke of this special chemistry: “Both leaders (Manmohan Singh and Sheikh Hasina) agreed that the recent elections in both countries presented them with a historic opportunity to write a new chapter in their relationship.”

So much for the rubbish that India has no favourites in Dhaka – diplomatic mumbo-jumbo that was first voiced by the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s National Security Advisor, Brajesh Mishra, when he had rushed to Bangladesh in 2001 to congratulate Begum Khaleda Zia on her taking over as prime minister. India has to deal with any government in power in any country but  “new chapters” in relationships can only be written with those who recall the “shared bonds of history, culture and aspirations,” as Sheikh Hasina put it so succinctly.

So has India done enough for Sheikh Hasina for her to go back home with enough to show – especially when the discredited Bangladesh Nationalist Party and other Islamic parties are looking for an excuse to play the patriotic card to resume street agitations and a parliamentary ruckus? The Bangladeshi prime minister was candid at her Delhi press conference.  “I think the visit was a great success, we have got many concrete promises, but I don’t know what the Opposition will have to say,” she said. While she has addressed India’s concerns of security and connectivity for her remote Northeast, India has given her a bagful of assurances and some definite deals. The challenge now is to translate these promises into action soon enough.

Sheikh Hasina promised to crack down hard on anti-Indian separatists and Islamic radicals based in Bangladesh, but she insisted that India do the same with Bangladesh mafia dons who have based themselves in Kolkata or elsewhere in eastern India. In fact, when asked about the continued presence of Northeastern separatists in Bangladesh, she pointed out that several of Dhaka’s top crime lords were operating out of India. That’s a fact, not an allegation, and something that India, in general, and West Bengal, in particular, have done very little to address so far.

In fact, during my recent visit to Dhaka, I met some Bangladesh officials involved in the anti-ULFA crackdown. They told me that as a reciprocatory gesture, India should at least catch the most notorious crime lord, Shahadat Hossain, who runs a huge extortion empire in Dhaka from his Kolkata hideout. “He finds shelter with your police and intelligence, who perhaps use him. We can do everything for your security but just give us Shahadat,” said one top police official.

India will also have to restrain the smuggling of the highly-addictive Phensedyl (promethazine) and other India-made cough syrups, which are smuggled into Bangladesh, their quantum running into tens of millions of bottles. These drugs – and not heroin from the Golden Triangle or amphetamines – are ruining the youth of Bangladesh.

India has received a firm commitment that Bangladesh will not tolerate “any anti-Indian activity” on her soil – and the agreements to bring back sentenced criminals will help both countries fight trans-border terror and crime. Bangladesh has also addressed the connectivity problem by agreeing to allow India the use of Mongla and Chittagong ports for the movement of goods to the Northeast by road and rail. Ashuganj in Bangladesh and Silghat in Assam were declared ports of call to facilitate inland waterways use for goods movement to the Northeast. India, in turn, agreed to give Bangladesh road and rail connectivity to Nepal and Bhutan by operationalising the Rohanpur-Singabad broad-gauge link. That bodes well for Bangladesh’s exports to the Himalayan region.

Both sides promised to start the process for comprehensive river water-sharing agreements not only for the Teesta but other rivers originating in India’s Northeast. They also agreed to dredge the Ichamati river that forms a riparian border between them and carry out protection works on many more common rivers. India assured Bangladesh that work on the controversial Tipaimukh hydel project in Manipur would be stopped – a welcome gesture by a giant upper riparian to assuage a poor lower riparian neighbour that is extremely vulnerable to climate change. This needs to be followed up by water-sharing treaties that Sheikh Hasina can project as major gains for her country’s huge peasant population, which holds the key to political power in Bangladesh.

India also promised to add a long new list of Bangladesh-made products to her zero-tariff list. The quotas on their imports also need to go. As Mani Shankar Aiyar had said, Bangladesh products must get unfettered market access in India – and Bangladeshi capital should be encouraged to invest in the Northeast. India’s promise to feed 250 megawatts of electricity from its grid will help Bangladesh tide over her immediate power crisis. The water-sharing treaties, when they happen, will help Bangladeshi agriculture. Indian electricity and market access will boost her industry. And if India keeps its promise of amicably settling her disputed maritime boundary with Bangladesh, it will ensure that our smaller neighbour will not remain sea-locked. The one billion dollar line of credit promised by India will help Bangladesh develop her transport infrastructure, especially the railways.

The mutual support for each other’s candidature for a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council – and Bangladesh’s support for India’s candidature for a permanent SC seat when UN reform is through – also bodes very well for bilateral relations. Indian and Bangladeshi diplomats agree that much ground has been covered during Sheikh Hasina’s visit – but also that much more needs to be done to build on the gains. For, unless India keeps her part of the promises soon enough, the Islamic opposition will begin to cry foul in Bangladesh and drive Sheikh Hasina into a tight corner.