 "sheikh hasina, bangladesh")
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s India visit is crucial because her tenure has made the friendship between the two countries an irreversible fact in the region, diplomat and scholar, Veena Sikri tells Aditi Phadnis.
How should we view Sheikh Hasina’s ongoing India visit?
It would be no exaggeration to say that the visit represents a historic high in ties for both India and Bangladesh. Since January 2009, when she became prime minister for a second time, she had committed to her manifesto for economic growth of Bangladesh and adopted a policy of no malice towards anyone. Her election campaign set the tone for a new phase in India-Bangladesh relations.
She came to India last almost seven years ago. That was an official visit. This time, it is a state visit. That visit saw many breakthroughs: For example, India and Bangladesh agreeing for the first time to a River Basin Management approach. Our bilateral relations always referred to river water sharing. But it was always one river at a time: We first did Ganga (1996), then turned to others. But that was very protracted and an extended process and she probably felt it was just not enough. She has always had a very nationalistic and people-oriented approach to relations with India.
From 2014 onwards, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power, he adopted the Neighbourhood First foreign policy and Bangladesh has been one of the bigger successes. India and Bangladesh have a lot of shared interests — peaceful society, commitment to democracy, economic growth, pluralistic society.
Then, Modi’s visit to Bangladesh was tremendously successful. That momentum has carried on.
Energy has become a defining feature of India-Bangladesh relations….
Bangladesh knows that it cannot grow without energy. So, India is supplying power to Bangladesh through Khulna and on the other side, through Tripura. It has made a huge difference.
But the issue always was gas. Bangladesh would always say it had no idea how much gas it has, but wouldn’t let others find out either....
Yes, that’s right. India had invested in gas exploration in Sittwe, Myanmar, and gas was found there. But how could we take the gas back? The question came up of a pipeline. Second, Bangladesh has always had a very gas-based perspective of growth.
But both things didn’t materialise. The gas pipeline just didn’t work out. We are getting the money for the gas but China is taking the gas. And Bangladesh’s own gas-based growth vision has also not worked. Whether it is a misreading of the amount of gas it actually has, whether it is because of mismanagement of the reserves, we don’t know. The fact is that many multinational petroleum and gas companies present in Bangladesh have lost interest and many have left. So the moment has passed. As a result Bangladesh has been actively looking at other means of energy resources for growth. Now, the approach is different. A trilateral initiative on a hydel power project in Bhutan where power will be transmitted from Bhutan to India to Bangladesh… that kind of trilateral cooperation is being talked about.
Right now, Bangladesh gets all its petroleum products through Chittagong Port. It is a complex process: The oil arrives at a port, it goes onwards by road… We have said: we have the Numaligarh Refinery, we can provide you oil via a pipeline, cutting down cost, pollution, the complication of transportation… So interesting and serious solutions are being considered for problems that confront us both.
Whatever else may be happening in Bangladesh, economic growth is indisputable — six per cent plus, which is remarkable. And the role of energy cooperation in this growth is not given enough attention.
Why is Teesta such a problem?
Even in Ganga Water Treaty, which is working well otherwise, there is a huge problem — and that is dredging. Even in India, dredging has just not taken off. In Bangladesh they haven’t bought a single dredger since 1975 — Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s assassination. So we’re saying we will help them — do joint dredging along the border rivers. Dredging makes such a huge difference! In one part of the Ganga, because of no dredging, so much silt has collected that the water can’t go over the top to the other side. So, naturally the other side will complain that their water has been stopped…
In the Ganga, water flows were measured from British times. In the Teesta, no one has any idea of exactly what the water levels have been… not in the rainy season, not in the summer. Combine this with the fact that glaciers feeding the Teesta are getting depleted very fast. So, in the summer, the levels of water in the Teesta are getting lower and lower. So, you have to look at the problem as something more than just water flows. It has to be river basin management. For example, in a particular basin the water flows are so low, you can’t grow rice. You have to advise farmers to grow other crops that need less water, are more seasonal… This has to be done scientifically and jointly. And it has to be made a viable proposition for farmers.
One of the unambiguous turning points in India-Bangladesh relations was the way the ULFA problem was tackled....
The Khaleda Zia government just didn’t bother about repeated complaints of ULFA activity. And the ULFA gang has made a strong statement condemning the Dalai Lama’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, leaving no one in any doubt who their paymasters have been, all along.
But Sheikh Hasina has always said she will not allow any anti-India activity, no terrorism. The previous regime also said that. But there was no implementation. Khaleda Zia referred to ULFA as freedom fighters. One of those lawyers defending Anup Chetia in court was the wife of a minister in the Khaleda Zia government, defending him on charges of human rights!
But Sheikh Hasina has taken it seriously. She has displayed political will in ending terrorism because she can sense people of Bangladesh don’t want all this. How is supporting Chetia helping them?
But radical Islam? That has seen a dramatic rise and could become the opposition in the absence of a parliamentary opposition....
In the previous Khaleda Zia government, there was the Jamaat-ul- Mujahideen Bangladesh, the people who came back from Afghanistan after 9/11. The government at that time dismissed it as a figment of the imagination; they said there was no such thing. Then one day, 500 blasts went off all over the country. They were low-grade bombs and no one was hurt but it was a show of strength. That created so much dissatisfaction among the people: They said, “This is not the Bangladesh we want”. And in the election that followed, Sheikh Hasina got a two-thirds majority.
In the previous regime, every terrorist attack in India had a Bangladesh footprint. The Pakistanis were operating so well with the Khaleda Zia regime that they took this route — why push terrorists into India through Kashmir when they can just walk across the border?
There is another aspect of this. When Sheikh Hasina came to power, she started the war crime trials. This was an intensely nationalist question, an emotional one. She did it because she realised that the young people of Bangladesh want it. When someone got less than a death sentence, (whatever your view on the death sentence) young people came out in the streets to demonstrate against the leniency shown! That just demonstrated how deep the feelings were. Naturally, the Pakistanis were not happy: They continue to be angry and bitter. Turkey tried to intervene but she stood it out. But the effect was, Bangladesh could not be used as a way to funnel terrorists into India.
Now all that has stopped. True, fake foreign currency is still being smuggled via Bangladesh, but it is not so easy any more. India and Bangladesh are on a path of cooperation that will be hard to reverse.
