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Accords galore

The signing of 22 agreements between Bangladesh and India during the visit of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh early his…

Accords galore

(Photo:SNS)

The signing of 22 agreements between Bangladesh and India during the visit of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh early his month and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of a concessional line of credit of $ 4.5 billion for projects in Bangladesh, mainly for infrastructure development and a line of credit of $500 million for “defence-related procurement” by Bangladesh — the largest such credit ever extended to any country by India — have been well received in both the countries and hailed as ‘ transformative’ in the Indian media.

In Bangladesh too it was viewed as the beginning of a new phase in the Bangladesh-India bilateral cooperation, which is sure to strengthen sub-regional initiatives, especially the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical Cooperation and the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal initiative.

The joint statement condemning terrorism and the need to take strong measures against states “which support and finance terrorism, provide sanctuary to the terrorists and falsely extol their virtues” clearly points to Pakistan as the source of terror.

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A significant feature of the visit is the signing of 14 agreements and memorandums of understanding between Indian private corporates and their Bangladeshi counterparts to enable India’s globally renowned companies like the Adani group to enter into the Bangladesh energy sector. The two Prime Ministers formally launched additional rail and bus services between the two countries.

Do these developments suggest that “geo-economics” is at long last prevailing over some compulsions of cynical geopolitics of South Asia? It is probably too early to think so as the foundation of the democratic “modern” State is still fragile in Bangladesh because the Islamist forces fuelled by outside support hold influence enough to disrupt these bold strategic initiatives founded on the unstated fact that the partition in Eastern India, covering Bengal and Assam was “unnatural” as it ignored the reality of geography and ecology.

Bangladesh is almost entirely a delta, criss-crossed with rivers, rivulets, creeks and bay islands; and a delta doesn’t lend itself to a political division. In fact except Bengal no large delta has been partitioned in the world so far. Thus nature has positioned Bangladesh as a lower riparian country as 54 out of 57 rivers of Bangladesh originate in India and three in Myanmar.

This suggests a spirit of willing accommodation as the only durable basis of a mutually beneficial water sharing arrangement of such rivers since there is neither international law nor a juridical system in place to secure the rights of the lower riparian countries and hence, the only course is bilateral agreement.

Bangladesh is thus endowed with the largest number of “international rivers” as defined by HA Smith in The Economic Use of International Waters in which he propounded the doctrine of riparian rights, which entitles a lower riparian country like Bangladesh to a share of the natural flow of water. Bangladesh enjoys yet another feature of being the only large Islamic country that doesn’t share land borders with another Muslim majority state; and its nearest Muslim neighbour is the multi-ethnic and multireligious Malaysia, far removed from mainstream Islamic states of West Asia.

These facts suggest that future progress of Bangladesh would critically depend on cultivation of liberal and secularist values and institutions of governance that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib stood for and not “political Islam”, which will only obstructs development. Faced with the reality of having to live with 57 international rivers, Bangladesh endorsed the 9 July 1997 UN General Assembly Resolution on non-navigable uses of international water courses while China voted against it and India, Israel and Pakistan abstained.

Even though 106 nations did vote for it and the convention is viewed as “codification of customary international law by the International Court of Justice and as a framework for management of international rivers”, it has not been ratified so far.

However, some of its provisions, like the prior intimation to user countries of any interference in any such river systems and consultations, have been adopted as standard practice. Even then as global experience with the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty has shown, faced with strong national interest only bilateral negotiations based on the principle of “give and take” work.

And, this could be the only way to resolve not only the Teesta water sharing deal but also other outstanding issues like the construction of a 162.5 metre-high embankment dam at Tipaimukh in Manipur for generating 1500 MW, which Bangladesh fears will adversely affect the flow into the Surma and Kushiara rivers in Bangladesh, apart from causing serious damage to the environment.

One may also note that there was no mention of any thought on the major concern of Assam, namely, the influx of people from Bangladesh. However, Bangladesh must have noted the seriousness with which India is proceeding with the task of constructing 3,400 km of barbed wire fencing and concrete posts to prevent influx and smuggling by setting a timeline for completing the task by 2017. As of now, 222 km of 263 km of Assam’s border with Bangladesh have been fenced and serious efforts are on to seal the border with Assam and Tripura.

Hopefully, these efforts will bear fruit and facilitate expansion of “border haats” along the entire North-east portion of the India-Bangladesh border, and especially in Meghalaya as it shares 443 km of border with Bangladesh, crucial for trade and development of tribes.

It is not widely known that the partition badly divided the Khasi and Garo tribes as many of them found themselves on the “other side” and thus expansion of border trade might reunite the tribes on bonds of trade and cultural exchange. In a way, border fencing is symbolic — it is India’s rejection of any neo-Wahabi form of Islam and determination to stop its spread emanating from Eastern Bengal as it did in the early 19th century when Wahabis from this very region, then known as “Farazis” went all the way to the North West Frontiers to fight the forces of Maharaja Ranjit Singh as documented in William Hunter’s seminal work, The Indian Mussalmans.

But not anymore, as a rapidlymodernising Bangladesh is essential for development of the Bay of Bengal region. And this geopolitical advantage and importance that Bangladesh holds are what Pakistan cannot have as it has mortgaged its future to volatile lands of oil and sectarian violence to her West.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, gave the world the “Grameen” model of women-led self-help groups movement and the credit-based income generation programme, which triggered broad-based social development, raised female literacy, life expectancy at birth, brought down the birth rate, ensured women’s participation in the economy and, improved sanitation and water supply to the extent that the country today is largely an “open defecationfree” country.

This dynamics enabled Bangladesh to climb up in the UN Human Development Index to the 139th rank and her economy, growing at 7.1 per cent over the last eight years, which the IMF reckoned as the second fastest even when the Foreign Direct Investment was limited to $ 2.2 billion only.

Expansion of trade with India is therefore critical for Bangladesh, which has grown to $ 6.5 billion though Bangladesh exports are hovering around $ 500 to 700 million. The real constraint on growth of merchandise exports is poor infrastructure, which stands in the way of Bangladesh emerging as a new Asian hub of low-cost manufacturing as rising labour costs in China might induce Chinese firms to move elsewhere as costs are less and labour productivity comparable.

To overcome this, Bangladesh needs infrastructure investment of $ 20 million annually till 2030 “to take advantage of her demographic dividend and cheap labour costs” as stressed by Sheikh Hasina.

In this scenario the inking of 14 agreements with Indian companies entailing private investment of about $ 9 billion during the visit and her promise of allocating 100 special economic zones to Indian companies should be truly reckoned as “transformative”. Its outcome, however, will depend on how effectively the state and the civil society of Bangladesh counter political Islam. Herein lies the challenge to realise Sheikh Mujib’s idea of a secular, socialist and democratic Bangladesh.

The writer is a retired ias officer of the assammeghalaya cadre and has served as a scientific consultant in the office of the principal scientific advisor to the government of india

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