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| Edited By: Ranajoy Sen |Source: DNA |Updated: Apr 12, 2017, 08:41 AM IST
Relations among countries in South Asia are characterised by bonhomie, appreciation, yeastiness, as also outright acrimony. India, being the largest political jurisdiction in the region, significantly determines regional diplomacy through its bilateral relations with other countries of South Asia. At present, the cursor of Indo-Bangladesh relations appear to be pointing to a relatively positive high index, surrounding the just-concluded visit of the Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to New Delhi. Nevertheless, there is an admonitory rider entailing ambivalence, laced with dissatisfaction, over a continuing hitch regarding water sharing facilities of the Teesta River.
The official visit by Hasina to New Delhi has contributed substantially to improved relations between the two countries: symbolically and in substance. It had been hoped by both sides that the visit would exude bilateral bonhomie. That hope has not been belied. During the course of the visit, sundry agreements have been finalised; appropriate progress and implementation of them are bound to increase the expediencies in bilateral relations between India and Bangladesh.
Sheikh Hasina’s dispensation in Bangladesh, by several indications, has striven and is still striving tenaciously to battle and comprehensively defeat the scourge of terrorism and Islamic extremism and its benefactors from the soil of Bangladesh. Her government has also worked towards large scale socio-economic amelioration for the people, to bring about social stability, ensure that any form, explicit or implicit, of anti-India activity is thwarted and rooted out, and endeavoured for a peaceful, yet well-guarded border with India. Her aim appears to be to emphasise more economic diplomacy with India as also with other countries to propel the graph of human development index northward – undoubtedly a highly effective antidote for extremism and illegal immigration. To that extent, Indian PM Narendra Modi appears to have ensured that all these laudable steps by the Hasina administration were met by appropriate rejoinders from India.
India has announced a generous economic support programme for Bangladesh, highlighted by a net $5 billion credit line to that country; possibly the largest Indian economic aid to another country, till date. Additionally, 22 pacts have been signed with Bangladesh. They cover crucial areas such as defence cooperation, cyber security cooperation, civil nuclear energy, railways and bus services between Kolkata, Dhaka and Khulna, freight train passage, and building a diesel pipeline in Bangladesh. However, clarity on Indian participation in the Ganges barrage and Rampal coal-fired projects in Bangladesh is still at large.
Indian private sector investment for Bangladesh has been highlighted by the agreement of Reliance Power (RP) with Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) for the first phase of a major LNG power project at Meghnaghat near Dhaka and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between RP and PetroBangla to set up an LNG terminal at Kutubdia Island near Chittagong. For a power-starved and development-aspiring country, such clean energy projects are crucial.
The Teesta river water sharing conundrum is yet to be resolved. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has stated that while she is not at all averse to water sharing with Bangladesh, it could not be done by creating water difficulties for her state. She has called for the long-due necessary dredging of other rivers flowing into Bangladesh and for sharing Torsa’s waters with it. Teesta, Torsa and about 52 other minor rivers flow through West Bengal before entering Bangladesh.
While there is substance in Banerjee’s views, it is not as easy as it might sound. A solution needs to be hammered out of this sensitive water issue, where both India and Bangladesh would carefully weave out an arrangement with appropriate adjustments, which would address the core issue to the satisfaction of both countries.
After reaching Dhaka, Sheikh Hasina could encounter critical political articulations, essentially surrounding the Teesta River issue, as also on other unrelated issues, by her political opponents for the sake of gaining political capital. But, with much creditably to speak of back home from this visit to India, there are no reasons for her to not be able to manage it. There are pointers to infer that this bilateral relation has the potential for greater stability and fruitfulness.
The author writes on international economics, trade, money and finance -- and on world politics.
