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Thursday, Nov 25, 2004

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Opinion - Leader Page Articles

1971: lest we forget

By R. Hariharan

Both India and Bangladesh are guilty of not working towards building a win-win relationship due to their internal and external political preoccupations.

DECEMBER ALWAYS brings poignant memories of 1971. It was on December 16, 1971, that our division marched into Dhaka to liberate an oppressed people. We went on to help in creating a free nation — Bangladesh. But it is the people of Bangladesh who willed its creation; the thousands of jawans of the Indian Army and the hordes of Mukti Bahini fighters only helped the process.

Rarely has an invading Army been welcomed by the people so heartily; even the poorest of the people held out large platters of steaming rice and golden yellow `dal' to the tired and hungry soldiers marching towards Dhaka. People had an ocean of goodwill for India and the Indians; Indira Gandhi was on a par with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in popularity. It is 33 years since Bangladesh came into being; where has all the goodwill gone?

Mutual suspicion, accusing fingers, one-upmanship and political hypocrisy have clouded the scene. Successive governments in both the countries are responsible for this. India's lack of sensitivity to the ground realities in Bangladesh has not helped matters. Bangladesh's Pakistan pedigree left a feeling of insecurity in a whole generation nurtured on the fear of Indian hegemony. India's near-total physical domination of Bangladesh's land borders (except for 193 km with Myanmar) has further aggravated this feeling of insecurity.

There are also historical reasons that gave rise to this latent hostility between the two countries. Bangladesh as erstwhile East Bengal played an important role in the Partition. Its emergence as Bangladesh in 1971 was a historical turnaround brought about with the help of India. Thus it is not surprising that there exists a love-hate relationship between India and Bangladesh, just as there is an inner conflict in the Bangladeshi identity.

Bangladesh is a product of Bengali nationalism overtaking the Islamic identity. Even after three decades of independence, intellectuals in Bangladesh are still debating whether it is a `failed state' or a `dysfunctional state'. They are doing so for good reason. The young democracy forged with the sweat and blood of the people has not been allowed to bloom in full, thanks to self-serving politicians and the Army's periodic forays to grab power. Power brokers leading the political parties have stifled the growth of democratic institutions. Thus democracy in Bangladesh is still a potted plant.

A predominantly Muslim nation, Bangladesh is neither wholly Islamic nor totally secular. On attaining independence, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman made it a secular nation. General Zia-ur-Rahman seized power in the turbulent aftermath of the massacre of the ruling Awami League leaders including the father of the nation, Mujib. Martial Law was proclaimed and political activity controlled. Zia wooed the Islamist elements at home for political reasons and the Islamic countries for economic reasons.

As a result, Bangladesh, which was a secular, socialist state, became a socialist republic with Islam as the state religion. The national dilemma has been whether to go along with other frontline Islamic states such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, or to reinforce its credentials as a Bengali-speaking democratic Muslim nation, somewhat on the lines of Turkey. Its population is buffeted between these two cross currents.

The United States-led `global war on terrorism' has slightly pushed this dilemma to the background, because Bangladesh has a big economic stake in the goodwill of Americans. However, in Bangladesh society there is a small but strongly entrenched fundamentalist element. This has been nurtured over the years on a `hate India' propaganda from the Pakistan days.

These fundamentalists have identified themselves with ultra conservative elements that are closer to the jihadis fighting the U.S. and its allies the world over. They are going to be a permanent threat to India, whether Bangladesh recognises it or not. Fortunately, the two fundamentalist parties in the ruling coalition — Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and the Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ) — command an average of 10 per cent of the votes only.

It is this entrenched segment that has influenced Bangladesh attitude towards India in a number of ways. That a number of insurgent movements in India's Northeast have established sanctuaries on Bangladeshi soil is a manifestation of this attitude. (In fairness, this phenomenon started before Bangladesh came into being.) Raising the bogey of Indian hegemony, this extreme Right-wing nexus has blocked a healthy and natural growth of India-Bangladesh relations, be it in commerce, development or people-to-people contact. The Bangladesh Army also has in its fold elements that retain the anti-Indian attitude of the Pakistan legacy. Other than these segments, the Indian hegemony line has many takers across party lines.

Thus a number of even ordinary issues between the two countries, such as transit facilities for Indian goods, problems of the lower riparian, trade imbalance to the detriment of Bangladesh, and the sale of Bangladesh energy resources to India, have not been resolved so far.

But the healthy sign is the presence of a silent majority of Bangladeshis, which values its Bengali national identity. Though these Bangladeshis are a little suspicious of India due to historical reasons, they would like close ties between the two countries, naturally to the advantage of Bangladesh. It is this constituency that forms the bulk of the population. Unfortunately, the activities of the Islamist elements are what catch the headlines.

It is not that India-Bangladesh relations have been strained since the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Bilateral relations warmed up in 1996, when the Awami League came to power again. A 30-year Ganga water-sharing agreement was signed in December 1996, after an earlier agreement lapsed in 1988. Both nations have also cooperated on flood warning and preparedness. A peace accord signed in December 1997 between the Bangladesh Government and the Chakma tribal insurgents allowed for the return of tribal refugees from India. They had fled in 1986 to escape violence caused by an insurgency in their homeland in the Chittagong Hill tracts. (However, the full implementation of this agreement has been stalled, with the army maintaining a strong presence in the area.) Much of the goodwill was lost when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance came to power on strong `Indian hegemony' rhetoric.

Both India and Bangladesh are guilty of not working towards building a win-win relationship due to their internal and external political preoccupations. In India's foreign policy spectrum, Pakistan occupies the predominant place to the detriment of ties with other neighbours. India has not made studied efforts to build its constituency across the political spectrum in Bangladesh due to its close identification with the Awami League. While the special place the Awami League enjoys in the Indian eyes is understandable as a historical legacy, this affinity should not cramp New Delhi's style in dealing with Bangladesh as a nation.

The global terrorism scene has made it imperative for both Bangladesh and India to build a synergy in the security set-up. In this context, two important issues — illegal Bangladeshi immigration into India and sanctuaries to anti-Indian insurgents in Bangladesh — assume a great deal of importance to India's national security. A free trade agreement and greater Indian investment are attractive propositions for Bangladesh. To achieve these, Bangladesh needs to have a smooth relationship with India. With a growing terrorist threat in the region and within Bangladesh, it cannot afford to trivialise issues of India's national security and expect New Delhi to respond positively on other issues. The sagacity of political leadership lies in solving the contentious.

To start with, both countries can put all other issues on the backburner and evolve a working security relationship that will banish terrorism from the neighbourhood. They will have to work out a plan to sell the idea to the public in both the countries. Once the minds at the top are made up, handling the existing contentious issues will become a lot easier.

(Col. Hariharan (retd.) is an intelligence analyst with more than two decades of experience in counterinsurgency intelligence. He was military intelligence specialist on Bangladesh.)

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