What Sheikh Hasina's visit will mean for India-Bangladesh ties

After being deferred twice in the past few months, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will finally be in India this week. This visit, Hasina’s first in seven years, has been long in the making and New Delhi is hoping to showcase it as an important part of its neighbourhood policy.

Since coming to office in May 2014, immediate neighbourhood has been a top priority for the Modi government. Despite the failure of its initial outreach to Pakistan, its engagements with other neighbours like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have been more productive.

Enclaves

After waiting for over four decades, India and Bangladesh exchanged 162 adversely-held enclaves in June 2016, implementing the landmark Land Boundary Agreement. While India handed over 51 enclaves, comprising 7,110 acres to Bangladesh, the neighbouring country gave India 111 enclaves comprising around 17,160 acres.

It could be accomplished after Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself invested his political capital in sorting this contentious issue. Modi’s visit to Bangladesh in June 2015 resulted in India announcing the $2 billion Line of Credit for developing Bangladesh — largest after the $1 billion announced earlier in 2010. India also agreed to increase power supply from India to Bangladesh from 500 MW to 1100 MW within two years.

On her part, Hasina announced two special economic zones in Mongla and Bheramara for India, aimed at luring economic investment from India. Two bus services — Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala and Dhaka-Guwahati-Shillong — were launched to enhance connectivity between the two neighbours. Delhi and Dhaka also “pledged zero tolerance towards terrorism and extremism.”

Since then, terror cooperation has intensified between the two states with Bangladesh taking serious steps in dealing a decisive blow to separatist Indian insurgent organisations like ULFA and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party had taken a softer line against such groups allowing them to operate from Bangladesh’s territory with impunity despite repeated Indian concerns.

The Awami League government has been more solicitous of Indian concerns and better institutional modalities have evolved over the years to share intelligence. There is now greater convergence between India and Bangladesh on dealing with fundamentalist forces like HuJi, JMB and Harkat-ul-Ansar.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who had refused to accompany former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his visit to Bangladesh in September 2011, joined Modi during his 2015 visit, raising expectations that Delhi and Dhaka might even be able to move forward on an accord on Teesta river water sharing — an issue that has been held up by West Bengal’s concerns.

But with political relations between Modi and Banerjee at an all-time low and water being a state subject, Delhi is not hopeful of concluding a deal on sharing Teesta water any time soon now. Negotiations on Teesta are on for the past almost two decades and the pact is widely viewed as a key deliverable by Dhaka.

China

A pact on Teesta river water would have been a key victory for Hasina but in its absence, New Delhi will try to put its best foot forward. There are some reports suggesting that India is likely to give Bangladesh a credit line of at least $3.5 billion for infrastructure projects during Hasina’s visit. Even if India goes through with this, it would just be fraction compared to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s $20 billion in low-cost loans for infrastructure projects pledged last year.

China’s grip on Bangladesh is tightening despite Hasina’s friendly overtures to India. India is keen on signing a defence pact with Dhaka to wean it away from its overdependence on China which is Bangladesh’s biggest defence supplier. India ideally would like a comprehensive defence pact encompassing training, sale of military hardware and military to military cooperation. But such a defence pact might be politically difficult for Hasina to sell domestically.

Terrorism

Hasina will also be visiting against the backdrop of a fresh surge in Islamic State linked attacks across the country. Bangladesh is witnessing a new wave of violent religious polarisation after the 2013 Shahbagh protest movement, when the Sheikh Hasina government’s decision to execute war criminals from 1971 was met with virulent opposition from the Jamaate-Islami (JeI). Since then radical forces have tried to put up a united front.

The attack on a popular cafe in Dhaka’s Gulshan area on July 1 last year led to the massacre of more than 20 hostages, most of them foreigners. Suicide bombing is on the rise in the country and the Hasina government is intent on taking strong action against provocateurs.

Bangladesh has been voicing its concerns about the terrorism problem in South Asia almost as vociferously as India. It joined India in boycotting the SAARC meeting last year, which was set to be held in Pakistan. It has taken a lead in marginalising Pakistan by joining The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) and the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN) Initiative.

In order to enhance regional connectivity, New Delhi has decided to dredge the Brahmaputra river from Sadia in Assam to Chittagong port in Bangladesh. This Brahmaputra National Waterway-II will have direct access to Chittagong port of Bangladesh, Haldia port of West Bengal and consequently will boost trade with Southeast Asian nations.

It is important for India to get Bangladesh right. Delhi should be sensitive to its concerns and priorities at a time when Dhaka under Sheikh Hasina has been a votary of strong India-Bangladesh ties.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)

Also read: Terror continues to haunt Bangladesh, India must help