For a friendly neighbour

New Delhi rolled out the red carpet to welcome Bangladesh’s prime minister Sheikh Hasina as its first State guest of this decade.

Overcoming formidable hurdles, Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League swept to a decisive electoral victory in December 2008, winning 230 seats and securing a two-thirds parliamentary majority.

Ever since she was sworn in, Sheikh Hasina has not only faced challenges from rightwing parties including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Khaleda Zia, but also the Pakistani-Saudi assisted fundamentalists of the Jamat e Islami (JeI).

The greatest challenge that Sheikh Hasina overcame in her first year was the mutiny by the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles, which erupted on February 25, 2009. 

The mutineers killed their chief, major general Shakil Ahmed and his wife and dozens of others.  Sheikh Hasina acted deftly in getting a large number of the mutineers to surrender and then permitted the army to crack down using tanks and heavy weapons.

India reacted decisively to the mutiny. It sealed its borders with Bangladesh and forced back mutineers, attempting to cross over.

Sheikh Hasina reciprocated India’s assistance, by acting to force the surrender of ULFA leader Arabindo Rajkhowa, its deputy military commander Raju Barua and others operating from safe havens in Bangladesh.

It has been made clear to North-eastern separatist groups that they could not consider Bangladesh a safe haven.  She has also cracked down on terrorist groups like the Jamat ul Mujahideen and the Lashkar-e-Taiba and acted to pre-empt cross border attacks on India and on the Indian High Commission in Dhaka.

One of the major irritants in relations with Bangladesh has been unresolved differences on demarcating the border. Under the 1974 Indira-Mujib agreement, India is required to return around 111 enclaves to Bangladesh and in return gets 51 enclaves from Bangladesh.

It took us 18 years to lease a small corridor of land near Tin Bigha to Bangladesh, which we were required to do, under the 1974 agreement. Barely 6.5 km out of the 4096 km land border remain undemarcated. Sheikh Hasina secured agreement in New Delhi to move to expeditiously resolve these differences.

A political consensus needs to be built in West Bengal, to resolve the remaining issues of “adverse possessions” and enclaves, which have bedevilled relations through the past four decades.

The most crucial issue for India is “connectivity,” which would involve developing road, rail and river communications facilities in Bangladesh, for promoting access to our landlocked north-eastern states.

By expressing extending a Line of Credit of $1 billion for infrastructural development, India has cleared the way for its involvement in the development of road and rail communications linking our landlocked north-eastern states with the rest of the country.

India can now invest in the development of the Chittagong and Mongla ports, whose facilities would be useful, in return for providing access for goods from Nepal and Bhutan to these ports.

It has been agreed that India would provide assistance for the Akhaura-Agartala rail link and undertake actions to meet Bangladesh’s immediate energy requirements, by sale of 250 MW of electrical power.

Bangladesh presently faces a shortage of around 1800 MW of power and there are indications that in course of time it would need around 1000 MW of power from India. It is, however, important that these agreements are implemented expeditiously.

Two highly emotive issues in Bangladesh —  the sharing of the waters of the River Teesta and the construction by India of the Tipaimukh Dam across the Barak River in Assam — have been addressed during Hasina’s visit.

The sharing of the Teesta River could be addressed as Bangladesh had earlier agreed to “Joint Hydrological Observations,” by both countries, so that future actions are taken on the basis of realities and not unfounded fears.

Considerable effort will be needed to convince public opinion in Bangladesh that their fears that the Tipaimukh dam would promote scarcity, silting and floods in the country, are ill founded and politically motivated.

Sections of the Bangladesh army and its intelligence apparatus have been traditionally anti-Indian and supportive of the BNP and JeI. There appears to have been some change in this mindset in the aftermath of the BDR mutiny.

New Delhi should strengthen military ties with Bangladesh and facilitate greater participation of the Bangladesh military in international peace keeping, to discourage Bonapartist ambitions.

The political mood in Bangladesh can be volatile and one could well see a return to the earlier era of supporting terrorist and separatist elements which are anti-Indian, if Sheikh Hasina falters and cannot fulfil the growing aspirations of her people.

The writer is a former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan