The Hindu : Dealing with neighbours

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 20, 2003

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Dealing with neighbours

By Wasbir Hussain

Relations between India and Bangladesh have been stormy for more reasons than one... Sometimes, a small goodwill gesture can go a long way.

INDIA AND Bangladesh were engaged in high-level bilateral contacts in Dhaka against the backdrop of Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's latest "hands of friendship" policy towards Pakistan. It was not surprising, therefore, to find media coverage of the meeting between Indian Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal, and his Bangladeshi counterpart, Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury, and that of the chiefs of the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), lost in the heat and euphoria of what is seen as a thaw in Indo-Pakistan relations. But, what has generally been lost sight of is the thaw in relations between India and Bangladesh that seems to have been brought about by the meetings between Mr. Sibal and Mr. Chowdhury as also the interaction between BSF Director-General, Ajai Raj Sharma, and the BDR chief, Jahangir Alam Chowdhury.

Thirty-two years after India directly helped in the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistani yoke, it is rather ironical to talk of a thaw in relations between the two neighbours. At the same time, it would be naive to expect Dhaka to be ever grateful to New Delhi and, therefore, expect an undiluted India-friendly foreign policy. The reality is that relations between India and Bangladesh, which share a 4,095 KM long porous border, have been stormy for more reasons than one.

From New Delhi's point of view, there are three major areas of discord: first, is the issue of separatists in the Northeast operating out of well-entrenched camps in Bangladeshi territory. Then comes the contentious issue of illegal migration of Bangladeshis into India. And, third, Dhaka not allowing India access to the Chittagong Port that can service the northeastern States. In so far as Bangladesh is concerned, it wants duty-free access to the Indian market for its goods and to improve the balance of trade that is heavily tilted in India's favour, with the annual official trade gap being put at $1 billion.

Going by the responses of both sides, the Foreign Secretary-level meeting in Dhaka, held for the first time since December 2000, has been hailed by the media in Bangladesh as well as in India as being on the right track. Bangladesh responded to India's concern and specific mention of locations of camps of Northeast insurgent groups in that country by saying that it would not allow its territory to be used by forces "inimical to India's interests". It was also agreed that procedures previously arrived at to stop illegal cross-border movement of people will be implemented. What has enthused the Bangladeshi media is that the two sides focused on the positive aspects of the relationships between the two nations rather than the negative areas. As The Daily Star, a leading English newspaper from Dhaka, said: "What seem to have been the icing on the cake are some (of) the new ideas struck for cooperation in the IT sector and in the area of storm surge reduction management."Sometimes, a small goodwill gesture can go a long way, and that is what seems to have happened when India offered to help Bangladesh in the IT sector as well as in cyclonic-tidal-surge-management. Mr. Sibal said that two schools would be selected from each of the 64 districts in Bangladesh and would be provided with five computers each. Besides, 250 schoolteachers would be trained by Indian experts in IT.

These are smooth steps. What remains to be seen are specific measures taken by Dhaka against insurgents from India's Northeast operating from Bangladesh — deny them access, snap ties between these rebels and their local Bangladeshi collaborators, instruct banks in the country to watch out for transactions by rebels themselves or their front companies, rein in radical Bangladesh Rifles commanders on the border and make sure that operatives of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) do not get to contact the Northeast separatist leadership.

This could be New Delhi's wish list, but Dhaka may find it difficult to give in to many of them. But, Bangladesh may begin by admitting the presence of Indian separatists in the country — as Bhutan has done — rather than consistently deny their existence within its territory. Dhaka's single major claim of not giving anti-India forces any leeway, the arrest in 1997 of Anup Chetia, general secretary of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), does not seems to cut ice anymore. What is needed are concrete steps to dismantle Indian insurgents' camps within that country. Within a 24-hour stretch on May 6 and 7, tribal insurgents killed as many as 32 people in Tripura, one of the massacres taking place at a location just half-a-kilometre from the border with Bangladesh. After the massacre, the Tripura Chief Minister, Manik Sarkar, said that unless the militants' camps inside Bangladesh are dismantled and the rebels are denied safe sanctuaries across the border, insurgency in his State was not going to end. He quoted locals as saying that the suspected rebel cadres belonging to the outlawed All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) who carried out the May 6 midnight massacre of 19 non-tribals at Simna Colony, 45 km north of Agartala, crossed over unchallenged into Bangladesh after the attack.

Dhaka's claims that no Indian rebel group has camps inside Bangladesh, and that it would not encourage any anti-India activity from within its territory need to be viewed in the context of reports in recent months of terror groups becoming active in the country. The western media has been saying that Bangladesh has become a new theatre of Al-Qaeda and other Islamist fundamentalist groups. Late last year, Time even went to the extent of saying that ULFA representatives too were among those who attended a meeting of jehadi groups at a secret rendezvous in Bangladesh. There are also suggestions that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia_described as a mix of "religious nationalists, militant fundamentalists and subdued communists" is either lending support or is being soft towards the radical jehadi groups and their supporters. The ruling BNP aiding these forces or the ULFA attending a meeting of jehadi groups may not be true. What cannot be ignored, however, are the discussions in intelligence circles of a local terror group, the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), with an estimated strength of 2,000, being quite active in Bangladesh, and that this outfit is allied to Al-Qaeda.

With the fast-paced developments on the counter-terrorism front across the world after 9/11, it would be in Bangladesh's interest, as much as India's, that Dhaka clamps down on terror groups in the country. It should apply the same yardstick in cracking down on both local terror elements as well as the Indian separatists. After all, the Indian separatists and their possible global partners could pose a greater risk to Bangladesh. Political sabre rattling to please the domestic audience has been a hallmark of politics in the subcontinent. Dhaka must confine things to just that, and not indulge directly or indirectly in anti-India operations. Nothing but a strong bilateral relationship can be beneficial to the millions of ordinary people in the two nations.

(The writer is Associate Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi)

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