Ali Ahmed Ziauddin :

FRIENDS or foes? Neither can decide! At best it’s peculiar, at worst, vague and a sordid affair. Both, until recently, claimed to be best friends, ie, until the July-August 24 upheaval. India is furious, and its leaders don’t mince words. I wonder why such vitriol. On the face of it, they are angry over the communal atrocities for 2-3 weeks following Hasina’s overthrow. It’s deplorable and indefensible. The interim government timely condemned, regretted and took prompt measures to rein in the mayhem. Yet, Indian fury doesn’t seem to dissipate. The ongoing media campaign even six months later seems more like a coordinated effort to malign Bangladesh. It’s important to note we didn’t invent communalism; it’s a majoritarian, disgraceful evil trait present in vicious form across the subcontinent ever since the early decades of the 20th century. And the less we mention the systemic torment of the Muslims in India for the past decade, the better.

Bangladesh endured several political turmoils in its brief history and India had duly expressed concern. But this time it seems to have turned bitter. It has acted as if India lost something very precious. Has it? If so, what is it? But before inquiring into the intangibles, it is vital to look into the evolution of Indo-Bangla relations ever since our liberation war and how we have reached this point.

There is no such thing called unconditional friendship. Every relationship has its share of ups and downs, ambiguities, tensions, and also external factors on a varying scale, whether it’s conjugal, parental, among siblings, or among friends. But in these cases when differences are intractable, the impact remains limited, while the same cannot be said about neighbouring states of varying size and power. They may lead to tension and even deteriorate further, especially among neighbours sharing history, geography, and culture. This rule generally applies to all.

The contentious issues

THE first crack in the blood-soaked alliance forged during the liberation war appeared right after victory. The Indian packed all the military equipment left behind by the Pakistanis that justly belonged to liberated Bangladesh. The goodwill the Indian army had earned from the people took a dent. It worsened when the Indian civil servants who had hoped to administer the new country at the district level were not allowed. And when prime minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman firmly made it clear he wanted the Indian army to leave as early as possible, it further displeased many in the then Indian leadership. Some sections of Indian elites had secretly wished Bangladesh would join India; they had regarded the creation of Pakistan as an affront, so when it fell apart, they argued there was no logic to remain separate anymore. Little did they guess that the taste of freedom has its own dynamic. We had fought for independence from Pindi not to lose it to Delhi. Although the Indian side was disappointed, they duly withdrew the forces from Bangladesh within 2/3 months but nursed a grudge against Bangladesh for its refusal to bend to their will. This resentment lingered while new frictions over multiple other issues piled on.

The next tense moment was when Mujib went to Lahore to attend the OIC summit. It was only natural for us to pursue our own policy priorities; Indians, however, were upset; of all the places to Pakistan and so soon? They were perhaps under a false impression that we would coordinate with them on foreign policy. India was jolted to see Bangladesh under Mujib was firm to pursue an independent course within the ambit of the non-aligned movement and OIC. This triggered some snide remarks from a few senior Indian politicians, such as ‘Mrs. Gandhi helped create another Pakistan.’ Soon afterwards, the Farakka barrage went into operation, completely insensitive to the environmental and economic havoc it would cause in Bangladesh.

And then came the bloodied political changeover of August 1975; India-Bangladesh relations took a nosedive. Mistrust and hostility replaced trust and friendship. While we rightly feared Indian intervention, the Indians were equally right in fearing the ghost of Pakistan perhaps got resurrected in Bangladesh. In such a climate, constructive engagement was difficult. Apart from the brief Ganges treaty in 77, our friendship was at loggerheads. Any scope to harass or discomfit each other became the norm. Sheltering and arming the Santi Bahini became a handy tool of the Indian side to put pressure on Bangladesh. Likewise, we did not shy away from sheltering many of the insurgents from the northeastern Indian states.  This was one of the key reasons, apart from claims of illegal migration, why India began to erect fences on the border from the mid to late eighties, which, however, couldn’t stop either the insurgents or the migrants. It had a multi-dimensional negative impact on the already tense relationship that sadly still lingers on.

By the early nineties, though regular diplomatic contacts were maintained and we had become fellow members of SAARC, yet beneath the surface there was little warmth in the friendship. The destruction of Babri and the ensuing communal clash in India reverberated in Bangladesh; it made matters worse. When we raised the Farakka issue in the UN, it embarrassed India, alright, but it didn’t get any attention from others. While the Indians viewed our diplomatic outreach with the outside world with derision, we quite naturally regretted such an attitude. In hindsight, it seems the result of nearly two decades of a series of futile expectations in an unhappy relationship that neither side could resolve took its toll.

But thankfully by the late nineties such a sullen state of affairs improved considerably. The new Awami League government in Bangladesh was more sympathetic to the Indian concerns, while the new coalition government in India didn’t carry much baggage from the past Congress governments. In quick succession, at the initiative of the then Bangladesh prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, two accords on the Ganges water sharing and CHT created an atmosphere for recalibrating the once mutually beneficial relation. But it was not to be. India felt let down when we refused to sell gas, citing uncertain reserves, and when the border clash resulted in several BSF deaths, the bonhomie ended abruptly. Even after the government change in Bangladesh in 2001, there was no warming up. Once again the relationship entered uncharted territory with little warmth.

But the puzzling part of the India-Bangladesh relations is that while it was shaky and not so warm all this time, the trade balance kept increasing by leaps and bounds in India’s favour. It was worrying; was Bangladesh becoming a captive market of India? The friendship went from bad to worse; it started on the wrong footing early on under the new BNP govternmen in Bangladesh. Right after the election, for a few weeks, there was constant reporting of minority persecution by the ruling party men. Obviously this didn’t go well with India or the people with secular views within Bangladesh.

And then within the next few years, two major incidents jolted the Indians to conclude the Pakistani ISI was very much active inside Bangladesh to the detriment of India’s security concerns. First, to both our utter disbelief, a huge cache of arms and ammo was apprehended in the Chittagong port area meant for an insurgent group in northeast India. Next, the attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life and other AL leaders in broad daylight justifiably convinced the Indians and many conscious people in Bangladesh that both were the handiwork of ISI, aided by a Bangladeshi intelligence agency and a section of the political leadership. On top of all this, when Bangladesh refused the gas transit facility from Burma to India, the relationship went on a tailspin.

Over the next few years of uncertainty in Bangladesh, other than routine diplomatic communiqués, nothing much or new happened in the relationship. But by 2009, when Awami League returned to power, things began to change quite early in its tenure. Bangladesh put a full stop on assisting the insurgency in northeastern states. It also got rid of all alleged ISI operatives in its territory and then one after another, both countries resolved a number of pending but tricky issues. Starting from the delimitation in the Bay to the land border settlement to taking care of India’s long-sought-after transit facility created the necessary conditions for a mutually beneficial, good neighbourly relation to grow. However, while these goodwill acts were set in motion, dark clouds were appearing on the horizon. The insensitive gestures, the sound bites, and the ugly communal acts in India offered enough ammo to unnerve Bangladeshi sensibilities.

The sudden cancellation of the Teesta deal at the last minute, citing West Bengal’s objections, shelved it into indefinite abeyance; a huge disappointment for Bangladesh. And in recent times, India is planning to lift more water from it upstream. Bangladesh has asked for clarification but hasn’t received any response yet. Moreover, in spite of all the promises, border killings go on unabated, and the trade disparity continues to remain lopsided against Bangladesh. Moreover, when Bangladesh bought two submarines from China, it upset India; some of the Indian diplomats conveyed their displeasure in no uncertain terms. And then the new government in India made it abundantly clear India was no longer a secular state. Carrying a Muslim name became a suspect in India. Their persecution regularly by Hindu extremists in broad daylight has now become nearly a daily spectacle. It reminds us of the position of the Jews in Nazi Germany. While India regularly raised the issue of communal discord in Bangladesh, we remained silent.

India couldn’t care less how such insensitivity might impact the Muslim feelings on the other side of the border. Muslims were labelled ‘termites’ by top political leaders. Such viciousness wasn’t an empty threat; it turned into policy when nearly a million Assamese Muslims were clearly threatened with deportation to Bangladesh. Perhaps India’s pent-up grudge never dissipated; it finds expression in frequent inexplicable frictions. Add to all these incongruities the border killing, fencing, and total silence from the Indian side to even discuss the Teesta deal.

Next came the nasty media campaign in India against Bangladesh for remaining neutral during the border clash with China. Why would Bangladesh take sides? It had no direct interest, but India wasn’t happy. They readily cited India’s role in our liberation war. This is an issue they regularly remind us of, completely ignoring the fact that India got involved because it had a direct strategic interest, not only for altruistic motives. The creation of Pakistan wasn’t only a political setback for India’s dream of an undivided India but evolved into a direct security threat for India. Our liberation war provided an attractive prospect for India to do away with the threat on the eastern front. India needed to break Pakistan; we needed our independence. Both our interests converged; we aided each other to achieve our goals. Yes, both sacrificed a lot, India in terms of resources and we in blood, tear and toil. We certainly recognise India’s contribution in our liberation war, but India too must realise Bangladesh is no one’s gift. This surely doesn’t mean we need to belittle our partnership forged in the battlefield. Instead we ought to be the best of friends as neighbours based on reciprocity, truthfulness, and mutual respect.

Now let’s look at the sordid tale of the Teesta barrage deal. For the past 15 years India simply refused to make a fair deal on Teesta water sharing. Bangladesh approached China to construct a barrage on our side of the river in order to protect erosion and preserve water for irrigation. It was the only rational choice we had in the face of India’s denial to give our due share of water. China did a preliminary study and submitted a detailed report. India threw in a spanner; they proposed to do the project. The spineless and corrupt AL government concurred. India is the primary cause for us to have considered such a costly barrage in the first place.  But bewilderingly, it gets to build the remedy! India’s presumed control over Bangladesh via its AL proxy was complete.

Or was it?

The intangible issues 

IN PRE-MODERN times, size, strength and resources were the key elements in defining the relation between neighbouring states. With the advent of modern nation-states, this somewhat changed, largely because of the UN charter. It recognises each other’s sovereignty no matter the size or any other condition, and noninterference in the internal affairs of the other is considered sacred. That’s all fair, wise and admirable, at least in the books. But navigating relationships between neighbouring states in real life is entirely different. Here, size, strength, resources, power, and influence provide obvious advantages to one party over the other. The weaker party appeals, complains, and threatens, but to no avail; the stronger party gets its way. The world is witnessing such a skewed relationship between the US, Canada and Mexico. Using this lens may help decipher the mystery of India-Bangladesh relations.

Of course, another dimension of this relation is a few millennia of shared history and geography. No matter how we define the present, we cannot escape this fact. This acts both as a boon and a bane depending on multiple variable conditions. Like the rest of the world, the history of this region too is a mixture of facts and fiction depending on the bias of the reader. History, after all, is a science that tries to understand the past and dares to question why and how they impact the present. In this journey, apart from scant archaeological evidence and scarce written records, much is determined by a compilation of conjectures, not arbitrarily but based on intuitive knowledge following a logical framework. While construing history, the historian surely lives in the present. And the present edifices perhaps innocently but invariably influence the logical framework and the deductive method of his/her conjectures of the past, no matter how little or a lot; it’s inescapable.

Applying this method of history reading, one may perhaps begin to make some sense of the shaky Indo-Bangla relation. Trying to view it from either 1971 or 1947 will be partial at best and confusing at worst. It needs to be traced to ancient times. To cut a long story short, in the context of the present purpose, it may be necessary to glance at the roots of the Indian national movement in its formative years. It was led mostly by a privileged elite from the higher castes, who had hoped to create a free, independent, undivided nation-state of India (Akhand Bharat), the last being a cherished dream of all the rulers from early times. Such a dream, however, had a caveat. It was never a historical fact, at least since 1500 BCE, except perhaps briefly under Asoka, which can be viewed as an aberration in view of three and a half millennia of its history. In between, India was dotted with multiple large/small feudal states or principalities before the Common Era, to large and small kingdoms until 1947.

During this period, India was a multi-racial, lingual, religious and regional geographical entity engaged in regular tussles for territorial expansion or supremacy. However, there is another opinion that believes in the historicity of the storylines embedded in the epics that can be traced to mythical times. Even though this view wasn’t dominant, it nonetheless nurtured the idea of recreating Akhand Bharat, where Brahminic doctrine would govern.

Although the mainstream in the national movement spurned this view, it, however, developed a majoritarian complex and expected all other religious and racial groups, backward castes, regions and other minorities to agree to its national narrative. Most of these groups, despite serious concerns, had little choice other than to fall in line. One group that refused to do so was the Muslims. Being the largest minority, they chose to create a separate homeland. In the tumultuous pre-partition times, whether it was a viable proposal was of little concern. Populist politics won the day, resulting in partition. The festering wound of communal divide got constitutional recognition. The dream of Akhand Bharat faded. The carnage that followed left a permanent imprint in the collective memory of the later generations. The pervasive bitterness it created polluted the entire region, be it in inter-state, inter-community or interpersonal.

According to the mainstream Indian opinion, Pakistan and, by extension, the Muslims were the spoilers in shattering the undivided India project. They became the undeclared enemy while Pakistan, in its infancy, lost its way in the world, nagging over Kashmir and blaming India for all ills that befell them. So it’s no wonder that Indo-Pak relations have been nothing but hostile from the very beginning. This was the background when the Bangladesh liberation war burst open in the subcontinent. It changed the power alignment in this entire region. India was presented a golden opportunity by the fools in Rawalpindi, and surely it wouldn’t let it go. India had so much to gain. It could prove the ‘two nation’ theory wrong, solve the security threat on the eastern front permanently, and third, by intervening, it could also earn a lot of goodwill from both Bangladesh and a wide range of world opinion. Moreover, the prospect of Akhand Bharat could be revived sometime in the future. Hence, from the very beginning, Indian policy planners considered Bangladesh somewhat between a friendly neighbour within its sphere of influence and an unruly neighbour that dares to have a mind of its own, thus posing some security threat. It couldn’t decide whether Bangladesh is a friend or a foe. Thus, it never let go of the pressure in various forms.

The key reason for this attitude was they viewed the Bangladesh liberation war as an Indian project and a liberated Bangladesh as a gift from India. Thus, India expected Bangladesh to act accordingly and remain somewhat servile. When the latter refused or showed reluctance to comply, India adopted a different tactic: to patronise, pressure and cajole Bangladesh into submission to its point of view. Obviously, it was humiliating and hard for us, and we naturally resisted. Such policy thrust was never spelled out, but the cat-and-mouse chase was always at play behind the formal façade of diplomatic interactions. In such a canvas in the background, it was hard from both ends to find some kind of equilibrium until AL under Hasina came to power. Her first term, beginning in 1996, was noted by a few vital inter-state accords, ushering in a spirit of good neighbourly relations. However, her second term for the past 15 years slowly turned from initial cooperation to total submission, especially after 2013. The reasons were many, but the two key ones were her desire to effectively silence opposition and, second, squander national wealth for personal and party benefit. She became the mafia boss presiding over a racketeering empire with the unequivocal support of the Indian state in exchange for obliging all Indian demands even to the detriment of Bangladesh’s sovereignty.

It’s for this reason why India was so displeased with Bangladesh when she was overthrown. Ever since, India has been waging an intensive media and diplomatic campaign to smear and discredit Bangladesh from every possible corner. It gives the impression as if India has lost something very precious. What is it? Has it lost a vital pawn in its geopolitical rivalry with China? Or did the grand plot of Akhand Bharat get a rude shock? Or is it the prospect of losing a captive market? Or is it all of these combined? Whatever it may be, Bangladesh has the legitimate right to get rid of a hated tyrant even if one had become India’s satrap. However, both sides should realise history does not end; it evolves.

The way ahead

BOTH countries need to take serious steps to repair, reset, and reinvent their relationship; we don’t choose neighbours; we have to share this part of the world. In the wake of the July-August uprising, going back to business as usual is neither possible nor desired. In light of this broad lesson, the following is a brief road map on how to proceed towards improving an awkward and strained relationship.

Bangladesh must realise it cannot afford to have a hostile relationship with India that may veer off into armed conflict. In such a scenario, we have nothing to gain but everything to lose. We need to be careful not to let any third country use our land to pose any security threat to India. Moreover, we must clarify that we have no interest in building any military alliance with anyone aimed at India, least of all with Pakistan. It’s a failed state and has nothing much to offer; it’s alright to maintain a normal, friendly and trade relation, and that’s all. India is our second biggest trading partner; it would be unwise to disrupt the supply chain. Another sensitive issue is the plight of the minority communities in both countries. We have to take firm and determined measures that will eradicate the causes of concerns of these communities. Lastly, we need not get too agitated over India sheltering Hasina. We have placed our request for her deportation; let India take its time to decide over the matter. A positive Indian response would go a long way in improving relations.

What do we expect from India? India has a Muslim problem. They are viewed as descendants of invaders. It’s true, but judging history through the lens of the present will be grossly misleading. In pre-modern times, all feudal monarchies, irrespective of race, region or religion, acted likewise; they were all predatory by nature. The Hindu, Buddhist monarchies of India were no different. Selective history reading is not only harmful but also gives rise to irrational perspectives and ambitions. If Muslims are accused of desecrating Hindu temples, some Hindu monarchs did the same to several Buddhist monasteries once the latter’s influence waned. Even a few Hindu monarchs are not free of similar charges against defeated fellow Hindu kingdoms. Moreover, some Indian monarchs were no less invaders than the Muslims; otherwise, it’s difficult to explain their inroads into Southeast Asia.

The Indian national movement in its formative years jostled with both modernity and its Brahminic past. It refused to recognise the valid concerns of more than 25 per cent of India’s population, who were Muslims, that triggered the Pakistan movement. Sadly, the friction still endures; now, over the past millennia, nearly 60 crore people of this subcontinent are Muslims; can India wish them away? Pushing them too hard can only result in horrific carnage and catastrophe. Is it desirable in this nuclear age of the 21st century?

A puppet regime in Bangladesh will be counterproductive for India. It may prove to be more of a bane than a boon. Cultivating a development partnership with any third country is Bangladesh’s prerogative, be it with China or any other. Bangladesh is a vibrant country of nearly 170 million people; looking at it only through the lens of security will be a travesty. Bangladesh is an assured market for India; does India want to ruin it? To expect and build a trusting relationship with us, it needs to take a few quick actions, like addressing the issue of water sharing of the common rivers, stopping the anti-Bangladesh media campaign, stopping the border killings and stopping Hasina from inciting agitation in Bangladesh. With these measures from both ends, we can rebuild a more mature and amicable relationship.

Ali Ahmed Ziauddin is a researcher and activist.