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Teesta and LBA go out of Dhaka’s grip
M. Serajul Islam
HOLIDAY – March 21, 2014
There is a general perception in the country that the media is pro-Awami League and that the media’s pro-ruling party leaning is more visible when it comes to shielding the party from anything that would benefit the BNP in the fight between the two to win the hearts of the people. There are so many examples to prove the point that it would not be necessary to make any attempt to do so unless readers force themselves and go into denial over the issue.
Nevertheless, sometimes the media’s pro-AL leaning also harms the country’s national interests. A case in point is the way the media allowed the news that Manmohon Singh conveyed to Sheikh Hasina on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC Summit in Myanmar to go under the table without being critical of India where national interests demanded such a reaction from it. In the meeting, Manmohon Singh told the Bangladesh Prime Minister that in the next few weeks remaining of the term of the Congress led government, New Delhi would be unable to deliver to Bangladesh either the Teesta deal or the ratification of the land boundary agreement.
Media’s pro-India bias
The major newspapers carried the news like it was an ordinary piece of information. Instead the media treated another piece of news from that meeting dismiss India’s failure in delivering the deals was unimportant in the context of the nation’s interests. The news that the media considered to be more important was India’s offer to sell 100 MW of additional electricity to Bangladesh. That was the new carrot that New Delhi dangled before Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Government gratefully accepted it and remained silent over the Teesta and LBA deals for no doubt very good reasons. The media also spun the news of the sale of electricity in a manner that helped take public attention off from New Delhi’s betrayal over the two deals that it did to save the ruling party from public anger and disappointment. The history of the two deals is well known to readers. When the AL assumed power in January 2009, Sheikh Hasina made it clear that she would not allow the soil of Bangladesh to be used by various secessionist/terrorist groups of the seven Indian states bordering Bangladesh, most notably the ULFA. These secessionist/terrorist groups are big problems for India’s security and come next to India’s concerns from Pakistan. Therefore Sheikh Hasina’s unilateral offer was an answer to an Indian dream. She did more and handed to Indian security 7 top ULFA secessionists who were hiding in Bangladesh that eventually broke the many decades long ULFA secessionist/terrorist movement in the back. Later on a trip to New Delhi in January 2010, which the Indians upgraded to a state visit in gratitude for her security support, Sheikh Hasina made more concessions to India. She offered India land transit on a trial basis, an offer that was an answer to another Indian dream from Bangladesh.
The connectivity deception
A 56 paragraph Joint Declaration was signed during that visit. In that Declaration, the two sides visualized a paradigm shift in bilateral relations in which each side offered to show the political will required for such a forward movement in their hitherto stagnant bilateral relations, often mired in deep antagonism. Bangladesh expected from India as reciprocal gesture, resolution of the outstanding issues of water, trade and land boundary although Bangladesh’s concessions were not tied. The only issue that did not figure in bilateral discussions during the Bangladesh Prime Minister’s visit to New Delhi was the differences on demarcation of maritime boundary for which the two sides mutually agreed to go to the international court for arbitration.
That visit of Sheikh Hasina to New Delhi was undertaken in January 2010. For the rest of that year and till the time the Indian Prime Minister visited Dhaka in September 2011, negotiators of the two countries went on a spin in the media to encourage the people of Bangladesh to think that the unilateral concessions that Sheikh Hasina made to India, namely giving it full security support and land transit on a trial basis, would be of tremendous benefit to Bangladesh. To make land transit acceptable to Bangladesh, the negotiators gave it a new term and called it “connectivity”. Bangladesh negotiators assured that allowing India road access from its mainland to the Seven Sisters would make Bangladesh the regional connectivity hub that in turn would bring huge financial and economic benefits.
The Bangladesh negotiators also assured the people that India would be generous on water, trade and border related issues. In the water sector, that for Bangladeshis is at the heart of what they want from India, namely a fair share of the waters of the common rivers, the Teesta water sharing deal was supposed to be the proof of India’s sincerity. India meanwhile made an unexpected offer to provide Bangladesh a US$ 1 billion in soft loan and took steps for greater trade access of Bangladeshi products to India. On the long outstanding border demarcation and exchange of enclaves, the two sides also came close to an agreement.
Delhi’s dishonesty
There were great expectations in Dhaka that the Indian PM would sign the Teesta deal that would give Bangladesh a share of a major common river and form the basis of water sharing of other common rivers. The information on the sharing formula for Teesta leaked to the media was a 50/50 share keeping aside 20% of the total flow for the river was too good for Bangladesh. Dhaka also expected that New Delhi would sign the LBA deal and assure that ratification would not be a problem. Bangladesh’s high hopes were punctured like a balloon with a pin. On the day before Manmohon Singh’s visit, Indians withdrew the Teesta deal. The LBA was signed but that did not help the deep disappointment in the PMO in Dhaka. Only thing that Dhaka could do at that stage having delivered the priceless security card to India on a silver platter was to withdraw the land transit deal that was ready for signature in order to make it permanent.
In public both sides made efforts to show that nothing had happened in the paradigm shift of bilateral relations. The effort to do so was much more forceful on Dhaka’s part. India promised that the delay on Teesta deal was temporary and that the LBA would be ratified without delay. As later events turned out, New Delhi was not honest with Bangladesh with both the issues. The Teesta deal got stuck with Mamata Banarjee before Manmohon Singh’s Dhaka trip because by then she had started to have serious problems with the Congress. The BJP was also all along opposed to the LBA because it involved ceding Indian Territory to Bangladesh however small. While taking Bangladesh’s offers on security and trial run of land transit, New Delhi did not bother to keep Dhaka informed of problems with delivering both.
Dhaka fooled itself
Dhaka on its part showed abjectly low level of diplomatic skill to be fooled by New Delhi. Routine diplomatic work by the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi and the Deputy High Commission in Kolkata would have revealed that the LBA ratification would be stuck due to BJP/Trinamool’s opposition and the Teesta deal, due to Mamata Banarjee’s objection. In New Delhi and Kolkata, everybody who followed Bangladesh-India relations knew of these facts. It is still a mystery why Dhaka did not check and even a greater mystery why the Bangladesh negotiators instead chose to believe New Delhi that the two deals would be delivered to Dhaka “soon.” Even when the Indian media and retired senior diplomats who served in Bangladesh were accusing New Delhi of “betrayal”, Dhaka negotiators were confident of New Delhi’s integrity and credibility.
Manmohon Singh’s Dhaka visit was nevertheless a dividing line in Bangladesh-India relations under the last AL term. Before the visit, going by Bangladesh’s negotiators media briefings, New Delhi was not only ready to resolve outstanding problems related to water, border killings, land boundary and trade but also transforming Bangladesh into a regional economic hub with promises of great economic prosperity. Following the visit, there was little public visibility of relations moving anywhere except the occasional reiteration in the media that the two deals were going to be delivered anytime that no one believed anymore. With elections getting closer, the nervousness of Dhaka was evident when Bangladesh High Commissioner in New Delhi was sent to Gandhinagar to solicit the support of Narendra Modi for the LBA ratification. Dhaka feared that without the two deals, the ruling party would be in serious political problem with the electorate.
Bangladesh-India relations received a new lease of life when Dhaka erupted with the Shahabag Movement. New Delhi saw in this movement a way to get on the right side of the Awami League by openly supporting it even when it knew the movement was basically an anti BNP/Jamat move. New Delhi made good use of this anti-opposition stance because in late 2012, it had invited Khaleda Zia to New Delhi to feel her out as the next Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Both Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid and President Pranab Mukherjee blessed the Shahabag Movement while on official visits to Dhaka that helped remove any bad feelings in the Awami League for not delivering the two deals.
Delhi’s master stroke
Thereafter events moved fast. New Delhi openly played a major role in the way the AL went ahead and held the January 5th elections. With Dhaka’s developing partners supporting an “inclusive” elections that was also the will of the country’s majority, New Delhi chose to support exclusive elections designed to give the AL another term. The Indian FS came to Dhaka just before the elections and called on HM Ershad to ensure his party went to the elections so that the BNP/Jamat could be stopped from assuming power as they would have had the elections been inclusive or had HM Ershad stayed away and forced the AL towards a compromise with the BNP.
In fact, instead of worrying about the two deals that would have become a serious problem in its “inclusive” elections, the AL led government made practically no noise that India was not going to deliver the deals. By then Dhaka needed New Delhi’s support desperately to even mention about the deals. On what the AL expected this time, New Delhi paid with interests and since the January 5th elections, have taken upon it the task of providing the new government legitimacy. Aware that the question about legitimacy is not just a concern of the developed nations but also among the majority of the people in Bangladesh and that India has not really made itself popular by going against their wishes, New Delhi has now introduced a new concept to try and win the hearts of the people of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is now being promised much more than becoming the sub-regional connectivity hub by giving India land transit. It is now being promised to become the regional connectivity hub through the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor.
Betrayal being ignored
This time the position of the AL led government is different. It is no longer in office with a 3/4th majority but weaker and without mandate of the people. Thus its ability to hold New Delhi to deliver promises is limited. Instead because of what it did to help it to return to power, the boot is on the other foot. And Dhaka is doing quite a good job showing who holds the upper hand. It is therefore giving spin to the BCIM-EC to encourage the people of Bangladesh to expect better things from New Delhi instead of holding India to old promises that it has failed to deliver. It has thus not uttered one word of disappointment over the two deals; nor questioned New Delhi for wasting its hugely important security and transit cards for almost nothing. The $1 billion soft loan that was promised as a carrot for these cards has also not yet come to Bangladesh. Now while spinning BCIM-EC, the AL led government has also not cared to find out what China and Myanmar thinks of the BCIM-EC or how US that have invested hugely in the region for its security interests would react being left out of the BCIM-EC loop.
Dhaka is doing even more to please New Delhi. The Ministry of Commerce is undertaking initiatives to develop the road infrastructure for giving India land transit under the cover of BCIM-EC. One Minister has said publicly that Bangladesh should forever remain grateful to India. Clearly, Dhaka is busy to show India gratitude not for its 1971 role that is taken for granted by the Awami League but for the one it has played more recently. It is incredible that the national media has failed to focus on these developments in which the country’s national interests and much more are being sacrificed. Not one of the major dailies cared to write an editorial on India’s betrayal.
Holiday
M. Serajul Islam
HOLIDAY – March 21, 2014
There is a general perception in the country that the media is pro-Awami League and that the media’s pro-ruling party leaning is more visible when it comes to shielding the party from anything that would benefit the BNP in the fight between the two to win the hearts of the people. There are so many examples to prove the point that it would not be necessary to make any attempt to do so unless readers force themselves and go into denial over the issue.
Nevertheless, sometimes the media’s pro-AL leaning also harms the country’s national interests. A case in point is the way the media allowed the news that Manmohon Singh conveyed to Sheikh Hasina on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC Summit in Myanmar to go under the table without being critical of India where national interests demanded such a reaction from it. In the meeting, Manmohon Singh told the Bangladesh Prime Minister that in the next few weeks remaining of the term of the Congress led government, New Delhi would be unable to deliver to Bangladesh either the Teesta deal or the ratification of the land boundary agreement.
Media’s pro-India bias
The major newspapers carried the news like it was an ordinary piece of information. Instead the media treated another piece of news from that meeting dismiss India’s failure in delivering the deals was unimportant in the context of the nation’s interests. The news that the media considered to be more important was India’s offer to sell 100 MW of additional electricity to Bangladesh. That was the new carrot that New Delhi dangled before Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Government gratefully accepted it and remained silent over the Teesta and LBA deals for no doubt very good reasons. The media also spun the news of the sale of electricity in a manner that helped take public attention off from New Delhi’s betrayal over the two deals that it did to save the ruling party from public anger and disappointment. The history of the two deals is well known to readers. When the AL assumed power in January 2009, Sheikh Hasina made it clear that she would not allow the soil of Bangladesh to be used by various secessionist/terrorist groups of the seven Indian states bordering Bangladesh, most notably the ULFA. These secessionist/terrorist groups are big problems for India’s security and come next to India’s concerns from Pakistan. Therefore Sheikh Hasina’s unilateral offer was an answer to an Indian dream. She did more and handed to Indian security 7 top ULFA secessionists who were hiding in Bangladesh that eventually broke the many decades long ULFA secessionist/terrorist movement in the back. Later on a trip to New Delhi in January 2010, which the Indians upgraded to a state visit in gratitude for her security support, Sheikh Hasina made more concessions to India. She offered India land transit on a trial basis, an offer that was an answer to another Indian dream from Bangladesh.
The connectivity deception
A 56 paragraph Joint Declaration was signed during that visit. In that Declaration, the two sides visualized a paradigm shift in bilateral relations in which each side offered to show the political will required for such a forward movement in their hitherto stagnant bilateral relations, often mired in deep antagonism. Bangladesh expected from India as reciprocal gesture, resolution of the outstanding issues of water, trade and land boundary although Bangladesh’s concessions were not tied. The only issue that did not figure in bilateral discussions during the Bangladesh Prime Minister’s visit to New Delhi was the differences on demarcation of maritime boundary for which the two sides mutually agreed to go to the international court for arbitration.
That visit of Sheikh Hasina to New Delhi was undertaken in January 2010. For the rest of that year and till the time the Indian Prime Minister visited Dhaka in September 2011, negotiators of the two countries went on a spin in the media to encourage the people of Bangladesh to think that the unilateral concessions that Sheikh Hasina made to India, namely giving it full security support and land transit on a trial basis, would be of tremendous benefit to Bangladesh. To make land transit acceptable to Bangladesh, the negotiators gave it a new term and called it “connectivity”. Bangladesh negotiators assured that allowing India road access from its mainland to the Seven Sisters would make Bangladesh the regional connectivity hub that in turn would bring huge financial and economic benefits.
The Bangladesh negotiators also assured the people that India would be generous on water, trade and border related issues. In the water sector, that for Bangladeshis is at the heart of what they want from India, namely a fair share of the waters of the common rivers, the Teesta water sharing deal was supposed to be the proof of India’s sincerity. India meanwhile made an unexpected offer to provide Bangladesh a US$ 1 billion in soft loan and took steps for greater trade access of Bangladeshi products to India. On the long outstanding border demarcation and exchange of enclaves, the two sides also came close to an agreement.
Delhi’s dishonesty
There were great expectations in Dhaka that the Indian PM would sign the Teesta deal that would give Bangladesh a share of a major common river and form the basis of water sharing of other common rivers. The information on the sharing formula for Teesta leaked to the media was a 50/50 share keeping aside 20% of the total flow for the river was too good for Bangladesh. Dhaka also expected that New Delhi would sign the LBA deal and assure that ratification would not be a problem. Bangladesh’s high hopes were punctured like a balloon with a pin. On the day before Manmohon Singh’s visit, Indians withdrew the Teesta deal. The LBA was signed but that did not help the deep disappointment in the PMO in Dhaka. Only thing that Dhaka could do at that stage having delivered the priceless security card to India on a silver platter was to withdraw the land transit deal that was ready for signature in order to make it permanent.
In public both sides made efforts to show that nothing had happened in the paradigm shift of bilateral relations. The effort to do so was much more forceful on Dhaka’s part. India promised that the delay on Teesta deal was temporary and that the LBA would be ratified without delay. As later events turned out, New Delhi was not honest with Bangladesh with both the issues. The Teesta deal got stuck with Mamata Banarjee before Manmohon Singh’s Dhaka trip because by then she had started to have serious problems with the Congress. The BJP was also all along opposed to the LBA because it involved ceding Indian Territory to Bangladesh however small. While taking Bangladesh’s offers on security and trial run of land transit, New Delhi did not bother to keep Dhaka informed of problems with delivering both.
Dhaka fooled itself
Dhaka on its part showed abjectly low level of diplomatic skill to be fooled by New Delhi. Routine diplomatic work by the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi and the Deputy High Commission in Kolkata would have revealed that the LBA ratification would be stuck due to BJP/Trinamool’s opposition and the Teesta deal, due to Mamata Banarjee’s objection. In New Delhi and Kolkata, everybody who followed Bangladesh-India relations knew of these facts. It is still a mystery why Dhaka did not check and even a greater mystery why the Bangladesh negotiators instead chose to believe New Delhi that the two deals would be delivered to Dhaka “soon.” Even when the Indian media and retired senior diplomats who served in Bangladesh were accusing New Delhi of “betrayal”, Dhaka negotiators were confident of New Delhi’s integrity and credibility.
Manmohon Singh’s Dhaka visit was nevertheless a dividing line in Bangladesh-India relations under the last AL term. Before the visit, going by Bangladesh’s negotiators media briefings, New Delhi was not only ready to resolve outstanding problems related to water, border killings, land boundary and trade but also transforming Bangladesh into a regional economic hub with promises of great economic prosperity. Following the visit, there was little public visibility of relations moving anywhere except the occasional reiteration in the media that the two deals were going to be delivered anytime that no one believed anymore. With elections getting closer, the nervousness of Dhaka was evident when Bangladesh High Commissioner in New Delhi was sent to Gandhinagar to solicit the support of Narendra Modi for the LBA ratification. Dhaka feared that without the two deals, the ruling party would be in serious political problem with the electorate.
Bangladesh-India relations received a new lease of life when Dhaka erupted with the Shahabag Movement. New Delhi saw in this movement a way to get on the right side of the Awami League by openly supporting it even when it knew the movement was basically an anti BNP/Jamat move. New Delhi made good use of this anti-opposition stance because in late 2012, it had invited Khaleda Zia to New Delhi to feel her out as the next Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Both Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid and President Pranab Mukherjee blessed the Shahabag Movement while on official visits to Dhaka that helped remove any bad feelings in the Awami League for not delivering the two deals.
Delhi’s master stroke
Thereafter events moved fast. New Delhi openly played a major role in the way the AL went ahead and held the January 5th elections. With Dhaka’s developing partners supporting an “inclusive” elections that was also the will of the country’s majority, New Delhi chose to support exclusive elections designed to give the AL another term. The Indian FS came to Dhaka just before the elections and called on HM Ershad to ensure his party went to the elections so that the BNP/Jamat could be stopped from assuming power as they would have had the elections been inclusive or had HM Ershad stayed away and forced the AL towards a compromise with the BNP.
In fact, instead of worrying about the two deals that would have become a serious problem in its “inclusive” elections, the AL led government made practically no noise that India was not going to deliver the deals. By then Dhaka needed New Delhi’s support desperately to even mention about the deals. On what the AL expected this time, New Delhi paid with interests and since the January 5th elections, have taken upon it the task of providing the new government legitimacy. Aware that the question about legitimacy is not just a concern of the developed nations but also among the majority of the people in Bangladesh and that India has not really made itself popular by going against their wishes, New Delhi has now introduced a new concept to try and win the hearts of the people of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is now being promised much more than becoming the sub-regional connectivity hub by giving India land transit. It is now being promised to become the regional connectivity hub through the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor.
Betrayal being ignored
This time the position of the AL led government is different. It is no longer in office with a 3/4th majority but weaker and without mandate of the people. Thus its ability to hold New Delhi to deliver promises is limited. Instead because of what it did to help it to return to power, the boot is on the other foot. And Dhaka is doing quite a good job showing who holds the upper hand. It is therefore giving spin to the BCIM-EC to encourage the people of Bangladesh to expect better things from New Delhi instead of holding India to old promises that it has failed to deliver. It has thus not uttered one word of disappointment over the two deals; nor questioned New Delhi for wasting its hugely important security and transit cards for almost nothing. The $1 billion soft loan that was promised as a carrot for these cards has also not yet come to Bangladesh. Now while spinning BCIM-EC, the AL led government has also not cared to find out what China and Myanmar thinks of the BCIM-EC or how US that have invested hugely in the region for its security interests would react being left out of the BCIM-EC loop.
Dhaka is doing even more to please New Delhi. The Ministry of Commerce is undertaking initiatives to develop the road infrastructure for giving India land transit under the cover of BCIM-EC. One Minister has said publicly that Bangladesh should forever remain grateful to India. Clearly, Dhaka is busy to show India gratitude not for its 1971 role that is taken for granted by the Awami League but for the one it has played more recently. It is incredible that the national media has failed to focus on these developments in which the country’s national interests and much more are being sacrificed. Not one of the major dailies cared to write an editorial on India’s betrayal.
Holiday
