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Strategic dimension of Indo-Bangladesh relations

M Abdul hafiz
India got involved in Bangladesh liberation movement ... also for meeting India's own political and strategic interests.
-- JN Dixit (Liberation and Beyond p-270)
INDIA'S redoubtable National Security Adviser did not however elaborate those politico strategic interests in his book; neither have those been conclusively known from any other source. They are also obfuscated by myriad other bilateral issues of day to day urgency: the border, migration, trade and so on and related problems connected with them. As a result we are left only with conjecture to trace out strategic strand, if any, in our relations.
Viewed, however, against a bigger time frame of contemporary history few can miss the developments -- that could have been catalyst for a major political change in the region. The decade of 1960 had rather been significant in this regard. In 1962 India suffered humiliating defeat in the hands of Chinese and the myth of Hindi-Chini fraternity exploded -- in favour of her arch rival Pakistan which moved closer to China by setting her border disputes with the latter. Earlier Pakistan already entered into defence pact with the US.
In the meantime, India's military setback in NEFA, a major battle field in Sino-Indian conflict, ever
intensifying insurgency in India's North-East, the spread of naxalite movement in West Bengal and Pakistan's dabbling in the subregion's backyard -- all combined to obsess India's policy-makers of a looming threat from across the Himalaya -- greater in intensity that it was in 1962. In the context a China-Pakistan nexus and growing Sino-American rapprochement could not but figure prominently in India's security calculus. Although a part of India's anxiety had been the product of the sub-continent's politics, Indo-Pak rivalry and alleged extra regional linkages of the neighbours -- particularly of
Pakistan -- Indian physical problem on ground was no less real, especially in her North Eastern region the geo-politics of which was indeed intriguing.
India's experience in the area stretching over 255,085 square kilometres of tribal lands populated by the people of Tibeto-Mongoloid stock with primordial loyalty to their ethnic norms has been anything but savoury. Truly speaking the region
did not exactly belong to classical India the world is familiar with from its well recorded history of over two thousand years; neither did the area and lives of its myriad tribes ever conform to the civilisational pattern of any period of Indian history. The imperial reaches even of the great Mouryas, the Guptas and the Mughals could not encompass them. Notwithstanding the efforts of North Indian and Bengali Brahmins right from the Ahom period neither Sanscritisation could strike its roots among the tribals nor could Aryanisation penetrate into the area.
The problem began right from the moment India stepped into this deceptively tranquil region at Independence. It only sparked the emotions of the tribesmen who disputed India's control of their land which they argued, was colonised by the British like India had been. With the British transfer of power the sovereignty ought to be restored to the people of respective territories, they asserted. Ever since the Indian rule is resisted in its turbulent North
East now comprised of seven tribal and semi-tribal states popularly known as seven sisters.
As a matter of fact the North East has been a great crossroad -- its valleys and passes being witness to the centuries of migration as tribal people moved southward from across the Himalaya. It represents an ethno-cultural frontier bearing the distinct traces of Mongoloid heritage. It has also been a complex transition zone of linguistic, racial and ethno-cultural stream. Obviously enough all efforts of integrating the region with the rest of India right from the Ahoms down to British who dislodged them (the
Ahoms) from the area failed.
It is thus no wonder that since the partition the region is India's Achille's heel and Bangladesh with its sheer juxtaposition holds a key to lessening India's predicament. The partition of 1947 had virtually separated the North-East from India's heartland which is connected to the region by less than one per cent of its external border. To make things worse for the North-East the
main arteries of its communications through railway and inland water as well as the traditional market and entreport Chittagong were all lost after the partition. The limitation imposed on India by partition with regard to her grip on the North-East was further compounded by Pakistan's hostility and hobnobbing with the tribal rebels who were allegedly trained by Pakistanis in Chittagong Hill Tracts. (Naga rebel Dr. Phizo made his way to London through Dhaka with the help of Pakistanis).
It may be debatable whether the Pakistan factor in the North-East worked behind India's decision- making with regard to the latter's support to Bangladesh liberation movement, there are however enough pointers to suggest that India did want to get rid of Pakistanis hobnobbing in the area and foist a dispensation in its place friendly to India. Whether that dream of India has been fulfilled or not can constitute another debate, but the policies pursued by India since Bangladesh's independence do demonstrate her eagerness to tighten her grip on the troubled North-East. To that end India tried for opening up trade corridor, transit facility of goods or their transshipment including turning Chittagong a free port and held out baits of enormous profit for Bangladesh out of them. In fact the underlying idea of 25 years friendship treaty between India and Bangladesh was to allow India some leeway in the area involving Bangladesh.
Bangladesh, however, persistently refuses to be drawn into the sub-region's power game and is reluctant to put her finger in the North-East's cauldron. But India does have a stake in Bangladesh making some concessions and continues to woo Bangladesh. Until an Indian quest for some solution is achieved it will remain a factor in bilateral relations and reappear again and again in some guise or other in our inter-state ties.
Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.