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PRAFULBIDWAI COLUMN

Missing a historic chance in Bangladesh

Praful Bidwai
DID India snatch defeat from the jaws of victory during its prime minister's first visit to Bangladesh in 12 years?
The answer is largely yes, although the visit registered some gains. On balance, Dr. Manmohan Singh squandered a historic chance to overcome mutual distrust and transform India-Bangladesh relations so they can reflect the potential for exemplary cooperation between the two neighbours, with huge benefits to both and to the region.
The visit's biggest vitiating factor was West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who adopted an unreasonable and parochial stand on sharing the Teesta's waters and pulled out of the trip. Could her obstinacy have been anticipated? Was enough groundwork done to prepare her for equitable water sharing?
There are two divergent accounts of this. One says National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon tried hard to convince her that the interests of her state, in particular, North Bengal, were being looked after in the Teesta agreement with water shared in a 52:48 ratio.
She first agreed, but suddenly raised micro-level issues, such as sharing the flows during the lean season. During that season, she would concede no more than 25% of the flow at Gazaldoba, 90 km inside Indian territory.
Mr. Menon took this proposal to Bangladesh. But meanwhile, Ms. Banerjee abruptly boycotted the trip. She is reportedly extremely keen to build a base for her Trinamool Congress in North Bengal, where the Left and the Congress are traditionally strong.
According to the second account, the government failed to reassure Ms. Banerjee sufficiently, but could have done so had it worked harder on the larger picture, centred on the historic wrong India committed by unilaterally
diverting the waters of the Ganga through the Farakka barrage.
This was grossly unfair in and of itself. Worse, the diversion caused enormous losses of food and fisheries production in Bangladesh for almost two decades. According to Ashok Swain of Sweden's Uppsala university, Farakka changed the river's hydrology, "disrupted fishing and navigation, brought unwanted salt deposits into rich farming soil..." and caused an annual loss estimated at 2-2.5% of GDP
This is equivalent to taking the entire Information Technology sector out of the Indian economy! Even worse was the human tragedy, including large-scale displacement, destitution and forced migration. Farakka became a symbol of Indian domination and stoked anti-Indianism in Bangladesh, which the Right has cynically exploited.
Ms. Banerjee could perhaps have been persuaded to reverse this damage. She might even have comprehended the inequity of the current Teesta water-sharing pattern, under which India reportedly has access to 32,000 cusecs (cubic feet per second) during the lean season for 8 million people, while Bangladesh makes do with just 5,000 cusecs for 20 million.
Unfortunately, such a focussed effort wasn't made. As a last resort, the government could have asked for more time to negotiate a satisfactory Teesta accord, and still tried to get Ms. Banerjee on board. That didn't happen. This is a huge setback to the cause of
radically reforming Indo-Bangladesh relations.
Dr. Singh's Dhaka visit was billed as a game-changer, which would catalyse a Bay of Bengal community, thus promoting South Asian integration. This didn't happen.
India must now quickly negotiate scrupulously fair agreements on all the shared rivers with Bangladesh and acknowledge and address Bangladesh's legitimate concerns about Indian dam projects such as Tipaimukh in Manipur.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has unhesitatingly met India's demands on transit and security. Denial of sanctuaries to Northeastern insurgents is enabling the agreement now being reached with the United Liberation Front of Asom.
India's gains on transit are even more handsome. The Dhaka agreement allows transit between India's Northeast and the mainland via Bangladesh. Transporting 45% of all goods through waterways, roads, rail and air links would yield enormous savings in fuel and time, and help develop this backward and restive region.
India shouldn't have only offered a $1 billion line of credit to Bangladesh, but made a larger outright grant to build the transit infrastructure.
In general, India should do more than reciprocate Bangladesh's gestures. Indian policymakers need to remind themselves of the Gujral Doctrine, a worthy principle which held that India's dealings with all her neighbours barring
Pakistan must go beyond strict reciprocity, to generously unilateral gestures. (I would argue this should apply to Pakistan too.)
The Gujral Doctrine helped counter the charge that India with its Big Brother-like attitude doesn't hesitate to interfere in its neighbours' affairs, as it did in Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives. India must reform not just the image, but the object (its regional relations).
New Delhi shouldn't rest on the small gains from various agreements signed in Dhaka on the land boundary, biodiversity conservation, economic cooperation, etc. It must correct the huge imbalance in bilateral trade, with a deficit of $4.5 billion vis-a-vis an economy that's 15 times smaller.
Readymade garments make up 80% of Bangladesh's exports. In 2008, India started giving "duty-free" access to them, but negated this by levying a countervailing duty of 4 to 12%. The quota was raised from 8 million garments to 10 million, but Bangladesh exhausted this year's quota in the first six months.
India still has 480 items on the Bangladesh "negative" trade list for. If all these were to be given duty-free access, it would cost India a paltry $5 million loss in revenue, according to a 2008-09 estimate by the Centre for Policy Dialogue in Dhaka. This would greatly boost investment, growth and employment in Bangladesh, with immense benefits for regional integration.
India must develop imaginative strategies in economic and cultural cooperation, education, and action to combat climate change. Bangladesh is one of the world's most climate change-vulnerable countries. Parts of India's East Coast are equally vulnerable. Cyclone Aila demonstrated this in 2009.
To change its stance, India must stop seeing itself primarily as part of the global Big League and relate seriously to the region to which it belongs, geographically, culturally and strategically.
Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.
E-mail: bidwai@bol.net.in
***In general, India should do more than reciprocate Bangladesh's gestures. Indian policymakers need to remind themselves of the Gujral Doctrine, a worthy principle which held that India's dealings with all her neighbours barring
Pakistan must go beyond strict reciprocity, to generously unilateral gestures.****