& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

National interest: Dear Narendrabhai

Shekhar Gupta
WHY you need to get your party to pass the Bangladesh land pact and secure for India its future on the east. Why am I not addressing this appeal to adarniya Advaniji or my old friend Sushma first? Or to dear Rajnathji or Arun (Jaitley), even though I might have known all four of them more closely than you, mostly because we all live in New Delhi? It is because in their current mood, the first two are unlikely to give anybody a hearing on any thought that is remotely conciliatory. And the last two have tried, are trying, but sometimes seem like giving up. Which is scary from the point of view of India's supreme national interest. That is why this is a situation where you, Narendra bhai, need to weigh in.
Because opportunities and moments like this arrive only once in decades in a nation's history. And if we lose them, particularly if we do so because our politics is broken at the inter-party level or, in this specific case, most regrettably, at the intra-party level, our future generations will never forgive us. That is why this moment needs your intervention, because the matter rests within your party, and is caught within its messy, but utterly transparent, internal power tussle. Your party has messed up much virtuous reformist legislation already, it has failed to live up to your own ideas and expectations on the food bill - in fact, Murli Manohar Joshi's speech on this in the Lok Sabha sounded like his staff had stolen a pamphlet from the NAC, or Arundhati Roy had written it. And if it now loses India this great opportunity, despite total political and strategic agreement, you will end up looking a lesser leader with your party and, more importantly, given the stage on which you want to play now, nationally.
That long, somewhat rhetorical preamble was necessary because the issue - and the country it refers to - is somehow a red rag to your party and the RSS. It is Bangladesh. The BJP and RSS have eternally seen Bangladesh as the Pakistan on our eastern borders, its demographic "invasion" through illegal migration fully matching the threat of armed jihadis from Pakistan. I am not arguing with you on that point of view yet, although I would some day soon. But here is an opportunity to change the story, the script and the history with Bangladesh. Not one senior leader of your party has, as yet, made one argument against the land boundary agreement that India and Bangladesh have signed and which now awaits a constitutional amendment to be passed in Parliament. On several occasions, your party president Rajnath Singh has very sagaciously stated that his party supports the agreement. Yet it hasn't been able to vote for it because of last-minute objections. The opposition of the BJP's Assam unit, etc are just convenient excuses. Basically, the issue is caught in the internal strife within your own party.
We need to understand two key issues here. One, what does this agreement entail. And two, why does it represent a strategic opportunity of the kind not seen in our neighbourhood since the Simla Agreement (which is an opportunity, you will agree, Indira Gandhi lost in not having the LoC formally sanctified as our border). We are paying for that blunder on our western flanks now. Should we make a similar one on the east now? And should India lose out just because Hastinapur maharathis of your party can't be seen to be thinking or working together? And if you fail to weigh in now, what kind of leader are you?
Firstly, what is this agreement. India and Bangladesh (East Pakistan then) inherited a complex border from Sir Cyril Radcliff, who gave each side enclaves deep inside the other's territory. These involve not much territory, and involve about 51,000 people. Because of our cussed bilateral relationship, either side does not give access to the other easily to its enclaves. As a result, these territories have become stateless sovereign republics where people do not have any real citizenship and no government keeps control. These are dens of thugs, smugglers, terrorists, gun-runners and illegal immigration mafias. Even jihadi groups and the ISI have routinely used these as staging posts and as permanent gaps in our border surveillance.
It was only now, with the rise of a friendly, liberal and courageous Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh that the two countries have been able to sign this historic agreement to exchange these enclaves and rationalise our border. Alongside, we have also signed an agreement for joint border management. But that is not possible until the enclaves are sorted out. There is no loss of territory for India. Even notionally, Bangladesh ends up losing 500 hectares on a net basis. The government has held 17 meetings with the opposition leaders to brief them on the agreement and barring staunch opposition from the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), and a qualified one from Mamata, the entire Parliament is behind this agreement. That includes the BJP, as confirmed by your party president in many public statements. But so broken is your party's relationship with the Congress (blame for which is shared equally) and so intense is the internal competition in your top brass to impress a mythical RSS constituency, or to block anything constructive, that the opportunity is being lost.
To further underline that point, it was only after a wide consensus had been obtained on this agreement that our president, Pranab Mukherjee, in March this year, made a public commitment in his speech at the Dhaka University that the agreement will be presented for ratification in India's Parliament. To not do so now will be a disgrace for India. It will also be the loss of a strategic opportunity that may not wait, or in fact may never come for a generation. And why do we say so? Because in December or latest by early January, Bangladesh also goes for general elections. Sheikh Hasina has been incredibly brave in turning around her India policy. And our inability to deliver on two solemn agreements, Teesta waters (blocked by Mamata) and now the land boundary pact, are already becoming killer embarrassments for her, that she went down on her knees to India and got her proud country humiliated and so on. If she loses, and Khaleda, backed by Islamist forces,
returns, India will be the biggest loser. In any case, this agreement will be taken off the table by her even before the next Indian government, if it is your party's, gets to even read it. So you have no time to lose.
Now the second point. Why is this agreement such a once-in-a-generation strategic opportunity? Because the changing of the nature of Bangladesh's politics, society and public discourse is as important to India as changing that of Pakistan's. And Sheikh Hasina has been doing just that. From a situation when it used to be a sanctuary for our rebels, particularly the ULFA, and a playground for the ISI and jihadi forces, Bangladesh is now an ally. Remember how it has handed over our fugitives, particularly Arabinda Rajkhowa, and is holding Anup Chetia and the political risks it entails. If Tripura can convert some of its underground gas into power, it is only because Bangladesh has let you transport those giant generators by barge through its rivers. They would have never reached there through our narrow, winding mountain roads. It has forced the ISI to shut shop. It has also disbanded the Bangladesh Rifles, which had become such a malevolent presence on our borders - remember that ghastly visual of the bodies of our BSF patrolmen killed by the BDR being carried,
hanging by their limbs tied to sticks? The courts, under her, have given judgments holding both the martial law impositions (by Generals Ziaur Rahman and Ershad) unconstitutional, and thereby all laws enacted by them, which effectively converted Bangladesh into an Islamic Republic, have been abrogated. Bangladesh is therefore restored to its original, secular constitution. One can always have a super-liberal argument against the government banning the Jamaat-e-Islami, on its handing out death sentences to old radicals and Jamaatis for collaborating in the Pakistani army's atrocities in 1971. But, certainly, that cannot be your party's argument or yours.
And you want to know how fragile these gains are? The first radical to be convicted and given the death sentence, Abul Kalam Azad, the red-bearded ideologue better known as Bachchu Razakar or Lal Daadhi, has already escaped, and where else but to Pakistan, now harboured by the jihadis there. Scores of others, under trial now, are waiting for the defeat of Hasina'sAwami League this winter and the rise, on the streets, of a group called Hefazat-e-Islam which grew, like much Bangladeshi radicalism, from Chittagong and whose 13-point charter is borrowed straight from the Taliban. I may or may not agree with you Narendrabhai, but I know you think you are being swept to power next summer. What kind of a Bangladesh would you rather be dealing with on your eastern borders? You have an opportunity to determine that now. And even your critics and adversaries, even the minorities that fear you, will bless you for this foresight, hailing it as a great act of liberalism and a signal of your arrival as a truly national leader, and a patriot.
The writer is the Editor-in-Chief, The Indian Express.
This article was first published in The Indian Express.