The 7th round of the India-Bangladesh Joint Consultative Commission (JCC) held in June has set the stage for Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India. To overcome the 21st-century challenges both countries announced the expansion of the strategic partnership to forge cooperation in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, startups and fintech besides jointly improving the infrastructure in railways, cross-border river management and conservation1.
Ahead of PM Hasina’s visit, the 38th
Ministerial Level meetings of the Joint River Commission (JRC) which convened
after 12 years finalized the text of an agreement for an interim sharing of
Kushiyara River waters. India and Bangladesh share 54 rivers and JRC has
identified seven rivers on a priority basis for water sharing2.
JRC has extended the period of flood data sharing agreement as well. These
propitious beginnings paved the road for PM Hasina’s first state visit since
the pandemic.
Bracing for fresh elections in 2023, the visit is
extremely crucial for Hasina to showcase some tangible gains. Pivotal for the
livelihoods of the people of West Bengal and Bangladesh PM Hasina, who is
perceived as a pro-India leader by the opposition raised the Teesta waters
issue. Pledging cooperation, India concluded the Kushiyara River water sharing
agreement, the first in 25 years since the 1996 Ganga Water Treaty. With this
pragmatic beginning, India demonstrated a political will to even finalise the
Teesta waters as well. India requested Bangladesh to expedite a similar pact
for the Feni River to cater to the drinking water requirements of Tripura.
Besides, prioritizing ties with Bangladesh under the
“Neighbourhood Policy” Prime Minister Modi opened a new chapter by settling the
41-year-old Land Boundary Agreement and accepting the maritime arbitration that
ruled in favour of Bangladesh. This marked a new watershed in India-Bangladesh
relations. Reciprocating India’s outreach, PM Hasina acted on anti-India
elements operating on its territory to cement the ties. Additionally burgeoning
bilateral trade between both countries from $9 billion to $18 billion in the
last five years infused new energy into the partnership.
Bangladesh is India’s largest trading partner in South
Asia and is the fourth largest destination for Indian exports. India is
Bangladesh’s second biggest trading partner. In 2015, Bangladesh permitted the use of
Chittagong and Mongla ports for the movement of goods to and from India.
Additionally, the signing of an MoU in coastal shipping that reduced the
shipping time from 30-40 days to 7-10 days, provided a fresh impetus to the
bilateral trade3. India is using these ports to channel trade
with Malaysia and Singapore.
Indeed, the rapid pace of infrastructural development
is now having a force multiplier effect on bilateral trade and boosting India’s
“Act East Policy”. Through three credit lines amounting to $8 billion, India
has extended concessional credit to Bangladesh, the single largest for any
country for infrastructure development. This in turn improved connectivity,
facilitated trade and brought the North East region close to the mainland.
India has requested Bangladesh to allow connectivity between West Bengal to
Meghalaya via Mahendraganj (Bangladesh).
Indeed, of the proposed restoration of the six cross-border rails in
1965, three are operational as of now and the free trails on the new railways
and inland waterways have been successfully completed.
Bangladesh party to the BBIN (Bangladesh Bhutan India
Nepal), the sub-regional connectivity network, has expressed interest to join
the India-Myanmar- Thailand trilateral highway through Tripura4.
Integral to a raft of connectivity projects, Bangladesh is making gains in
India’s efforts of linking North East India to the ASEAN region. Additionally, the development of Land Customs
Stations (LCS), Integrated Check Posts (ICP) and Border Haats, are playing a
key role in streamlining the overland trade. Accelerated development of a
panoply of connectivity initiatives besides revitalising the economy of Eastern
India and Bangladesh is turning out to be a win-win situation for both countries.
Although Bangladesh isn’t heading Sri Lanka’s way, the
pandemic, the Ukraine crisis and a dip in remittances have impacted its
economy. Against the proclamations of forex reserves for five months imports,
unusual power crisis and scheduled load shedding of 2 hours present a different
story. In fact, Bangladesh’s formal request to IMF for $4.5 billion in
assistance and limited access to data has raised speculations of a portending economic
crisis5.
Bangladesh follows Pakistan’s model for the energy
sector with nearly 85% of the electricity generated by burning fossil
fuels-natural gas and liquid fuel. Ukraine Crisis has thrown the supply of
these resources out of gear. As a development partner of Bangladesh, India has
extended a concessional financing scheme to build thermal powered Maitree power
plant at Khulna. PM Modi and PM Hasina unveiled Unit I of the power built with
Indian Development Assistance and reviewed the progress of the 130-kilometre
India-Bangladesh Friendship pipeline connecting Siliguri in West Bengal to
Parbatipur in Bangladesh for the transport of energy supplies from Numaligarh
refinery. Bolstering the energy partnership Bangladesh enlisted Indian Oil
Corporation Ltd (IOCL) as G2G supplier of refined petroleum products6.
In addition to existing India’s 1,160 MW of
electricity supply to Bangladesh and 1500 MW more in pipeline7,
Gautam Adani announced to commission of a 1.6-gigawatt thermal power plant
facility in Jharkhand with a dedicated line for exporting electricity to Bangladesh.
With a massive infrastructure push, India is spearheading its diplomatic
outreach with Bangladesh.
Bangladesh will graduate to developing country status
in 2026 after which Dhaka can no longer avail of the benefits of a Least
Developed Country (LDC). Hence, Bangladesh is eager to enter a free trade
agreement with India to reduce customs duties. To accelerate economic
cooperation, countries have agreed to commence talks on Comprehensive Economic
Partnership (CEPA) to liberalise norms and facilitate trade in goods, services
and investments.
Analysts speculated that China’s spectre could
potentially affect the India-Bangladesh ties after Dhaka welcomed Chinese
investments and became the second largest market of Chinese defence supplies
after Pakistan. Though Bangladesh resisted Chinese attempts to join BRI, it
welcomed Chinese companies. The economic crisis in Sri Lanka and investigations
of a massive spurt in tax evasion and fraudulent business operations of Chinese
companies in Bangladesh have alerted Dhaka of plausible fallouts of Chinese
investments.
Denouncing China’s claims of associating the recently
inaugurated Padma Bridge with BRI, Bangladesh foreign minister, Mustafa Kamal
warned developing countries against China’s BRI lending. On the contrary, notwithstanding
the anti-India rumblings of the Bangladesh commentariat, India gifted covid
vaccines, medical supplies and ran oxygen trains during the pandemic and also
recently evacuated Bangladeshi students trapped in Ukraine.
Given the geopolitical uncertainties, the
developmental partnership offered by India is Bangladesh’s best bet and hence
PM Hasina is pressing for negotiations on CEPA. Undoubtedly, the leaders of
India and Bangladesh have ushered the bilateral partnership into a golden era through
productive energy partnership, power cooperation, trade and economic ties.
Aside from inaugurating Rupsha Bridge, leaders witnessed the exchange of 7 MoUs
on science and technology, water resources, capacity building, railways and
media8.
Highlighting India and Bangladesh share common values,
PM Modi pronounced, “in order to keep the spirit of 1971 alive, it is
necessary that we should confront the forces that hurt our common values”
calling for a strengthening of counterterrorism cooperation and security
cooperation. Illegal infiltration, human
trafficking, border crimes, cow smuggling emanating from skewed demography is
emerging as a potential security threat along 4000 kilometres of the porous
border. An official framework for addressing this menace aside from playing a
major role in securing the borders can play a key role in maintaining the
social harmony along the border regions.
The India-Bangladesh bilateral partnership is making
headway in terms of trade, investments, economic cooperation and connectivity.
But undying anti-India rumblings and the unrelenting wave of atrocities against
Hindu minorities are slowly nibbling at the goodwill. Allaying this palpable
distrust, the foreign secretary in a special media briefing stated that
pursuant to continuous dialogue between the governments of India and Bangladesh,
“the government of Bangladesh has .. publicly as well as in private discussions
also (stated) that it is fully committed as far as the safety and security of
minorities is concerned. It has given these assurances both publicly and
privately in our talks”8.
Invariably, a robust developmental partnership with an
immediate neighbour is important but the domestic concerns should also be
addressed for a longstanding relationship built on pillars of goodwill and
trust.
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