Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Credits: Reuters Photo
Who governs Bangladesh has always been a matter of interest to India. This is a reflection of the unique location of Bangladesh and its historical and cultural links with the neighbouring states of India. All indications are that Sheikh Hasina will return to office in the forthcoming elections for the fourth consecutive term since being elected prime minister in 2008. She has been the architect of reshaping relations with India after they went through one of their worst phases under her predecessor Khaleda Zia. This turnaround required not just conviction but also enormous courage and belief in the proposition that good relations with India are good for Bangladesh. The progress has been across all areas, but most importantly in the area of combatting cross-border insurgency and terror activities.
The continuation and success of the above policies is in India’s national interest. Sheikh Hasina enjoys good rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has built upon the breakthroughs that were achieved between 2008 and 2014. The period since 2014 has seen even higher ambition levels buoyed by the confidence that has come from the settlement of the land boundary.
Several ideas and projects are currently under implementation between India and Bangladesh. These will further strengthen the trend towards economic integration and connectivity between both countries. The basic compact of being sensitive to each other’s security interests and concerns lies at the heart of this progress. In the coming period, these will increasingly include non-traditional threats such as demographic pressure, radicalization, illegal migration and smuggling. India needs Bangladesh to pursue its stability and development agenda in the North-East. Bangladesh needs India to ensure growth and social transformation and maintain macroeconomic stability, especially on the external account, where it is currently under pressure. The issues of water sharing, particularly of the Teesta, and climate change are important ones for Bangladesh. As past record shows, the more intractable the issue, the greater the degree of political understanding required to solve it.
The more Bangladesh succeeds, the more its salience in major power calculations grows. The Awami League has had an uneasy relationship with the US. The last several months have been marked by the return of public acrimony between the US and Sheikh Hasina on the electoral process and standards of governance. It has not gone unnoticed that the US position on Bangladesh stands in sharp contrast to its silence on the elections in Egypt, held a couple of weeks ago. The US has been unable to get Bangladesh to be a part of the Indo-Pacific policy. Therefore, US pressure on a post-election Hasina government is likely to continue. Hasina will hope for an Indian helping hand in easing such pressure.
For this to happen Hasina will have to play her part too. She will have to reassess her relations with China and reach out to the US and Europe, which are also her largest export markets. China’s proclivity to fish in troubled waters and exploit vulnerabilities within Bangladesh as part of its India strategy will equally remain an area of interest to Indian policy makers. Dual use and dual-purpose Chinese presence in Bangladesh pose a threat to India. The Chinese buildup of Bangladesh’s defence capabilities defies logic. Chinese development assistance has been accompanied by corrupt practices, opaque funding and high levels of debt that are debilitating national capacity and institutions.
Pankaj Saran.
Credit: Special Arrangement
While Hasina will continue to navigate between her relations with China and the US and seek to manage the geopolitical rivalry between India and China, the reality is that the only relationship that matters for Bangladesh is the one with India. Bangladesh’s economic and social progress has coincided with its opening to India. Conversely, turning away from and being antagonistic to India has been detrimental to Bangladesh and done more harm to it. It would be best for Bangladesh to avoid getting sucked into rivalries in which it has no stakes, and neither fight geography nor history.
(The writer is the convenor of Delhi-based think-tank NatStrat and a former High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh.)