Bangladesh and India: To fix what is broken

Bangladesh and India share an international border of 4,096km, the longest for both countries. Such geo-location and quirks of history -- ironically, a border formed through Partition and, then, East Pakistan’s second decisive break to form Bangladesh -- ensures that the border remains an adhesive of some permanence. This bilateral relationship is also among the strongest that both countries have. It has evolved into one of impressive functionality, particularly in trade, transhipment, tourism, and strategic government-to-government relations.

Alas, it is also now, in some ways, a dysfunctional relationship that is in need of strenuous counselling and application of foresight. Primarily, India needs to recognize that Bangladesh and Bangladeshis have changed. This realization, leading to greater respect, a lessening of presumption and arrogance, and better communication and optics, can lead to a healthier bilateral lifestyle.

Sari, not sari

All this goes far beyond the latest flare-up: Outrage in Bangladesh last week that Indian government authorities have claimed the GI tag for “Tangail” saris even though Tangail, both the town and its glorious jamdani weave, is Bangladeshi. Some weavers from Tangail went across the border to West Bengal in India to create a bona fide tradition of “Indian” Tangail, as it were. Bangladesh authorities are now engaged in claiming -- reclaiming -- for Tangail its overdue GI recognition.

The situation isn’t unlike India scrambling several years ago to attempt to secure GI for basmati rice after usurpers like “Texmati” emerged. Or scrambling, with a mix of outrage and incredulity, to tell the world that neem and yoga couldn’t be patented by Western businesses.
As it happens, this sentiment exactly underpins the perception of an emergent Bangladeshi view towards India: Outrage and incredulity at being taken for granted. This is as much a result of India’s muscular, frequently callous body language. People still remember a top ruling party official in India referring to Bangladeshis as “termites.”

Sometimes, it appears in Bangladesh that India can do nothing right. It comes with sharpening perception that India short-changes Bangladesh. Here are some examples.

Even as the 20 diesel locomotives of Indian Railways -- some relatively old, some relatively new, and all quite functional -- crossed the border and into the care of Bangladesh Railway in May 2023, local media and social media were flooded with comments. Some lauded the gesture of India to aid Bangladesh’s severely under-equipped railways. Despite this outstanding example of neighbourly relations, numerous comments criticized Bangladesh’s acceptance of the locomotives as handouts, unbecoming of a fast-developing, ambitious country. Some went as far to ask if India couldn’t at least send brand new engines.

This eclipsed the fact that Bangladesh railway authorities made the initial move -- as clarified to me by a senior Indian diplomat. The subject was broached by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during a visit to India in September 2022. Besides, India, which is steadily switching over from diesel locomotives to electric, had plenty of spare diesel locomotives for the asking; indeed, it had already provided 10 such to Bangladesh in mid-2020. Altogether, it also saved Bangladesh precious foreign exchange.

It is not unusual to hear comments even in otherwise informed Bangladeshi circles that India has bulldozed its way with transhipment facilities to link its eastern and north-eastern regions through Bangladesh -- at Bangladesh’s expense. Few among this commentariat see, for instance, that Bangladeshi ships, barges, trains, and trucks carry trans-shipment goods from Bangladesh's western border to its eastern border, or the other way round, and that Bangladeshi businesses certainly wouldn’t do so without profit. Several such roads and rail tracks are built with Indian grants -- a sort of “cummerbund and road initiative.”

This is of course as it should be, because Bangladesh must benefit from transshipment as it saves Indian businesses and government agencies transportation time and the cost of an extra 1,000km between, say, Agartala and Kolkata than a direct route through Bangladesh.

As it happens, this same route takes Bangladeshi products both east and west into India to increasingly more lucrative markets. Close to $20 billion have been provisioned by the government of India -- spent, work-in-progress, and work to begin -- to construct or upgrade major highways, secondary roads, railways and air connectivity in its northeastern states.

When this is combined with a push variously for industry, agri-business, oil and natural gas, services, and trade in northeastern states, this region that accounts for about 50 million people is for Bangladesh a plump potential market in addition to India’s eastern states. Especially, at a time of global vagaries, and a time it needs to urgently diversify its exports to lessen dependance on ready-made garments.
And yet, the perception of being short-changed persists. India’s bilateral trade with Bangladesh is $16bn, with $14bn in India’s favour. It makes for constant complaints in Bangladesh. But there’s rarely a remark about the China-Bangladesh trade -- China being Bangladesh’s largest trading partner. The Centre for Policy Dialogue, Bangladesh, in a December 2023 report, mentioned a staggering trade surplus in China’s favour of nearly $27bn in 2022. Bangladesh’s exports to China are in the vicinity of $1bn, about half of its exports to India.
There are several justifiable reasons for this anti-India undercurrent -- besides the fact that China doesn’t share a border with Bangladesh and is thus automatically saved several blushes.

A quick sampler
After bombastic statements in 2020 by India’s leadership to take care of its neighbourhood, particularly Bangladesh, with adequate, timely supplies of Covid vaccines, India pulled the plug in early 2021 by stopping the supply of privately manufactured vaccines to Bangladesh, primarily caused by a spiking of Covid cases in India. On account of India’s missteps with Covid management and consequent squeeze on vaccine supply, Bangladesh was compelled to greenlight emergency use of Russian and Chinese vaccines.

Media exposure in late-2022 and early 2023 of the overpricing of coal by India’s favoured Adani Group for a power project in India’s Jharkhand state to exclusively supply Bangladesh, led to massive public outcry. It followed a rush to Dhaka by Adani executives, and renegotiation of rates. That all is not forgotten was signalled by a headline this January in a major Bangladeshi newspaper: “Bangladesh's power purchase supercharges Adani revenue.”
In 2014, Bangladesh eclipsed the UK to become the second biggest source of tourists to India. It has since frequently featured in the second spot after the US, and registered a big spike in 2022. From medical treatment-related travel to sightseeing and shopping, Bangladeshis handsomely contribute to India’s tourism earnings. In contrast, issuance of visas has for long been a cumbersome process; the process is relatively less cumbersome for Indians travelling to Bangladesh. Despite improvements in the visa application process, and the vast number of visas being issued -- a staggering 1.6 million Indian visas were issued in Bangladesh in 2023 -- the process cries out for more streamlining as befits a mature bilateral relationship.
Papers, please
This column emphatically suggests the unilateral introduction by India of quickly processed E-visas, extending visa-on-arrival for an expanding category of Bangladeshi visitors, and removing restrictions of specific points of entry and exit to and from India for overland travel.
There are other major irritants, such as India declining to ink a deal to equitably share and control Teesta River waters, citing opposition by West Bengal. India’s federal application of water rights cuts little ice as lives and livelihoods are affected in the Teesta basin in northern Bangladesh. Indeed, in late-2023 China’s ambassador to Bangladesh spoke openly of prospects to help Bangladesh mitigate problems in the Teesta basin.

It doesn’t also make salutary news to hear every few weeks of Bangladeshis being shot at the border by India’s Border Security Force. This shoot-first-ask-questions-later policy is horrific even as successive BSF chiefs plead last-resort for such deaths, or claim that many of those killed were smugglers with violent intent. Odhikar, a Bangladeshi rights organization listed nearly 1,300 Bangladeshis killed between 2010 and 2023, and nearly 1,200 injured. Media pointed to how even one death of a Nepali citizen along India’s border with Nepal in 2017 triggered a bilateral crisis. With India and Bangladesh, body counts aren’t even a blip on India’s policy radar.

New Delhi’s go-to sentiment for Bangladesh remains “1971,” by which it reminds Bangladesh and Bangladeshis of its strategic and tactical aid -- and Indian blood spilled -- for the creation of Bangladesh.
In 2023 surely “1971” cannot remain India’s forever siren song. (China, which supported Pakistan in 1971 and remained quiet during the ensuing genocide, has deftly moved beyond “1971.”)

Bilateral relations, as Indian mandarins must surely realize, is not only predicated on excellent bilateral relations of prime ministers or foreign ministers, or the easy dispatch with which Indian officials and establishment-friendly think-tank heads fly in and out of Dhaka, but also through effective, respectful interaction and communication aimed at Bangladeshi citizens and businesses.