The mother of all gaffes

I am biting my tongue. In my last column I wrote that India's ruler is bound to cast his shadow on neighbours. And lo and behold Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promptly made such grossly adverse remarks about Bangladesh that he must be now regretting those. His comments have shocked the secular intelligentsia in both countries. Dr Singh is probably biting his tongue just as I am.

While interacting with newspaper editors, Dr Singh declared that at least 25 percent of Bangladeshis are very anti-Indian and owe allegiance to the Jamaat-e-Islami which is controlled by Pakistan's ISI. The remarks — displayed on the PMO website for 30 hours before they were deleted — were blamed on a briefing by the security establishment ahead of the PM's date with editors. But the PM cannot disown his words because he uttered them. Anyway no head has rolled so far for misinforming the country's highest authority.

Quite frankly the timing of Dr Singh's factually and politically incorrect statement couldn't have been worse. It queered the pitch for foreign minister S. M. Krishna's July 6-8 trip to Bangladesh. Moreover, Sonia Gandhi will be in Dhaka on July 25. Two heavyweights, home minister P. C. Chidamabaram and water resources minister Salman Khursheed, will follow in her footsteps. And Dr Singh – no less – is scheduled to visit Bangladesh in September to sign what is being hyped as a historic accord which will transform India-Bangladesh relations forever.

I believe that a Bangladeshi editor asked Krishna on July 6 if Dr Singh's remarks reflected a "mindset". Krishna responded diplomatically to the blunt question. The truth is that India is so obsessed with its own security that it views all neighbours with suspicion. It doesn't seem to trust any country. Indo-Bangladesh relations were badly strained when the Bharatiya Janata Party was in power. BJP leaders wanted to annex Bangladesh to create the Akhand Bharat of their dreams. According to the BJP, Bangladeshi Muslims entering India were infiltrators while Bangladeshi Hindu immigrants were refugees. It made religion the yardstick for dealing with Bangladesh.

I still remember Bangladesh's impassioned plea at a meeting with Yashwant Sinha, foreign minister in the BJP government, in 2002 to order India's Border Security Force to stop shooting Bangladeshi civilians like birds and rabbits if they strayed by mistake into Indian territory. The appeal to stop indiscriminate border killings mirrored Bangladesh's helplessness in dealing with its giant neighbour. The ratio of Indian and Bangladeshi security forces deployed along the 4,000km border is 2.5:1, and the overwhelming numerical superiority seemed to have given BSF the licence to gun down dozens of innocent Bangladeshis every year. I don't know the latest casualty figures but around 40 Bangladeshis were shot dead in 2001-2002.

As relations between India and Bangladesh nosedived because of the BJP's sectarian agenda and a slighted Dhaka was perceived as cosying up to Islamabad, J. N. Dixit, a retired foreign secretary, fearlessly cleared the air. He wrote: "India looms large as a threat and Bangladesh has, therefore, started cultivating Pakistan to counter-balance it."

Dr Singh's indiscretion has not gone down well with the Indian media or diplomats. At present, there is growing appreciation in India – echoed by Dr Singh too during the infamous interaction with editors – for the Awami League government's efforts to address New Delhi's security concerns by cracking down on separatists using Bangladeshi soil for anti-Indian activities. Moreover, Sheikh Hasina is perceived as a friend of India. Because of the current goodwill, the PM's comments are being largely viewed as meddling in a neighbour's internal affairs.

Indian diplomats, in particular, are aghast. Former ambassador to Bangladesh, Veena Sikri, articulated the disappointment of the foreign service when she described Dr Singh's remarks as "not proper". She also wondered where Dr Singh had got his figures from.

After all, the Jamaat-e-Islami won only two seats in the 2008 parliamentary elections and has never polled more than 8.6 percent of the votes. After Dr Singh put his foot in his mouth, Ronen Sen — who once served in the Indian mission in Dhaka and rose to become the ambassador to USA — said that India should placate Bangladesh by immediately granting it complete duty-free access to the Indian market.

Deb Mukharji, a former ambassador to Bangladesh, says Dr Singh's remarks are particularly unfortunate in the context of what he described as "the positive atmosphere now between India and Bangladesh". He also berated the PM for harping on India's 'generosity' towards Bangladesh during the jinxed interaction with editors while talking about the line of credit New Delhi has offered Dhaka. Mukharji revealed that the shelters India promised to build after Cyclone Sidr are yet to be established and Bangladesh is yet to receive a single grain of rice from the 500,000 tonnes India had pledged!

Clearly, Dr Singh has miles to go — and many promises to keep before he lands in Dhaka in September!
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S. N. M. Abdi is a consulting editor, writer, columnist and broadcaster from India.