Sushma Swaraj’s visit : Unwelcome portents

The Dhaka visit of India's new foreign minister Sushma Swaraj has again been held hostage to India's domestic politics often characterised by competitive radicalism. This phenomenon has done huge damage to India-Bangladesh relations in the five/six years, despite the Hasina government in Dhaka providing much opportunities to Delhi to take the bilateral ties to a new high. If the BJP's opposition, coupled with that of Trinamul Congress and Asom Gana Parishad, prevented the Congress from formalising the land boundary agreement and signing the Teesta water sharing deal with Bangladesh, it is the Congress in Assam now raising hell over a proposal to allow visa-free entry to Bangladesh children and senior citizens.

India's ministry of external affairs (MEA) had come up with this proposal ahead of its minister Sushma Swaraj's visit to Dhaka. The proposal also sought visa-on-arrival for all other Bangladesh nationals — and visa-free entry for those below 10 or above 65 years. Sushma Swaraj herself was keen on this proposal because this would have given her something to offer Bangladesh on the table during what is her first standalone visit abroad as foreign minister.

But it was Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi who has played the spoilsport this time. Four years ago, he visited Dhaka with Manmohan Singh and attacked Mamata Banerjee for sabotaging the Teesta agreement. Now that he is pushed to the wall by dissidents within the Congress for the party's poor showing in parliamentary elections and attacked by the BJP for "votebank politics" with illegal migrants from Bangladesh, Gogoi decided to play the patriot and oppose the MEA proposals on grounds of national security. He came out in public opposition to the visa proposals drawn up by the MEA which had decided to take the states bordering Bangladesh into confidence. On the visa regime, West Bengal and Tripura supported the MEA proposals while Meghalaya remained non-commital.

The BJP was not willing to be stumped by the Congress in an attempt to look nice to Bangladesh. When Assam BJP leaders called up Home Minister Rajnath Singh and briefed him about Gogoi's tantrums and its impact on local politics, the BJP chief  was quick to veto the MEA proposals in his capacity as Home Minister. What Sushma Swaraj may now offer Bangladesh at the most is long term multiple entry visas for children and senior citizens. The MEA spokesperson said on the eve of her visit that the visa-on-arrival proposals were not yet up for bilateral discussions.

So, India will again miss out on doing something that would have gone down really well with the people of Bangladesh, and not just the government in Dhaka. Sushma Swaraj would surely reiterate India's commitment to sign the Teesta water sharing deal and implement the land boundary agreement. But she will not be able to provide any time frame for implementing these agreements. All she can expect is for Dhaka to repose its faith in the Narendra Modi magic to get West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to agree to these deals after having opposed it for five years.

While these long pending sovereign commitments by India continue to hang in uncertainty, Delhi is now going to miss out on a chance to placate Dhaka with a visa package that would have struck a chord with the poor and middle class in Bangladesh, considering the large numbers who come to India for treatment, education, tourism and much else. This, at a time, when China is really warming up to Bangladesh's present government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. That should not alarm Delhi unnecessarily because Hasina has been courting both India and China as well as Japan and Russia to stump the West, which had been opposed to the Jan 5 parliamentary elections that brought her back to power.

During her recent visit to China, a raft of deals were signed. These include a joint venture to establish a 1,320 megawatt coal-fired power plant, an economic and technical cooperation agreement, commitments on disaster rescue equipment and on a flood prevention and management study. The two countries signed a MOU to create a Chinese economic and investment zone in the main port city of Chittagong.

Bangladesh and China are also discussing construction of a second deep sea port at Sonadia, a tiny island in the Bay of Bengal. Sonadia may emerge as a major regional trade hub as it provides sea access to China's Yunnan province, India's landlocked northeastern states, the Himalayan nations of Nepal and Bhutan.

China has been widely tipped to win the Sonadia contract, but Bangladesh opposes Beijing's attempt to dictate the port design. That may soon be sorted out though. With one Chinese company getting the contract to construct the 6.15 km railroad bridge on the mighty Padma river, the country's biggest infrastructure project so far, Beijing is all set to gain huge visibility in Bangladesh at a time when India is hardly able to offer anything tangible to its eastern neighbour — except rancor over alleged illegal migration. Without needlessly hitting panic buttons, China's growing presence in Bangladesh should cause Delhi to ponder about its own policy towards Bangladesh.

Considering Hasina's positive role in addressing India's security concerns, evident in the crackdown against rebel groups from northeast India, India should first sign and implement the Teesta and land boundary agreement before it asks for anything else.

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Subir Bhaumik is senior editor with bdnews24.com