India Bangladesh Relations: Current Paradigms

It is India who aided Bangladesh to gain independence from Pakistan in 1971. India still shows soft corner while dealing with this small neighbour in its courtyard. However, in the passage of time Bangladesh has gained maturity as a nation state and has had its own concerns and anxieties, so does India have.

Current Scenario

• During the recent times Indo-Bangladesh relation has had a chequered past for many reasons like frequent changes in the political arrangement in Bangladesh, alleged neglect of Bangladesh by India, India’s increasing preoccupation with its western and northern neighbours, polarisation in political and popular opinions within Bangladesh on relations with India, partially negative perception within Bangladesh about India’s approaches and unhappiness of both neighbours on pivotal issues like water sharing, illegal migration etc. All these development in current times have vitiated the bilateral relationship between India and Bangladesh to a considerable extent.
• The changing political scenario in Bangladesh since 2009 with change of guard at the helm, Prime Minister Sheik Hasina’sVision 2021 marking the golden jubilee year of the People Republic of Bangladesh; realisation within the opinion-moulding circles in India and Bangladesh that contentious bilateral issues should be given due weightage have placed some meaning to the fractured two-nations ties and have put the relations back on track.
• There is a felt need to put in place a comprehensive framework of cooperation for development between the two countries, having their mutually shared vision for the future, in the common areas of cooperation in water resources, power, transportation and connectivity, tourism and education.
• Sentimental and cultural attachments and affinities between India and Bangladesh are indeed important for enduring bilateral relationship, as it was seen lately in the joint celebrations of the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore.
• Also building relations with a close neighbour is a tough exercise and becomes tougher when the neighbour is of smaller size in terms of territory and economy. The smaller partner has obvious anxieties and concerns. Between Bangladesh and India there is the additional and inescapable burden of the past. The two nation states had been one people for long before independence of India. Such past oneness has been helpful in fostering cultural bonding between the two neighbours; however, it has also strained diplomatic ties between the two because of their distinct unequal physical size and span of geopolitical influence of both.

Trade And Commerce

• The “big brother–small brother” syndrome that often haunts the Bangladeshi viewpointneeds immediate address for healthy and effective trade relations between the two. The two countries are now looking to boost trade and security along the border and to fight human trafficking.
• India has recently announced $2 billion new credit line to Bangladesh that follows $1 billion assistance in 2011 for infrastructure development.
• Also Indian majors like Adani Power Limited and Reliance Power limited of India have signed deals to state-run Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) to produce about 4, 600 MW of electricity, which will have impact on energy situation in Bangladesh.
• During 2014-15 the aggregate trade between India and Bangladesh stood at $6.9 billion. India has also increased the status of zero tariff imports for all except a few tariff lines.
• Bangladesh has recently offered an exclusive zone for India which will boost Indian investment in Bangladesh in future.
• However, the Bangladesh often complains of existing trade imbalance with India as the latter export to the former is comparatively substantial. Absence of freed trade agreement between India and Bangladesh acts negatively against bilateral trade and commerce. However, the two countries have had trade agreements for carrying out trade activities.
• An FTA is likely to improve the overall competitiveness of the Bangladesh economy through access to the marketing network, skill and technology of Indian manufacturers and trading partners.
• According to World Bank Report 2012, an FTA between the two nations would increase Bangladesh’s exports to India by 182 per cent and that of India’s to Bangladesh by 126 per cent.
• India’s exports to Bangladesh include cotton, cereals, nuclear reactors, boilers and machinery, while imports from the neighbouring country comprise edible fruit and nuts, fish, apparel and textiles articles.
• To conclude an FTA and a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between India and Bangladesh can address the needs of flourishing trade between them.

Road Connectivity

• India and Bangladesh has close socio-cultural ties and there exists road connectivity between the two countries.
• India and Bangladesh share historically and politically significant transport and communication for their closest geographical position. Road transport was marred for several decades in the post Bengal partition. However, in current times both countries have shown interest in tying-up through road transport.
• The Kolkata–Dhaka Bus (1999) and the Dhaka–Agartala Bus (2001) are the primary road links between the two countries; a direct Kolkata-Agartala running through Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh is being developed by both countries.
• On June 2, 2015, the first trial run of a direct bus between Kolkata and Agartala was taken up, a route distance of 500 km, as compared to the 1650 km if it ran through the Chicken’s Neck (Silguri) to remain within India. General bus service began on June 7, and the first bus was flagged off by political leaders of both countries including Prime Ministers of India and Bangladesh.
• India shows enormous interest in forging close connectivity with Bangladesh and it remains how far Bangladesh exchanges India’s cordiality.

Water Sharing

• India and Bangladesh share fifty four rivers between them. All rivers of Bangladesh either have their source in India or pass through it. The whole issue of utilisation and sharing of waters require regional cooperation.
• Despite having set up a Joint River Commission for water management in 1972, tensions over sharing river water still constrict bilateral relations between India and Bangladesh.
• Ganges, the major river system in India, flow into Bay of Bengal through Bangladesh. About 35 million people in almost one-third area of Bangladesh are directly dependent upon the Ganges. The diversions of Ganges water by India and the consequent decreased flow through Bangladesh has disturbed fishing and navigation and also has negative impact on agricultural and industrial production.
• Tensions between the countries on how to share resources recently came to a head in a dispute over the Teesta River that flows through Sikkim and West Bengal before flowing through Bangladesh. Both India and Bangladesh have built barrages on the river Teesta within miles of each other; their combined performance capacity and the stated requirements of the two countries exceed the flow of the river in the dry season.
• The bilateral treaty in 2012 proposed an equal allocation of Teesta River between India and Bangladesh. However, the proposal remained only on paper due to stiff opposition from West Bengal on the ground that release of high volume of water to the lower riparian would cause problems in the northern region of state during dry period.
• India needs to consider the requirement of West Bengal the upper riparian region; but it also needs to responsive to the requirement of the lower riparian regions situated in Bangladesh. Disputes over river water sharing should be resolved not on the basis of political compulsion but on the ground of economic and environmental compulsions of the affected regions.
• India being the upper riparian region is blamed by Bangladesh for being irresponsive to its water needs and it has been a major hurdle on the path of cohesive bilateral relationship between them.
• India and Bangladesh have many unresolved issues related to river water sharing till date. Despite attempts by New Delhi and Dhaka disputes on sharing water hamper Indo-Bangladesh ties. The issues still call for a permanent solution through effective institutional mechanism agreed upon by two countries.

Tipaimukh hydroelectric power project

• The proposed construction Tipaimukh hydro project on trans-boundary Barak river in Manipur is still pending due to opposition from Bangladesh. Protest marches in Bangladesh at various times were launched to stop the construction of the dam.
• In 2013, the governments of India and Bangladesh announced further delays, as Bangladesh undertakes additional studies about expected effects and mitigating measures.
• The hydro project has become a high-profile issue in India-Bangladesh relations and has a huge potential to be a thorn in bilateral relations.
• India has sought to allay these concerns and also invited Bangladesh to become a partner in the project, which would also facilitate the sharing of power to be generated.
• Given this background, the assessment of impact on Bangladesh has been finally incorporated into the agenda of the Indo-Bangladesh Joint Rivers Commission. Significantly, a sub-group of the Joint Rivers Commission had been set up in May 2012 to examine the impact of the project on Bangladesh.

Security Concerns of India related To Bangladesh

• Bangladesh is surrounded by India from three sides and the fourth side is guarded by the Bay of Bengal. The territorial expanse of Bangladesh is embedded in a most sensitive region of India. The deltaic and riverine border makes it permeable, with or without fences and the Border Security Force.This is a potential threat to India’s security in the wake of rising of any hostile regime in Bangladesh.
• The rise of Islamist fundamentalist regime in Bangladesh also poses a threat to India.
• Engagement of other countries with Bangladesh is of concern for India. In the past US attempted a ninety years of lease of new port at Chittagong with extra-territorial rights. However, considering cordial Indo-US relationship during recent times, it cannot be a potential risk factor for India.
• India’s fourth security concern would be large-scale immigration from Bangladesh which has been addressed in the recently ratified Indo-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement.

Indo-Bangladesh Border Dispute

• The boundary issue between India and Bangladesh has been lingering since British colonialists carved Pakistan out of India in 1947, and granted independence to the two countries.
• Bangladesh and India share a 4,096-kilometer – long international border, the fifth-longest land border in the world.
• The porous border line between the two neighbours has been bone of contentious issues for decades. It has been used as safe route for smuggling of items including drugs from India to Bangladesh.
• Large influx of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh to India and uncontrolled human and drug trafficking has been a major source of tension for India. The border has also witnessed occasional skirmishes between the Indian Border Security Force and the Border Guards Bangladesh, most notably in 2001.
• Relations between India and its smaller neighbour Bangladesh have significantly improved since Bangladesh promised that it would not allow India’s separatist insurgents to use the porous 4,000-kilometre border to execute raids in India.
• The increasing number of enclaves on both sides of the Indo-Bangladesh border led to complex bilateral issues over decades.
• On June 6 2016 the countries signed a historic agreement for swapping border enclaves is likely to put a full-stop to the years-long border tension between them.

India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) 2015

• The ratification of 1974 India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) by Parliament of India in May 2015 has paved the way for forging stronger bilateral ties between India and Bangladesh.
• Hailed by Bangladesh as a new milestone in bilateral relations, the passage of LBA is a sign of working of India’s newly conceived ‘neighbourhood-first-policy’.
• The ratified LBA facilitated the exchange of enclaves which agreed upon by the two countries in June 2015. Bangladesh and India exchanged 162 adversely-held enclaves on August 1 2015 at the stroke of midnight, ending one of the world’s most complex border disputes that had witnessed bruising developments since seven decades.
• 111 Indian enclaves of 17, 160 acres located in the Cooch Behar district of West Bengal became Bangladesh territory and similarly, 51 Bangladesh enclaves of 7,110 acres became Indian territory.

Indo-Bangladesh Maritime Boundary Dispute

• The economic prospects of the Bay of Bengal region have increased enormously after Myanmar and India discovered huge natural gas deposits beneath the sea. Being prompted by treasure of the Bay Bangladesh – a nation with limited resource base and high demand of energy – in 2008 divided its claimed territorial sea and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) into 28 sea-blocks and leased them to multinational companies to meet its growing energy needs. However, India and Myanmar, the two major offshore countries, objected to such a move by Bangladesh.
• Bangladesh went in for arbitration over the delimitation of maritime boundary under the United Nations Convention on Law of Sea (UNCLOS) on October 8 2009.The court concluded its hearings on December 18, 2013 in The Hague.
• In a historic judgment, on July 7 2014, the Permanent Court of Arbitration at Hague awarded Bangladesh an area of 19,467 sq km, four-fifth of the total area of 25,602 sq km disputed maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal with India.
• The award puts an end to four-decade-long India-Bangladesh maritime dispute and opens a new chapter in the bilateral relations between the two close neighbours.
• UN Tribunal’s award has sharply delineated the maritime boundary line between India and Bangladesh in the territorial sea, Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and continental shelf within and beyond 200 nautical miles (nm).
• The international tribunal award has been warmly accepted by both Bangladesh and India as a positive development in furthering consolidation of friendly relations in the context of geo-strategic and geopolitical significance of grater Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and South Asian sub-region.
• The award has wide security and economic implications not only for India and Bangladesh but also for the entire Bay of Bengal region.
• The tribunal’s verdict relived the millions of dependant fishermen on the sea water of their decade-long woes and hardships. The amicable settlement has opened up vast sea areas which were not available to them in the last four decades. Now, India and Bangladesh could make measures to enhance cooperation in the conservation of the rich bio-diversity of the Sunderbans.
• The PCA award is really a “win-win” situation for both India and Bangladesh and itis likelyto enhance bilateral relations between the two closely-knitted neighbours.
• To conclude, India’s land and maritime boundary agreements with Bangladesh also show that rigid issues can be wrapped up between neighbours within an overall rapport of growing trust and friendship. Pakistan, India’s neighbour on its western arm, should learn from this development between India and Bangladesh.

Chinese Engagement with Bangladesh

• Bangladesh and China has decade-long diplomatic ties. 2015 marked the 40^th year of their relationship. China is the largest trading partner of Bangladesh in current times with the two-way trade accounting for about US$12 billion in 2014.
• China is contributing largely to ongoing infrastructural development in Bangladesh.
• The growing security and military relations between the two countries in recent days is taking place much to the chagrin of New Delhi.
• Beijing’s current initiative for setting up financial institutions including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is likely to create new opportunities for Bangladesh in accessing funds for infrastructure development.
• Bangladesh’s renewed interest in ocean economy in the Bay of Bengal in the context of UN approved delineation of maritime boundary over the Bay, it needs to engage with technologically and financially sound partners like China, Japan, the United States and South Korea, among others.
• Engagement with China may prove to be most important economic relation for Bangladesh considering China’s growing and developed economy and international clout.
• However, Dhaka needs to balance its relations between New Delhi and Beijing for its own interest.

In fine, India in its current focus on neighbourhood prosperity is going to foster an enduring bilateral relationship with Bangladesh, as perceived from the ongoing engagements between New Delhi and Dhaka. Both countries are on the right track for building rapport in spheres of bilateral importance; however, the deep-seated disputes like that of water-sharing needs to be addressed for good for a better tomorrow.