Following on some seminal steps taken by Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during her state visit to India in January 2010 to rid bilateral relations of the logjam, she has taken the first big step towards addressing India's most serious security concern by handing over a wanted insurgent — Ulfa activist Arabinda Rajkhawa — and avowing that she would not let Bangladeshi territory be used by elements hostile to India. This is the critical moment for India to take an even bigger step, and convert a détente into an entente cordiale.
Bangladesh and India are reported to have surveyed and settled the contours of their residual disputed boundary, albeit a short stretch in the sprawling 4,096 km border the two neighbours share, as also the adverse possessions, some Indian territory within Bangladesh and likewise of Bangladesh within India, besides liquidation of enclaves — 111 in Bangladesh, 55 in India — inhabited by about 53,000 people. The likely Manmohan-Hasina boundary accord, 2011 completing the Indira-Mujib protocol of 1974, besides the Teesta waters sharing agreement during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s forthcoming visit to Dhaka will signify a welcome reprieve for him, currently a harried man at home.
Among other important issues, discussions in Dhaka can be expected to centre round the asymmetrical trade turnover, India’s annual exports of over $3 billion being almost ten times India's imports from Bangladesh. One sector of unfettered export interest to Bangladesh is RMG (ready made garments) which account for three-fourth of its total export earnings. India’s offer of duty-free annual import, now raised to 10 million pieces, is dismissed as too little. In the context of a bilateral free trade agreement broadly contemplated by the two countries, India may well convince its own industry of the immense potential of the socio-economic-political impact in Bangladesh and permit unrestricted RMG imports (with a appropriate “rules of origin” stipulation), in addition to an effective clampdown by Bangladesh on smuggling and clandestine influx of migrants into India.
A core group of commerce and industry experts from the two countries may identify specific sectors and projects within, say, six months for a concerted investment thrust facilitated by the two governments. Indian companies need to explore infrastructure segments, in particular, development of ports (Chittagong, Mongla, Ashuganj) along with adequate landside connectivity, extensive railway rehabilitation and modernisation, multimodal terminals and inland waterway transport networks.
What is of crucial significance is to instil confidence among entrepreneurs in both countries by simplifying and harmonising customs nomenclatures and other procedures, quality controls and standards, augmenting banking infrastructure, streamlining visa regimes and developing a common EDI platform. Trucks from Kolkota to Petrapole-Benapole border take too long because of rickety roads and bottlenecks. This border station alone accounts for three-fourths of total India-Bangladesh trade by land. The seven integrated check posts being developed by India for revamping India-Bangladesh interchange stations at a cost of over Rs 500 crore have taken too long. These ICPs, if manned by regulatory personnel of the two countries for joint border operations, will enhance efficiency and convenience.
Countries in the region have somehow continued with self-inflicted wounds. The global geography of trade has been changing. More than tariffs, transport costs and connectivity play an important role. Trucks are not allowed to cross over from one side to the other; goods are offloaded at the border with inevitable consequences for costs, damage, delays and pilferage. The two leaders meeting in Dhaka need to ask for a time-bound blue-print for finalising and implementing a viable and progressive agreement for end-to-end road and rail transport, as well as multimodal land and water transit of containers. Continuation of status quo for procedures and practices and a lag in infrastructure investments will increase congestion and costs exponentially, jeopardising trade turnover.
After 1947, India’s north-east, wedged up against the border with China, has suffered isolation from the mainland: the distance between Agartala in Tripura to Kolkata increased from 350 km to 1,645 km. Assam tea travels 1,400 km to Kolkata port for export while it would traverse 60 per cent less distance if it could move instead to Chittagong port. Akhaura, earlier a rail-head for Agartala, served as a major link between Tripura and Chittagong port. Indian and Bangladesh railways can be conjoined at Akhaura-Agartala by adding a mere 13 km of rail track, which, though so vital for connectivity of eastern India with the north-east, has made little progress after the project was given a go-ahead during the Bangladesh prime minister’s state visit in January 2010.
Bangladesh is a veritable bridge between different parts of India as well as between South Asia and South-east Asia. Although entwined by history, religion, language and culture, today, inexplicably trust-deficient Bangladesh and India need to re-discover the four-decade-old synergy and confluence of minds, leading to congruence of interests and policies.
There is another window of opportunity here. Good work done by India and Bangladesh together will pave the way for similar overtures in the Saarc region, hitherto bedevilled by recrimination and inaction. Consistent with its size, India is expected to be generous towards its neighbours, with no whiff of hegemony or insistence on reciprocity, yet legitimately insisting on its own concerns and interests, such as its security.