The government has taken full advantage of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s walking out of the ruling coalition to push through a series of reforms that have brought considerable cheer to markets. But it has done nothing to infuse steel into Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s spine on the Bangladesh question.
At a track-two dialogue between India and Bangladesh this week, participants heard how the possibility of reviving the Teesta waters pact and the ratification of the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) had considerably gone up because of Banerjee’s exit. It was implied that her withdrawal from the government left the field clear to push ahead with both agreements.
This is true. Now that Banerjee isn’t around, the Ministry of External Affairs can well make the first move towards a signature on the Teesta. But the truth is that there is absolutely no movement on this front. The government seems preoccupied with other things to pay much attention to its eastern neighbour.
Question is, with what? External Affairs Minister S M Krishna missed two key meetings in New York that were taking place on the margins of the UN General Assembly — with the foreign ministers of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa) nations as well as with the foreign ministers of Brazil, Germany, Japan (collectively called the G-4), all of whom are jointly pushing for the expansion of the UN Security Council.
Krishna was in Dubai, taking an extended detour, which is why he couldn’t attend and India had to be represented at both meetings by Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai. But the question that nobody in the MEA is willing to answer is, why was Krishna delayed in Dubai so long that he couldn’t reach New York in time for the two crucial meetings?
Considering India has been a non-permanent member of the Security Council for the last two years and is hoping to push the Council to revamp itself to reflect the world’s real power centres in the 21st century, Krishna’s absence at the G4 meeting blows a big hole through India’s campaign for the last 10 years on this front.
Bangladesh is another widely neglected story. The home secretaries of the two countries held the 12th round of their talks in the past few days in Delhi, with the Bangladesh Home Secretary Monzur Hossain telling journalists there was “zero tolerance” inside Bangladesh for those carrying out anti-India activities. Both sides promised to sign a mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) by the end of this year, which basically means that sentenced prisoners would be transferred to the other country.
For India, this raises the hope that Anup Chetia, an outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa) extremist, would be handed back to India. Chetia has been absconding inside Bangladesh since 1997 and although he was caught and served out his sentence, he has still not been handed back to India. Arabinda Rajakhowa, another senior Ulfa extremist, was given back to India soon after Sheikh Hasina came to power in 2009- end. Now, it seems that Hasina has bitten the bullet and decided that it is of no use to Dhaka anymore to keep Chetia.
So how does India respond? By keeping a stubborn silence on reopening the Teesta waters pact. Unlike the Land Boundary Agreement, which needs the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on board before it can be ratified by a two-thirds majority (which BJP is likely to offer) and assent by a simple majority in all the five assemblies that surround Bangladesh, signing the Teesta waters pact can be done by Prime Minister Singh alone. He doesn’t need anybody else’s support to do so.
In the coming week, though, Bangladesh will be obliterated from India’s mind as the India-US economic and financial partnership meeting gets under way, and US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will be in Delhi and Mumbai to hold talks with his counterpart, Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
Geithner’s visit is a sort of farewell visit to India before US Presidential elections are held on November 6, though both sides are expected to discuss the recent push in India’s economic reforms and how to take this further. The US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is also here to participate in the talks and also meet his counterpart, the Reserve Bank of India Governor D Subbarao.
India is closely watching the developments inside the US, especially in the wake of Republican Presidential challenger Mitt Romney closing the gap with the current President Barack Obama after the first TV debate. With Obama a known quantity, the Indian establishment is holding its breath on the ultra-right-wing pronouncements of the Romney camp: Declaring China to be a currency manipulator or promising to bomb Iran if he comes to power are hardly reassuring gestures on Romney’s part.
With the US preoccupied and China busy with its own party congress meeting on November 8, India has a chance to focus on its neighbourhood. Unfortunately, there seems little evidence of interest on that score.
