Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the capital on a two-day visit yesterday amidst huge expectations of the debut of a new chapter in our relations extending into areas that were not emphasised so far in people to people interest.We welcome the Indian Prime Minister to Bangladesh and wish him a happy stay with his entourage. Mr Modi, a seasoned politician and long time Chief Minister of India’s Gujarat state himself, tweeted in Bengali on his arrival in Dhaka saying “Hello Bangladesh, I bring with me the affection and goodwill of the people of India.” His greetings appear to have essentially reciprocated the feelings of the people of Bangladesh who were also waiting to receive him with all affection and goodwill, despite political differences among us. The presence of the Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Benarjee in the capital on this occasion has made the Indian Prime Minister’s visit more attractive, although the inking of the Teesta Water Sharing Agreement remained out of the list of the deals for signing for her unending reservations leaving the people of Bangladesh to keep on unending waiting. Some wish to believe that the past relations will reach a new height with this visit, but to many others what is important for the people of Bangladesh is not to take the past Indian policy to a new height, but to a change in the direction of people to people relationship for a new meaning and purpose.We shall not be honest with Prime Minister Modi if we hide the undercurrent of distrust and tension that exist in the minds of the people of Bangladesh. In India’s past policy towards Bangladesh there was a strong belief among the Bangladeshis that unless India so desire peace, harmony and even good governance cannot be easy to achieve. What has been ignored is that our special relationship with India is based on India’s help in our liberation war and the democratic commitment of the liberation war cannot be excluded from India-Bangladesh relationship. Misgivings on India’s perception of Bangladesh should be recognised for a new beginning in our relationship under Prime Minister Modi. The major success of Narendra Modi’s visit to Bangladesh would depend on how far he would be able to detect the pulse of the common people and business in the streets of Bangladesh beyond and outside the bureaucratic tangle. He is given credit for taking steps boldly to implement the Land Boundary Agreement made some 41-year ago. New progress is hopefully yet to take place.What needs to be recognised by India is that water sharing by India with Bangladesh is a life and death issue. India’s policy in water sharing has been most unsympathetic in the past. Signing Teesta water sharing would have been a milestone for Mr Modi’s visit about which he has shown his sincerity most earnestly. We praise him in the knowledge that he knows how burning the issue is. The Congress government could not bring itself to accepting Bangladesh’s need to have its fair share of water from international rivers originating in India. The two Prime Ministers witnessed the signing of a protocol on ‘inland water transit and trade’ with inclusion of provision that ‘third countries’ like Nepal and Bhutan could be part of the communication system for transshipment of goods. Prime Minister Modi has also witnessed signing of protocol on coastal shipping, inland water transit and renewal of bilateral trade agreement to name a few. His visit is also marked by the opening of bus services on Kolkata-Dhaka-Shillong-Guwahati route and Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala route. But what comes up in the gaining list for Bangladesh remains to be seen. Policy makers on both sides must know some credit line or sale of electricity on India’s term is not enough to take the relations between the two countries to a new perspective. So the India’s trade policy is seriously hurting. Its export to Bangladesh almost doubled to $6,034 million in 2013-14 from $3,213 in 2009-10. This is in addition to informal trade covering several billion dollars a year from the Indian side. But Bangladesh’s export to India moved only to $456 million from $303 million during this period. Moreover, Indian expatriate workers in Bangladesh are remitting around $ 5.0 billion a year as per Indian media report. Trade balance needs to be improved.The Indian Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar earlier made it clear that the key factors of this visit ‘are connectivity’ and concluding the Land Boundary Agreement. Both the Prime Ministers exchanged the instruments of ratification of the Land Boundary Agreement that Bangladesh had earlier signed in 1974.So the most important consideration should be the connectivity part of India’s present policy and it should not mean connectivity through roads and rivers and railways without reciprocity, but people to people connectivity. To start with, killing of Bangladeshis by Indian Border Security Forces must be stopped immediately. The eminence of the people counts for any durable relationship between and among the countries.
