Curtain falls on Bangladesh-India relations?

The Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid’s final spin to the LBA deal is now history. Bangladesh will now have to wait for a change of government in both the capitals for the ratification that he had described as a formality, like a photo session of a marriage already done. For Bangladesh, this was extremely disappointing to say the least. But then, in retrospect, this was hardly unexpected. The Indians have a history of making promises to Bangladesh and then failing to deliver. A New Delhi correspondent of a leading Bangla newspaper said that Salman Khurshid withdrew the bill once two members, one from Trinamool and another from Asom Gana Parishad, created a row when he tried to place the bill. That was the final day on the monsoon session of the Indian Parliament with the next session due when Bangladesh would be holding its national elections. The correspondent wrote that on that final day, the Congress led government was able to get through a number of controversial bills. He alluded that with the ratification bill, the Congress led government did not show any such enthusiasm to get it through.The Teesta deal that with the LBA deal had held up the paradigm shift in Bangladesh-India relations for which Sheikh Hasina had shown both political will and vision was forgotten in the spin that New Delhi had given to create false hopes in Dhaka that the LBA deal would be delivered. In fact, no one in New Delhi or in Dhaka is talking about the Teesta deal anymore although the Teesta Deal does not require any parliamentary ratification. It just would need to convince Mamata Banarjee to relent. When she had put the spanner over the deal two years ago, she had the stranglehold on the Congress led government with her 20 odd Trinamool members. Trinamool is no longer in the UPA coalition. The Centre has enough powers in the Indian federal system to force a recalcitrant province to see things its away. One is the Centre’s power over the purse. There is also an array of other powers. It does not seem that New Delhi made any attempt to use any of these powers to convince Paschimbanga to relent. In fact, its last attempt, one that was to embarrass Mamata Banarjee, forced her to strengthen her resolve to oppose the Teesta deal even more. New Delhi released a letter written by her before the Indian Prime Minister’s trip to Dhaka that Paschimbanga had no objection to the Teesta deal. When that letter was released in the media, Mamata Banarjee accused New Delhi of convincing her at that time of false pretext.Thus as curtain falls over now almost five years of Bangladesh-India negotiations for what could have moved the two countries to a new level of mutually beneficial relations, there is little to show that the two countries have even inched forward. This is a far cry from what was promised when Dhaka and New Delhi started their negotiations soon after the AL led government came to power in January 2009.  Sheikh Hasina must be given all the credit for the promising beginning. She did that all on her own; promised India full security cooperation by taking a stand against terrorism of all kind that was appreciated both at home and abroad and also offered to New Delhi land transit on a trial basis.New Delhi of course was the net beneficiary of Sheikh Hasina’s courageous moves. Bangladesh handed 7 ULFA terrorists to New Delhi and established a framework for security and intelligence cooperation to jointly fight terrorism on both sides of the Bangladesh-India border. These steps were answers to the Indian dream. The land transit that was offered on a trial basis was another Indian dream from Bangladesh. Tripura benefitted from the offer and established the 726 MW gas-based power plant. In contrast, Dhaka received promises galore. New Delhi promised the LBA and the Teesta deals; a US 1 billion in soft loan; electricity; trade concessions and to top it all, to turn Bangladesh into the regional connectivity and economic hub with great economic benefits.The Bangladesh negotiators trumpeted New Delhi’s promises where sometimes it was difficult to understand whose interests they were furthering. They were so confident that New Delhi would deliver all it promised that they were unkind to those who were skeptical. The Bangladesh negotiating team was also a disunited unit where the Foreign Minister who had the professional diplomats in her Ministry and thus should have been leading the negotiations was following two of the Prime Minister’s Advisers who had none except themselves carrying the burden of the negotiations. That such an approach would not succeed in negotiating with India was evident to many and that was what happened.That notwithstanding, New Delhi must take the major share of blame for the unhappy end to the courage and vision of Sheikh Hasina. It promised to deliver the Teesta and LBA deals knowing that there were formidable obstacles on the way. New Delhi did not alert Dhaka of these obstacles. Instead, it encouraged Dhaka’s expectations. When Manmohan Singh came to Dhaka in September, 2011, he was aware that Dhaka was waiting for the Teesta and the LBA deals to be delivered in reciprocity for the two dreams it have delivered to India, namely the security assurance and the trial run of land transit. Manmohan Singh also knew that his government’s political strength was stuttering and he would not be able to deliver either.Even after betraying Bangladesh with the promises, New Delhi did not care to explain to Dhaka that it would not be able to deliver either of the deals anytime soon. Instead it kept on making more promises, stating that the deals were round the corner. Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid’s description of ratification of LBA as the photo session of a marriage deed was something that people in Bangladesh failed to understand. They were confused whether he was making another promise or making light an extremely serious bilateral issue upon which rested a paradigm shift of Bangladesh-India relations. In fact, against Dhaka’s sincerity in negotiations, New Delhi made promises it knew it would not be able to deliver. It was only very recently New Delhi made some sincere efforts to reciprocate to Dhaka’s bold and courageous concessions. The show of sincerity however came when it was put under the spanner by prominent Indians like Sekhar Gupta, Editor of Indian Express, former Indian High Commissioners to Dhaka, Muchkund Dubey, Dev Mukherjee, and Veena Sikri who accused it of putting Sheikh Hasina in a tight political situation by accepting from her dream concessions but failing to reciprocate on critical issues such as the Teesta and the LBA deals.These efforts were all belated and thus fell through. New Delhi made another belated attempt to be fair to Dhaka when it ordered a retrial of the Felani murder case. However, the damage was already done when the accused Havildar Amiya Ghosh was set free in the first trial early this month and a retrial was ordered only after widespread and bipartisan anger in Bangladesh. Therefore, the outcome of the retrial would have little or no impact on the affecting the outcome of the efforts of Dhaka and New Delhi for implementing the vision of Sheikh Hasina for a paradigm shift in relations for which she made moves that none of her predecessors had dared. The efforts failed because of naïve and unprofessional conduct of diplomacy by her negotiators and less than sincere efforts by New Delhi and its negotiators.The writer is a retired career Ambassador