By P.K.Balachandran/Sunday Observer
Colombo, December 15: Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and his Bangladeshi counterpart, Mohammad Jashim Uddin, who met in Dhaka on Monday, voiced the concerns of their countries while at the same time expressing a desire to continue bilateral cooperation and people-to-people ties.
The same sentiments were expressed by the Chief Advisor to the Interim Government, Prof. Muhammad Yunus, and Vikram Misri during their meeting after the official talks.
Sources in Dhaka said that Misri’s talks with the Bangladesh leaders have prepared the ground for a rapprochement between the estranged neighbours.
Though described as being part of a regular “structured dialogue” called “Foreign Office Consultations” Vikram Misri’s engagement with the Interim Government in Dhaka was basically a fire fighting exercise. Bilateral relations were suffering due to incendiary statements and actions of groups on both sides with a political axe to grind after the pro-India Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted by a mass movement on August 5.
At his meeting with Misri on Monday, Chief Advisor Yunus described Bangladesh-India ties as being “very solid” and “close”. But he asked India to help clear the “clouds” that had cast a shadow over the relationship in recent times. Misri, in turn, said that the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first foreign leaders to greet Prof Yunus after he assumed office. “We wish you every success,” the Indian Foreign Secretary said and added: “We want to carry on from where we left off. We have to do business with the government of the day. This is a major relationship.”
In another statement, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said Misri expressed New Delhi’s desire to increase engagements with Bangladesh’s interim government and make “joint and concerted efforts” to boost relationships between the two neighbours.
“There is no second thought about increasing engagements. We see this as beneficial for both countries,” Misri told Yunus.
Misri read out a statement after his meeting with Touhid Hossein, the Foreign Policy Advisor, which said that India wanted to see the relationship with Bangladesh as “people-centric” and reflected in the development projects supported by India and the engagements on trade, commerce, connectivity, power, water, energy, development and cultural cooperation.
“There is no reason why this mutually beneficial relationship should not continue to develop in the interest of our people,” Misri added.
Misri raised certain recent “regrettable” developments and issues and conveyed India’s concerns, especially those related to the safety and welfare of minorities. The Bangladesh side said that most incidents were either political or personal, but they were portrayed as communal. Bangladesh said that the government was neither involved in such incidents nor did it condone them. Legal actions had been taken against those responsible.
Foreign Secretary Jashim Uddin requested the Indian side to take steps against false reports about Bangladesh in the Indian media. He emphasised that people of all religions in Bangladesh were freely following their faith.
Jashim Uddin also told Misri that this was an internal issue, and that it was inappropriate for any other country to interfere in Bangladesh’s internal issues. He invited Indian journalists to visit Bangladesh and see the ground realities for themselves.
Misri clarified that the Indian government was not responsible for the activities of certain media outlets or organisations that were spreading misleading narratives. However, Jashim Uddin asked the Indian government to curb negative propaganda against Bangladesh and rebuild trust and confidence among the peoples of the two countries. Misri clarified that media narratives and the Indian government’s perception about India-Bangladesh relations were different.
Hasina’s Refuge in Delhi
Prof Yunus raised the issue of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s refuge in Delhi. “Our people are concerned because she is making many statements from there. It creates tension,” Yunus told Misri. Foreign secretary Jashim Uddin said that the Indian authorities should convey to Hasina that her statements were creating needless tension. The Indian side said her presence had no bearing on India’s relations with Bangladesh. India will engage with the government of the day.
Misri replied that it would be wrong to think that India had ties with only one particular party in Bangladesh, ie: Hasina’s Awami League.
The Bangladesh officials took up many other issues, such as border killings. Bangladesh called upon India to bring to zero the number of border killing, saying that such killings were not in line with friendship. Both sides discussed long-term solutions to border crimes including drug smuggling.
Dhaka also stressed removing tariffs and para-tariffs in bilateral trade to reduce the trade deficit. It also sought unlimited supply of essential commodities from India.
Bangladesh currently imports 2,656 megawatts of electricity from India and this could be further boosted. India’s cooperation is also needed for us to import hydroelectricity from Nepal via India, Jashim Uddin told Misri.
Misri said India had doubled the number of visas for Bangladeshis last month and would increase the number further in the coming days.
Reasons for Standoff
After Sheikh Hasina was ousted from the Premiership of Bangladesh and was forced to flee to India on August 5, India-Bangladesh relations went down the chute.
It went further down consistently since then, with serious charges being bandied about by both sides, not officially, but by loud mouths in political parties and YouTube channels. Demonstrations were held in various cities in both countries queering the pitch and adding fuel to the fire.
Interested parties in India have, for their own narrow political gain, interpreted the July-August student-led mass movement against Hasina’s oppressive rule as a movement against the Hindu minority in Bangladesh and also against India with which the Hindus have been unfairly bracketed.
On the Bangladesh side, radical Islamic forces like the Jamaat-e-Islami and Hefazat-i-Islam saw in the July-August political crisis and its uncertain aftermath, an ideal opportunity to attack the Hindus who they dubbed as infidels deserving only a subordinate place in an “Muslim” Bangladesh.
Thus, a popular, though violent, movement, against a dictatorial ruler, turned out to be a Hindu-Muslim and an India-Bangladesh conflict.
The crisis has made the Hindus of Bangladesh (who are 8% of the 170 million Bangladeshis), fear attacks from the Muslim side. Indeed, a large number of Hindu properties and even temples were vandalized by Islamic zealots and anti-Awami League hot heads.
And the Muslim majority feared an Indian attempt to twist the arms of the weak Interim Government of Prof. Muhammad Yunus to restore Hasina’s rule. This was based on a popular belief in Bangladesh that Hasina was powerful for 15 years because she had India’s full backing.
Hackles went up in New Delhi when the Bangladeshi authorities said that Hasina would be extradited from India and tried in the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.
Forces opposed to Hasina saw her relations with India during her 15-year tenure as having been patently asymmetrical and skewed in favour of powerful India.
Hindu-Muslim Clash
For Indian Hindus, the latest provocation has been the arrest of a Hindu monk, Chinmoy Krishna Das head of the Sammilita Sanatani Jote, on “sedition” charges and the denial of bail to him.
There was intense propaganda in India that Chinmoy Das is a member of the renowned International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). It was alleged that Chinmoy had no lawyer to defend him because they were beaten up. India called for a fair trial.
However, ISKCON’s international spokesman, Devshekhar Das, told The Week that Chinmoy Das did not belong to ISKCON. He had left the organization some months ago to start his own outfit. Earlier, the ISKCON unit in Bangladesh had publicly stated that Chinmoy Das was sacked from ISKCON in July for child abuse.
Chinmoy Das’s issue is of immediate importance politically. There is a Hindu nationalistic government firmly ensconced in New Delhi for which the Hindus are the core political constituency. And the brand “ISKCON” is highly valued in India, though in this case ISKCON was not actually involved, as its spokesman Deveshekhar Das stated.
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