India is a secular country by constitution but just because Nepal is a Hindu majority country India allows Nepalese to stay and settle in India without any visa. They can roam around India without any restriction but once East Bengal of India Bangladesh is not allowed to send its nationals without any visa to India? Is it because Bangladesh is a Muslim majority country?
Congress, BJP attacking each over Visa free entry of Bangladesh nationals - Economic Times
Citizens of Nepal and Bhutan (not a Hindu nation) can (and do) serve in India's armed forces. Citizenship/residence are privileges that need to be earned - and these two countries have. We don't see any citizens of Nepal or Bhutan cheering terror attacks on India, or collaborating with India's enemies. Meanwhile, on another thread on this forum, a Bangladeshi chap started cursing me/my country when I said that its a great thing that India and Bangladesh are settling a dispute through an international tribunal, and not by Indian Navy doing what China is doing to Philippines/Vietnam. India-Bangladesh is a relationship that requires work. Perhaps if India and Bangladesh develop closer relations - and they both realize that their interests and destiny are mostly common, relations similar to Nepal/Bhutan can fructify with Bangladesh as well. Incidentally, till a year or so ago, India was offering visa on arrival to citizens of Maldives - which is a Muslim nation. So I guess we are not racists/religious-bigots after all.
At the end of the day, Bangladesh is a small and very densely populated country. There are not enough opportunities for all Bangladeshi's either in their own land or in US/Europe/Australia/Gulf. Rising sea level poses a greater threat to Bangladesh among the larger countries (and Maldives among the smaller countries). Pakistan/Saudi Arabia/China aren't going to take the climate refugees of Bangladesh. Don't you guys think its time Bangladesh realizes who its long term friend is and stop poking it in the eye.
Let me also add that India is also a desperately poor country - much as we like you, our capabilities to help are limited - and your behaviour (by providing China with ports for instance) doesn't help. India already supplies almost 500 megawatts of power to Bangladesh (from Tripura) and over 1 million tonnes of coal annually. I hope that shows our intentions. Perhaps Bangladesh could help us back by allowing India to use their land to improve connectivity to the North-Eastern states (for transit fee of course) and by cooperating for a Myanmar-Bangladesh-India natural-gas pipeline. Did you guys know that a 2,500 km long pipeline supplies natural gas from Myanmar to parts of China - it would be a much shorter distance to connect Indian (and Bangladeshi) demand centres - but it requires Bangladesh also to play along.
As for our Pakistani friend who finds Indian behaviour racist, please ask your government to give visas/citizenship to the 'Bihari Muslims' of Bangladesh who supported you in 1971 and who were left to rot after you guys won the glorious victory when 93,000 Pakistani soldiers marched to Agra and Delhi.
Personally, I think Bengalis (West & East) are a brave, honourable and cultured people. Someone had pointed out to me that the only major armed resistance to the British in the last few decades of the Empire had come from a Bengali - Netaji. Bengali rebels (dubbed terrorists at the time) killed more British officials than any other state/group. In 1971, it was Bengali's who showed that a people who want to be free cannot be suppressed - India just assisted them, I think.
In any event, we want more of them to "visit" Pakistan hence the strict visa requirements
