Indians with help of BSF loot paddy harvest from inside Bangladesh

[idune]

India - regional bully or friend?
By Brajesh Upadhyay

To many in the rest of the world India is an emerging economic success story and a working secular democracy.
But ask people in its neighbouring countries for their views and you may well get a much more hostile response.

Culturally, India and its neighbours are more similar than dissimilar. It's hard to tell an Indian from a Pakistani, a Nepali, a Bangladeshi, or a Sri Lankan.

The food is similar, the music comes from the same scales, in films they have the same tastes. They even share holy places.


Many in Pakistan thought that Indian help during the October 2005 earthquake was a gesture of friendship. Others saw it as a ploy to gather intelligence over Kashmir.

To some India was capable of providing the solution to last year's political crisis in Nepal. Others say India was the problem, interfering where it was not wanted.


India played an active role in the birth of Bangladesh. Today Bangladesh refuses to sell gas to India.


Back in the 1980s, the Indian army became involved in peace-keeping efforts in Sri Lanka which went badly wrong.

Should India's neighbours still view it as a threat? Is Indian industry a big shark waiting to chew up the smaller fishes?

As part of the BBC's India Rising week, the BBC Hindi Service is hosting a regional debate Indian television's NDTV channel in both English and Hindi.

"India - Brother or Bully?" is the theme.

An audience comprising diplomats, politicians, artists, industrialists and students in Islamabad, Dhaka, Kathmandu and Colombo will join a panel in Delhi through satellite video-link.

The Indian panel will feature former foreign minister Yashwant Sinha and vice-chairman of telecom giant Bharti Enterprises Rakesh Mittal.

The radio broadcast will be on 11 February. It will be televised on 17 and 18 February. You can participate by sending in your questions or views for the panellists by 8 of February.


Use the form at the top right-hand side of this page. Below are a selection of comments sent so far.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | India - regional bully or friend?

 

[idune]

An old artice but very much describe india and indians attitude. Even more so today. BSF killing, looting harvest and indian arrogance are part of that bullying attitude.

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India the Bully

By Philip Bowring

HONG KONG Official India's arrogance has undermined its pretensions to South Asian leadership at a time when prospects for regional cooperation and prosperity had seldom seemed brighter.

India torpedoed the summit meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or Saarc, which was to have been held on Sunday and Monday in Dhaka, by declining to attend. "Security considerations" were the official cause for the nonattendance of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which caused cancellation of the event. The royal coup d'état in Nepal was also widely cited as reason for not proceeding with the meeting. But it is abundantly clear from the press in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh that tension between India and the government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia in Bangladesh was the fundamental cause of the Indian pullout. Bangladesh has been humiliated and Pakistan, which currently holds the Saarc chairmanship, is annoyed.

Although this is only a postponement, not a complete breakdown of the summit process, India's move has created much bad feeling.

The collapse of the summit meeting comes at a particularly unfortunate time. Progress on India-Pakistan rapprochement has been proceeding at least as well as might have been expected and was to have been bolstered by a bilateral meeting in Dhaka between Manmohan Singh and Pakistan's prime minister, Shaukat Aziz. Also on the agenda was the South Asian Free Trade Area, which is expected to be finalized by next year.

With India and Pakistan now both pursuing outward-looking, market-oriented economic policies and both enjoying strong economic growth, the omens for trade and investment cooperation that would underpin growth for all countries in the region seemed excellent.

Alas, India seems not to have learned from the example of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that effective regional cooperation is only possible if countries are prepared to give it priority over bilateral disputes. In the case of India and Bangladesh, these can best be described as bickering aggravated by the domestic politics of Bangladesh. In turn these revolve around pro- and anti-Indian parties and personalities: Khaleda, widow of assassinated former President Ziaur Rahman and leader of the anti-Indian Bangladesh National Party, versus her predecessor and bitter rival Sheikh Hasina, daughter of the assassinated independence leader Sheikh Mujib. Hasina heads the opposition Awami League, which is favored by India and which cheered the summit pull-out. Bangladeshi politicians of both parties have a long record of placing party before national interests.

To be sure, there are serious security issues in Bangladesh, highlighted by the assassination last month of an Awami League politician and former finance minister, A.M.S. Kibria. But political violence is nothing new in Bangladesh. Neither major party can escape blame either for it or for the hartals, politically orchestrated strikes that are used to undermine the legitimacy of elected governments.

Khaleda's rhetoric has upset India, adding to tensions over various issues. These include Bangladesh's short-sighted refusal to sell its natural gas to India, disputes over the Ganges waters, illegal Bangladeshi immigration into India, smuggling of goods from India into Bangladesh and India's use of Bangladesh as scapegoat for its insurgency and security problems in its northeast states.

But these are minor spats compared with the importance both of the India-Pakistan rapprochement and the potential for regional economic cooperation. In any event, they are the bilateral ones that are not supposed to interfere with regionwide cooperation. It cannot be dependent on whether New Delhi likes the current (elected) government in Dhaka, or the unelected one in Katmandu.

Bangladesh has been humiliated and Pakistan, which currently holds the Saarc chairmanship, is annoyed.

With India and Pakistan now both pursuing outward-looking, market-oriented economic policies and both enjoying strong economic growth, the omens for trade and investment cooperation that would underpin growth for all countries in the region seemed excellent.

Regional cooperation can only happen if India takes the lead, ignores bilateral frictions and is prepared to offer economic opportunities that entice smaller and poorer countries into seeing the benefits of freer trade. In short, India can only lead if it does not engage in the kind of bullying evident in its withdrawal from the Saarc summit meeting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/o...&scp=1&sq=india%20bully bangladesh&st=cse

News published in International Herald Tribune in 2005.
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