BanglaBhoot
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Every government of Bangladesh - elected or not - feels its incumbent upon itself to bring up the issue of transit to India but in the end nothing really gets done except talks which inflame the passions of the people of this country, moving them to resist any moves by any government to offer infrastructural facilities to India such as transit and the use of ports. This has been going on for the last 2 decades but in the last couple of years it has assumed urgent proportions for India because of their need to get to their states bordering Bangladesh to the north and east, it being much more time consuming and costly to travel all the way round than through Bangladesh. Consider, for example, the fact that right after the Emergency was declared on 11 January 2007, the Indian Government invited the Chief of Army Staff to India and gave him a "royal treatment" in order to elicit some form of commitment regarding the transit issue - it is of note that the Indians did not invite the President or the Chief Advisor but the man holding the gun and the power who got all the attention. Similarly, even before the 29 December election, the Indian Ambassador in Bangladesh was busy shuttling between the BNP and AL, hedging his bets. When the AL won the election, the Ambassador came on strongly setting up a visit by the Indian Foreign Minister whose main agenda undoubtedly would be the transit, the port and the off-shore exploration of gas in the Bay of Bengal.
Much has been talked about the issue of transit and there is nothing new to add as far as the perceptions and view points of the people of Bangladesh are concerned. On 14 July 2008, The Bangladesh Today carried a commentary on the issue; it would be worthwhile to reproduce the major aspects of it here.
The Indian High Commissioner in Bangladesh, HE Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, spoke to the press on 10 July 2008, after his meeting with our Foreign Advisor. Mr. Chakravarty had this to say: "We are raising the issue at every forum but it is yet to come into effect. Bangladesh considers the issue as political but it is not that; we don't see it as political. Both the countries should consider the issue of transit facility for the development of the overall economy and trade". Well, from this statement its pretty clear what India wants and why but perhaps India and its High Commissioner (HC) are yet to understand what Bangladesh wants and why. So let's get down to the crux of the business.
Starting with the economic aspects on which the Indian HC seems to be so insistent, we would like to mention that both Bangladesh and India have access to each other through various land, river and sea routes and therefore trade and commerce between the two countries can go on and increase to any extent that the two countries want. As a matter of fact India has a huge trade surplus over Bangladesh, which means that India is exporting far more than importing from Bangladesh. Therefore it is difficult to see how a "transit" through Bangladesh is going to further improve the economic aspects, when trade is already heavily weighted in favor of India.
India has to bear tremendous costs to get to its south-eastern states all the way round; a transit through Bangladesh would make that access easier both economically as also militarily because these south-eastern states are all plagued by insurgencies of one type or another. No, Mr. Chakravarty it is not Bangladesh which is going to benefit from the transit - except for the paltry sums to be realized for the passage through - it is India which is going to benefit, leaving Bangladesh with a permanent security hazard much like the 25 years Indo-Bangla treaty signed just after the independence of Bangladesh.
While we are on economic issues, what about equitable distribution of river waters which India is denying us, turning huge tracts of our agricultural lands into deserts during the dry seasons; what about damming of rivers upstream and releasing those waters during monsoons turning the whole of Bangladesh into an ocean; what about trying to grab some of our Exclusive Economic Zones in the Bay of Bengal; what about denying our people access to many of our "enclaves" in India and finally what about flooding our Country with Indian phensidyl, drugs and intoxicants of all sorts.
Coming to the far more important political and security aspects which the Indian HC is so keen to downplay, we would like to mention that a "treaty of transit" is certainly going to include clauses for guaranteed continued access to the transit routes by India. Should those guarantees fail at anytime, India would not hesitate to march in with its military forces to ensure that transit, citing reasons of "national interest" much like they did in Sikkim, Maldives and Sri Lanka. So, Mr. Chakravarty, every Bangladesh Government understands these things and that's why India never got the transit and it never will.
If India wants transit through Bangladesh, we want transit through India to Nepal and China - this makes more economic sense to us. So by all means let's have transits, both through Bangladesh and India with equal guarantees and conditions of access through these routes. Better still, let's have the historical "Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Assam" in one powerful Nation-State of Bangladesh so that India doesn't have to bother about transit to those areas.
editorial
Much has been talked about the issue of transit and there is nothing new to add as far as the perceptions and view points of the people of Bangladesh are concerned. On 14 July 2008, The Bangladesh Today carried a commentary on the issue; it would be worthwhile to reproduce the major aspects of it here.
The Indian High Commissioner in Bangladesh, HE Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, spoke to the press on 10 July 2008, after his meeting with our Foreign Advisor. Mr. Chakravarty had this to say: "We are raising the issue at every forum but it is yet to come into effect. Bangladesh considers the issue as political but it is not that; we don't see it as political. Both the countries should consider the issue of transit facility for the development of the overall economy and trade". Well, from this statement its pretty clear what India wants and why but perhaps India and its High Commissioner (HC) are yet to understand what Bangladesh wants and why. So let's get down to the crux of the business.
Starting with the economic aspects on which the Indian HC seems to be so insistent, we would like to mention that both Bangladesh and India have access to each other through various land, river and sea routes and therefore trade and commerce between the two countries can go on and increase to any extent that the two countries want. As a matter of fact India has a huge trade surplus over Bangladesh, which means that India is exporting far more than importing from Bangladesh. Therefore it is difficult to see how a "transit" through Bangladesh is going to further improve the economic aspects, when trade is already heavily weighted in favor of India.
India has to bear tremendous costs to get to its south-eastern states all the way round; a transit through Bangladesh would make that access easier both economically as also militarily because these south-eastern states are all plagued by insurgencies of one type or another. No, Mr. Chakravarty it is not Bangladesh which is going to benefit from the transit - except for the paltry sums to be realized for the passage through - it is India which is going to benefit, leaving Bangladesh with a permanent security hazard much like the 25 years Indo-Bangla treaty signed just after the independence of Bangladesh.
While we are on economic issues, what about equitable distribution of river waters which India is denying us, turning huge tracts of our agricultural lands into deserts during the dry seasons; what about damming of rivers upstream and releasing those waters during monsoons turning the whole of Bangladesh into an ocean; what about trying to grab some of our Exclusive Economic Zones in the Bay of Bengal; what about denying our people access to many of our "enclaves" in India and finally what about flooding our Country with Indian phensidyl, drugs and intoxicants of all sorts.
Coming to the far more important political and security aspects which the Indian HC is so keen to downplay, we would like to mention that a "treaty of transit" is certainly going to include clauses for guaranteed continued access to the transit routes by India. Should those guarantees fail at anytime, India would not hesitate to march in with its military forces to ensure that transit, citing reasons of "national interest" much like they did in Sikkim, Maldives and Sri Lanka. So, Mr. Chakravarty, every Bangladesh Government understands these things and that's why India never got the transit and it never will.
If India wants transit through Bangladesh, we want transit through India to Nepal and China - this makes more economic sense to us. So by all means let's have transits, both through Bangladesh and India with equal guarantees and conditions of access through these routes. Better still, let's have the historical "Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Assam" in one powerful Nation-State of Bangladesh so that India doesn't have to bother about transit to those areas.
editorial
