The Hindu Business Line : `Old fashioned politicians' don't want better ties with India

While visiting another country, particularly a neighbouring country, it's interesting to find out the perception there about India. In South Asia, one generally finds a mixture of mistrust and awe about India, and Bangladesh is no exception. The educated young Bangladeshis admire India, and young and fashion-conscious women in Dhaka look to the latest fashion signals from Bollywood and Hindi TV soaps.

The Grameen Bank founder and Managing Director Muhammad Yunus has been a great advocate of improved ties with India. Says Khalid Shams, Managing Director, Grameen Telecom, "Yunus says we have all the advantages of a very big market, a very big country next door and we have so many cultural similarities, why can't we think of a much freer flow of people and goods between the two countries? Chittagong port can become a big hub for North-East India, but then our politics is so bad! But I guess eventually all this will happen."

Professor of Physics at the Dhaka University and Yunus's brother Muhammad Ibrahim believes that eventually economics will call the shots and relationship between Bangladesh and India will improve. "There is a very big group ... Yunus has been quite vocal in this... that says that Bangladesh's future lies not within but outside Bangladesh. That we should open up and we should serve the Seven Sisters (North-Eastern States) through our communications, port, logistics, services, etc, and we should facilitate things for India, Myanmar and Nepal, particularly Nepal which is a landlocked country. But we also know that to do that we have to bring India on board."

He thinks this will ultimately happen because "we don't have much of natural products but we have an important geo-political position and the people and services sector can be opened up."

So why is this not happening?

"Oh, none of the political parties will dare to do it because they are not innovative enough, they are old fashioned politicians who don't want to lead and continue to just do what others did before. For example, they are afraid to give through passage to India because that will affect their sovereignty; the Marwaris will come and take up our trade! So we need a bold leadership in this area," adds Ibrahim.

One also gets the same feeling from the average Bangladeshi, as one does in Sri Lanka for example, that the big and powerful India has failed to take a leadership role in SAARC. When asked if there was a "negative" feeling towards India in Bangladesh, Ibrahim says, "A `negative attitude' would be a wrong description; the right one would be the "big brother" attitude. There is concern and fear here that we will be choked by India. That our sovereignty and independence of action are at threat from India. Its not a hatred in the sense that Pakistanis might have... or a communal hatred; not at all."

But have Bangladeshis forgotten that their `liberation' couldn't have happened without India?

"That is very much there; that's why they cannot hate it, but not withstanding that, the fact remains that we are surrounded on all sides by India, that we are unwanted, and that India treats Bangladesh as dirt; sometimes you go to an Indian city, and there is an alert that Bangldeshis have come," says Ibrahim.

He dismisses the Indian concerns on terrorist threat from the infiltration of Bangladeshis, saying that only the very poor people infiltrate into India in search of livelihood as "they hear many stories that life in India is very good and there are plenty of jobs there. And where do the Bangladeshis go? They go everywhere and to go to India is that much easier as the border is porous, but they are not of the stature to run an international terror network; they don't even have the stature or the means to run a local terror network," he says, adding that often women and children are trafficked into India.

About the perception on Pakistan in his country, the academician says, "I can't be sure but I feel this generation has a distant look at Pakistan as just another player in the region. Older people have memories, not always bad as many of them spent their childhood there. But the younger people care only about Pakistani cricket!"

(To be continued)

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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