The recent flurry of activity involving Bangladesh — US secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s and Indian finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s visits there last weekend, and the trip to Delhi of Bangladesh’s impressive foreign minister Dipu Moni — have drawn attention once again to one of the most important relationships in our neighbourhood, one that we neglect at our peril.
The ushering in, with the 2009 elections, of a democratic government led by the Awami League opened up a window of opportunity for both sides to address issues of genuine mutual concern in a purposeful and focused manner. It may be a cliché to speak of the historical and traditional bonds of friendship the two countries share, but there is no doubt that the cliché is a cliché because it is true. It helps that Bangladesh, once again since 2009 under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina Wajed, daughter of Bangladesh’s pro-Indian founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, seems to understand that its own prospects for prosperity are closely tied to India’s.
Soon after coming to power, the government of Sheikh Hasina arrested and handed over a pair of wanted terrorists who had previously enjoyed sanctuary on Bangladeshi soil. The hostility of Bangladesh’s few, but vociferous, anti-Indian Islamist politicians has been curbed by firm governmental action. India’s decision to permit duty-free access to the exports of the Least Developed Countries has benefited Bangladeshi trade with India, which has burgeoned dramatically, with Bangladesh’s exports to India recently crossing the $1 billion mark in a 12-month period. Issues of road and rail connectivity are on the table, trade is being given a new impetus and both nations are cooperating on combating terrorism.
Most strikingly, a seemingly intractable territorial irritant — the existence of small enclaves of each country within the other’s borders — was settled in principle during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Dhaka in September 2011 on terms that even Bangladeshis found generous on India’s part. It is a pity that parliamentary ratification of the land transfer (which requires a two-thirds majority in both Houses that the UPA government does not have) has not yet happened. It will require an effort to persuade the Opposition parties to co-operate, but the effort is well worth making; otherwise the perception that “India does not deliver on its promises” will gain ground.
Of even greater long-term significance is a $10-billion project to provide transit through Bangladesh to India’s north-eastern states, the so-called Seven Sisters, long the stepchildren of Indian development because of their geographical remoteness from India’s booming economy. In 1947, the Northeast had a higher per capita income than most of the rest of India, but it has languished since Independence because Partition cut it off from the Indian heartland. Greater integration with India will be a huge asset to Bangladesh as well, helping develop roads, railways and trade and lifting the country’s economic growth by an estimated two per cent additionally. While transit through Bangladesh would also have security benefits for India (it would simplify the military’s task of bringing supplies and reinforcements to combat insurgencies in the Northeast and to shore up our border defences against China), the economic benefits have clearly been uppermost in both countries’ minds.
The two countries’ closer engagement has embraced areas as diverse as joint water resources management, land boundary demarcation, trade, power, connectivity, infrastructure development, cultural and educational exchange and poverty alleviation. While it may have been true that, for some years, Bangladesh was reluctant to sell natural gas to India for fear of being seen domestically as submitting to Indian “exploitation”, public opinion has shifted significantly. Polls conducted by both Bangladeshi and foreign researchers have confirmed that hostility towards India is now expressed only by a tiny minority and that regard for India, as well as support for its rise as a significant power, is a widespread sentiment. This is a welcome change, and augurs well for the future.
This is not to suggest that all is sweetness and light between the two countries. Bangladesh has, in the not-so-distant past, served as a haven for Islamist fanatic groups and even terrorists, and has provided a sanctuary for Indian insurgents in the Northeast. It has also been a source of illegal migration into India — some 20 million Bangladeshis are reliably estimated to have slipped into the country over the last two decades and disappeared into the Indian woodwork. There are also lingering issues of border management and transit-related questions, as well as the controversy over water-sharing which erupted when the chief minister of Paschimbanga, Mamata Banerjee, vetoed a proposed agreement in 2011 on the river Teesta, claiming it would deprive her farmers of adequate water. This was widely seen as a setback for a relationship that was once again beginning to blossom after a long freeze. It is clear that co-operation on sharing the Teesta waters is indispensable for Sheikh Hasina to be able to claim that Bangladesh has gained from her friendship with India; and we must all help persuade the Paschimbanga leadership that these waters are not “ours” to “give,” but a shared natural resource (as we accepted in the case of the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan) which we should use responsibly and equitably.
One project that could unite us — in the sort of shared endeavour that could yet define a better future for the subcontinent — is a sub-regional joint water resources management project involving Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and India, intended primarily for flood control but going beyond it. The project, which has now begun to take off from the proverbial drawing-board, envisages achieving both the mitigation and the augmentation of the dry season flows of the rivers that flow through the four countries. An added objective will be to harness the same rivers to generate hydroelectricity in a region where power shortages are perhaps the biggest obstacle to economic growth. If it happens, such a mutually beneficial project could offer a template for the rest of South Asia, helping change a narrative of hostility and stagnation into one of cooperation and dynamism.
We have a helpful and friendly government in Bangladesh. If because of our own sins of omission, we weaken it politically before the next election there in 2013, the alternatives will not be pleasant for us, and we will have only ourselves to blame.

The writer is a member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram