India has invested heavily in its eastern neighbour and an Awami League govt can make it a bulwark
Nothing could be better news for Delhi than the fact that the Bangladesh elections were largely free from anti-India rhetoric during campaigning and the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League alliance is firmly back in saddle. Though reports of the elections have been rife with rigging allegations, violence and charges of an increasingly autocratic swamp denuding democracy, fact is this was one election where even the critical West was okay with the discourse of the participation of the Opposition grand alliance, led by the BNP. Its leader Begum Khaleda Zia, currently incarcerated over corruption charges, could not participate as a candidate for sure but as a remote power control did try to seize the narrative. However, Zia has never worked out for India’s interests, who, powered by the hardline Jamaat, had allowed terrorism to flourish in our strategic backyard. And by the time she realised that antagonising India would not quite deliver the goods, Begum Hasina had tamed terrorist networks that threatened our vulnerable Northeast, delivered Anup Chetia and sealed landmark land and water agreements with us. Needless to say that the ISIS network has made inroads into Bangladesh and currently Hasina seems to be the best bet to curb it. By ensuring an economic stability at home and embarking on some transformative policies — some of which resulted in better development indices than Pakistan and even us — she has ensured that Bangladesh remains a coveted ally in the region. And with China wanting it to be another pearl in its string of diplomacy under the Belt and Road Initiative now that Pakistan is firmly in its kitty, we need Bangladesh as a bulwark state. We have invested heavily on this strategic edge for almost ten years with Prime Minister Narendra Modi describing the last few years as a “golden chapter” in bilateral relationship when complicated issues of land and coastal boundaries were resolved.
India strengthened people-to-people contact by signing a revised travel agreement and granting three-year visas to students. Now freedom fighters and elderly Bangladeshi nationals will get five-year multiple visas. India’s look-east policy will be greatly compromised without Dhaka’s concurrence while cooperation projects, like the Akhaura-Agartala rail line and the restoration of the Kulaura-Shahbazpur section, are not only good for the economy of logistics but also for access and proximity to the Northeast, otherwise dependent on the chicken neck corridor of Siliguri in north Bengal. Land ports have helped us mainstream the Northeast and ensured that there is no blind migration that grossly skews border demographics. Though the issue of sharing waters of the Teesta river is yet unresolved, the 130-km India Friendship Pipeline between Siliguri in Bengal and Parbatipur in Dinajpur is a reality. India would want to build on this new trajectory and Hasina ensures that continuity. Earlier this year, she also ensured that the 1.1 million Rohingya refugees could make their way back home by rallying huge international support to put pressure on Myanmar to take back their minorities. This it did regardless of India, which didn’t want to upset the Myanmar regime. Yet her crusade worked for us too. If we want a healthy, dependable neighbour and convince Hasina that we will look out for the state we helped birth, we would have girded up our eastern frontier.
