Bangladesh and India Move Closer: A U.S-Centric Perspective

Politics in Bangladesh matters to me.  Politics in Bangladesh might matter to you.  But why should the U.S. government worry about politics in Bangladesh?

I have at least 2 arguments in response to that question.

The first response attaches to ongoing developments in the attempt to establish regional security in South Asia, to a) support security and development in Pakistan by some kind of a mechanism of positive contagion or b) serve as a bulwark against anarchy in Pakistan.  The domino effect, if it does exist, in some new-founded form might require some kind of a cut-off, a sidling push, if South Asia is to maintain some semblance of geo-political stability.  If this scenario cuts at all, analysts in the U.S. might do well to think about how Bangladesh might help the U.S government. support its objective for regional security.  And there is ample reason to think that Bangladesh might serve this purpose exceedingly well.   I’ll have more to say about this argument in a forthcoming piece.

The second response attaches to regional cooperation.  That was the objective of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India, a visit that has become, predictably, the subject of inter-party politicking.   Philip Bowring, an Asia analyst published an excellent op-ed piece in the New York Times on the occasion of Hasina’s visit.  He argues that both Bangladesh and India have mutual interests in cooperating on security and trade.  India gains by strengthening bonds with a bordering country that could help disrupt –and has already deterred– increasing calls for and moves toward separatism in India’s northeast states.  Bowring argues that Hasina’s return to power  is India’s best excuse to draw ever closer to Bangladesh.  He writes:

“Her Awami League has long been seen as less suspicious of India than the rival Bangladesh National Party of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. She has bought some Indian good will by arresting and handing over to India the chairman of the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam. Her government is also seen as less likely to turn a blind eye to Islamic militants. But for her own credibility she must get something meaningful in return if good relations with India are to be a vote winner at home.”

And that means Bangladesh must be able to re-negotiate tariff reduction and other trade barriers with India.  Moreover, he writes,  the entire core of energy import and export must be re-structured so that Bangladesh can benefit in the longer term.

Bowring writes:

“Bangladesh in turn needs to be more open to Indian investment generally and development of its gas industry in particular, which have long been stymied by nationalism and corruption. Likewise both countries have long hurt each other by impeding transit rights and thwarting the full use of rail and river links that date back to British rule. India also has been frustrated by Dhaka’s unwillingness to be a conduit for piping Myanmar gas to energy-short eastern India.”

Indeed, oil and gas exploration in the Bay of Bengal is frustrated by lack of agreed boundaries between Bangladesh, India and Myanmar”

Finally, Bangladesh in the person of Sheikh Hasina, now has the instrument to deal sensibly with India on the contested water sharing rights over the numerous rivers that flow through both India and Bangladesh.  Happily, the two respective governments has already taken up these issues on their docket and are urgently trying to implement these moves for mutual benefit.  

Through assurances for aid and cover to both governments, the Obama adminstration needs to ensure that the deals go through, more in the letter than in the spirit of the agreements.  Successful mutual cooperation between the two countries will entail no less than the successful delegation of cooperative politics to two countries that have long circled around the same shared genealogy that has now committed at least one other South Asian country–Pakistan– to a near-death spiral.