President\\\'s visit to India and more promises

As a ceremonial President, Abdul Hamid is beginning to appear as an exception. Currently on a six-day official visit to neighbouring India, he recently visited the UAE and England and before that, officially visited Brazil and on way back from there, also visited New York to hold talks with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The overseas visits of the earlier ceremonial presidents of Bangladesh have been restricted to Saudi Arabia to perform either the Hajj or the Umrah.
India is not just a big neighbour and an extremely important one at that. Since the Awami League (AL) came to power in January 2009 until the Congress lost power in New Delhi, India's interest in Bangladesh was   not restricted to just conducting bilateral relations for seeking its interests; it took a keen interest in the internal politics of Bangladesh. Things have not been the same with the new BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) government in New Delhi.
Recently, the Awami League general secretary stated in a public meeting that the US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Nisha Desai Biswal is a "two-Anna Minister". Obviously, the AL leader was very unhappy with the Assistant Secretary who was at that time visiting Dhaka.
Some analysts have suggested that the unhappiness came from the reason why the US visitor had come to Dhaka, namely to encourage the AL to start negotiations with the opposition political parties for fresh elections in Bangladesh. In the same speech, the AL leader had called the US Ambassador "Marjina" by which he suggested that the ambassador merely carried out the wishes of his master!
Such remarks about the USA are extremely unusual in addition to being rude, impolite and undiplomatic. The USA has influence in world politics that a country like Bangladesh could dare only in foolhardiness.  Nevertheless what is more important in this unbelievable speech of the AL general secretary is the fact that in it he described the BJP as a "die-hard" Awami League supporter. That reference was even more unbelievable than the abuses of the US assistant secretary.
The timing of the Bangladesh president's visit to India is significant. The AL-led government is impatient for the "die-hard" support of New Delhi like it used to receive from the Congress, now more so having openly insulted and abused the United States government.
But the BJP is not yet showing any sign of such "die-hard" support and is feeding the AL-led government with mere promises like delivering the Teesta and the LBA (Land Boundary Agreement) deals that would be signs of movement towards the sort of support the AL is hoping it would get from the BJP government.
The BJP now has the numbers and alone can deliver the LBA deal to Bangladesh but so far, it has not done so. The formidable strength the BJP has at the centre should also make it easy for the BJP government to override Mamata Banerjee's objection to the Teesta deal but with that, too, the BJP government has not so far gone beyond promises to Bangladesh.
The invitation to the Bangladesh president came from his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee whose softness for the Awami League and more particularly for Sheikh Hasina is no secret.
President Abdul Hamid was given the protocol and the honour to suggest that the new Indian government considers Bangladesh as an important neighbour with which it is genuinely interested to forge the best of relations. President Abdul Hamid thus met the Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, the latter two calling on him at the Rastrapati Bhavan where he stayed during the visit.
The Indian Prime Minister was very warm to President Abdul Hamid but on the issues of utmost importance to Bangladesh, namely the LBA and Teesta deals, he did not give the Bangladesh president much reason to be excited.  He promised that the deals would be delivered but without any time frame.
Congress parliamentarian Sashi Tharoor, who was the chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee that considered and approved the LBA ratification bill, has very strongly urged the Indian government to ratify the LBA without further delay. The Indian Prime Minister's failure to give the Bangladesh president a time frame for the LBA ratification therefore suggests that the BJP government is yet not ready to deal with the AL-led government as the Congress had done. The AL government's overtures towards China starting with Sheikh Hasina's visit to Beijing last May and the issues she discussed there and the developments that have occurred as a result of that visit may have caused a few eyebrows to be raised in the policy makers of the new Indian government.
President Abdul Hamid went to India on a rather unusual diplomatic role for a Bangladesh president to urge New Delhi to stand behind the AL-led government as did the Congress-led Indian. Unfortunately, no such news has emerged from his visit.
Narendra Modi had only recently stated in a public meeting in Assam that India would ratify the LBA soon that had raised expectations that he would give a firm date for its delivery to the Bangladesh president. The fact that he did not do so suggests that New Delhi may not yet be ready to become a "die-hard" Awami League supporter.

The writer is a retired Ambassador.
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