Teesta and LBA now out of Bangladesh\\\'s orbit

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has finally communicated to his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC Summit in Myanmar the bad news that the Congress government would be unable to deliver the Teesta and the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) deals in its present term ending next month. Lest readers forget facts, Bangladesh's negotiators had assured the nation that delivering the deals was mere a formality and that these would be signed during the visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Dhaka in September 2011.
Bangladesh had by then provided to India most of its security requirements, including the hand over of seven top ULFA leaders. This helped India break the dangerous ULFA secessionist movement. Bangladesh also had provided India land transit on a trial basis. This helped Tripura to build the 700 MW gas-based Palatana power plant but caused great harm to Bangladesh roads. Dhaka had even prepared the letters that were to be exchanged to give to India land transit on a permanent basis.
The formality over the Teesta deal did not occur because Mamata Banarjee refused to back the centre. Her state's concurrence is needed to sign it because as per the Indian Constitution, water is a state subject. Her refusal came literally at the eleventh hour with Dhaka ready to celebrate the signing of the Teesta agreement. It was one of the initiatives that Sheikh Hasina had taken at great political risks to further improve relations with India.  Bangladesh retaliated and withdrew the letters that would have been exchanged in Dhaka between the two Prime Ministers to give land transit to India permanently. The two sides nevertheless signed the LBA (Land Boundary Agreement) in Dhaka subject to ratification in the Indian parliament.
Manmohan Singh gave no hint in Dhaka that the ratification would be a problem. He also said that the delay to sign the Teesta agreement was temporary. The aides of the Bangladesh Prime Minister backed India to dismiss any concern in the country about its promise to deliver. In fact, one curious thing about Bangladesh's negotiators was their confidence in New Delhi's promises. Thus when everybody knew the Teesta deal was off, even then Bangladesh Foreign Minister refused to believe that India would withdraw it and told journalists the night before Manmohan Singh's visit that the deal would be signed the next day!
Subsequently, New Delhi repeatedly said that the deals would be delivered to Bangladesh 'soon'. Senior Bangladeshi ministers said that the Teesta deal would be signed within two to three months. One of the Prime Minister's Advisers said that Bangladesh would invite Mamata Banarjee to Dhaka to convince people that her objection was not serious. Notwithstanding the assurances, independent sources regularly reported that the deals were stuck up due to differences between the Congress and the BJP/Trinamool in case of the LBA and Congress and Trinamool in case of the Teesta deal. The Bangladesh negotiators, acting on blind faith, dismissed such concerns - sometimes angrily. Eventually, nervousness gripped Dhaka as New Delhi continued to keep it hanging on hopes. Bangladesh sent its High Commissioner in New Delhi to Gandhinagar to solicit even Narendra Modi's support for the LBA.  Instead, Modi tweeted that a predominantly Muslim Bangladesh had knocked at his door by sending its top diplomat to him.
Manmohan Singh's admission in Myanmar now suggests the media speculations that the two deals were seriously stuck up in Indian politics were true. His admission, therefore, raises new issues that have to be addressed to take Bangladesh-India relations forward. One, of course, is the need for truth and honesty in carrying forward these relations. In the way New Delhi and Dhaka conducted bilateral relations, the need to be truthful was never taken seriously by either side, much less so by New Delhi. Former Foreign Minister SM Krishnan and incumbent Salman Khurshid time and again assured Dhaka knowing such assurances was misplaced. So did Manmohan Singh. Dhaka's negotiators never bothered to check the assurances and instead trumpeted India's assurances. Dhaka did so because the Awami League-led government was increasingly fearful of the political consequences of the so-called 'India factor', in case India failed to deliver.
At the end, the 'India factor' became irrelevant because Bangladesh did not have 'inclusive' elections. Many senior Indian diplomats, who served in Bangladesh, repeatedly said in the media that if the elections were 'inclusive', the AL would suffer the consequences from the 'India factor' for its betrayal, a line that many Indian and international newspapers of standing have also supported. The Congress is now almost certain to lose the forthcoming national elections. The US-based PEW research centre's survey conducted between December 2013 and January 12, 2014 has revealed that six out of 10 Indians (62 per cent) want a BJP-led government in New Delhi against two in 10 (19 per cent), a Congress-led government.
A BJP-led government in New Delhi is unlikely to ratify the LBA, having opposed the Congress government's efforts to do so. Trinamool has also opposed the LBA ratification. Additionally, Mamata Banarjee continues to oppose the Teesta deal strongly. The AL, upset with her, is now accusing Trinamool of giving sanctuary to Jamaat elements running from law enforcing agencies in Bangladesh.  Therefore, Manmohan Singh's wishes communicated to Sheikh Hasina that the next government in India would deliver the deals were a cruel joke on Bangladesh. Instead, if he were honest, he would have conveyed an apology to Sheikh Hasina and the people of Bangladesh for betraying her trust that she had taken at great political risk.
Of course, Manmohan Singh was under no pressure to apologise because the Bangladesh government expressed neither anger nor any dissatisfaction over the news he conveyed. Instead, the government expressed gratitude to India for the offer to sell an additional 100 MW of electricity that Manmohan Singh conveyed to Sheikh Hasina while regretting his government's inability to deliver the Teesta and LBA deals. The bad news on the two deals was followed by steps by the Ministry of Commerce to deliver to India land transit on a permanent basis.  One Minister recently reminded that Bangladesh should forever be grateful to India for its role in 1971.  Its reaction to the Indian film 'Gundey' that explained the emergence of Bangladesh as the outcome of Indo-Pakistan war was thus lukewarm as if it was afraid to annoy India. The Bangladesh government by its actions appeared apologetic for New Delhi's failure!
The Bangladesh government is again using the carrot of connectivity with a new spin to take people's mind off from New Delhi's failures to deliver the Teesta and LBA deals. In the new spin, the connectivity carrot is being spun around the concept of Bangladesh, India, China, and Myanmar Economic Corridor (BICM-EC), a transnational highway in which Bangladesh would be the hub of regional economic activity. There has been no official response from China on the BICM-EC in any detailed manner to back what is coming out from official sources in Bangladesh. Myanmar is also silent over the spin. The spin also does not say what would be the position of the new government in India if it is led by the BJP given the fact that the proposed highway would give China road access to the fragile seven sisters where India has major security concerns vis-a-vis China.
The new spin also does not take into the equation the interests of the US that has recently invested hugely in Myanmar to bring it into its fold for strategic reasons vis-à-vis China. Therefore, this new spin could again be another attempt by New-Delhi to give the Bangladesh government ammunition to encourage the people to be happy with new promises without delivering past ones. Only this time the spin will most likely be tested by new developments in India itself and US stake in the region. In all these pros and cons, one thing is certain: the Teesta and LBA deals have gone off Bangladesh's orbit for the foreseeable future and the favours that Bangladesh did to India in the last five years have been largely wasted.
The writer is a retired                            career Ambassador.  [email protected]