In a big decision for India-Bangladesh relations, a contingent of 122 Bangladeshi soldiers will participate in the upcoming Republic Day parade to mark Bangladesh’s 50th year of the Liberation War. It will be recalled that Bangladesh was born in 1971 after a nine-month-long liberation struggle that overthrew the yoke of Pakistani tyranny over the Bengali people of what was then East Pakistan. The bloody Liberation War saw the deaths of 3 million people, 250,000 women were raped and 10 million displaced due to the barbarity of the Pakistani military and its Razakar collaborators. But it was the guerrilla Mukti Bahini — assisted by Indian armed forces in the second half of the war – that turned the tables on the Pakistani oppressors, leading to Bangladesh’s liberation on December 16 of that historic year. It is to commemorate this historical relationship between India and Bangladesh that the special Republic Day event is being organised.

That said, there is no denying the fact that in the last six years some issues have cropped up in the Indo-Bangla relationship. While the BJP government in India has been officially very supportive of the Sheikh Hasina government and much progress has been achieved on connectivity, trade, land boundary and maritime demarcation, infrastructure and energy, a political dissonance has crept into the bilateral relationship. The BJP’s championing of issues such as the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens in Assam, and the intemperate remarks of some BJP leaders referring to Bangladeshis as infiltrators and criminals – Union home minister Amit Shah’s earlier “termite” comment being a case in point – have led to considerable outrage in Bangladesh. Plus, India’s BSF has reportedly become more aggressive at the India-Bangladesh border leading to more casualties.

While Bangladesh officially maintains that CAA, NRC and the nullification of Article 370 in Kashmir are India’s internal matters, the Bangladeshi public’s mood has soured against India on these issues. And this in turn is putting pressure on Hasina and her Awami League party. In fact, signs that Dhaka has been finding it a little difficult to explain certain Indian policies to its own citizens has been there for some time. The way I see it the issue goes back to the basis of the bilateral relationship. There can be one of two approaches here. First, India-Bangladesh ties can be rooted in history and culture. Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War was essentially a struggle against Pakistani colonialism and cultural genocide. For, West Pakistanis wanted to change the very cultural character of the East Pakistanis and practically wipe out the Bengali language.

In essence, West Pakistanis were trying to create one homogenous Islamic Pakistan where Urdu alone would be the primary language of the nation, and any linguistic, customary or cultural element that did not conform to this Urdu-Islamic identity had to go. So when the Bengalis under the leadership and call of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman rose up against the West Pakistanis to protect and preserve their language, culture and Bengali identity, it automatically hit out at the core of the Two-Nation theory that had led to the creation of Pakistan. Thus, Bengali nationalism was a direct counter to the idea of Pakistan and naturally synced with the secular values of the Indian Republic. It is this secular-cultural affinity and the fact that Indian soldiers and the Mukti Bahini bled together in the Liberation War that forms the basis of the India-Bangladesh relationship.

The other way to look at bilateral ties is by keeping history and cultural factors aside and focussing purely on interests. As per this reading, India and Bangladesh are neighbours and must work together for mutual benefits. It simply doesn’t matter who is in power in New Delhi or Dhaka. Nor does it matter what kind of internal politics either of them follows. Interests and only interests alone count. But there is a serious drawback in looking at India-Bangladesh ties in this manner. This is because such a transactional approach will be based on what each side can offer to the other in monetary or security terms. And if ties are looked at through this matrix, the special lustre of New Delhi-Dhaka ties will fade in the face of Chinese investments in Bangladesh since Beijing has far deeper pockets. Similarly, it will bring back religion into the equation, giving a fillip to certain sections who want to move Bangladesh closer to Pakistan.

In fact, this is precisely what happened last year with Islamabad sensing an opportunity to rebuild its ties with Dhaka. Recently, Pakistan announced that it had even removed all visa restrictions for Bangladeshi citizens to visit Pakistan, highlighting Islamabad’s desperation to further ties with Dhaka. But Bangladesh has responded by saying that Pakistan should officially apologise for the genocide it committed against the Bengali people in 1971, complete the repatriation of Pakistanis stranded in Bangladesh, and settle the issue of division of assets.

This shows that Bangladesh still has outstanding issues with Pakistan stemming from history. Thus, it wouldn’t be wise for India to sideline history and treat Bangladesh as just another country. New Delhi’s dissonance between government-speak and political-speak is creating avoidable confusion in Indo-Bangla ties. Hence, it would be best to go back to the paradigm of history, secularism and fraternal ties in managing India-Bangladesh relations. The participation of Bangladeshi soldiers in the Republic Day parade is a good start.

 

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Views expressed above are the author's own.

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