The Awami League led government is responding to the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami’s ringing claims that the joint agreements recent signed by Bangladeshi and Indian leaders are detrimental to Bangladesh’s national interests. 

The Foreign Minister Dr. Dipu Moni declared that the joint communiqué signed by the leaders of Bangladesh and India “would be a public document soon. We believe in transparency and through practicing it religiously, we will prove that we are a pro-people government,”

Part of her claim was that the deal signed with the Indian government was pro-people because the deal follows the letter and spirit of the Awami League election manifesto.  And since the manifesto is the promise the Awami League campaigned on to win office, the Leagues overwhelming victory in the December 2008 elections implies that the Prime Minister had the public mandate to agree on just the deal that was signed between the two leaders.

Furthermore, she claimed quite apart from the content of the deal, the fact that the deal was made signals a broad change in the foreign relations between the two countries.  Only those with an oppositional mind-set would find the deal objectionable.  This the case because one of the main objectives of the communique is to affirm the need for greater cooperation to combat regional terrorism.  Hence the document should be viewed not simply as a bilateral.  Rather it should be evaluated from the context of regional South Asian cooperation on terrorism and economic and political development.

Dr. Dipu Moni said “To combat terrorism, the USA, the EU and other parts of the world are now working together. However, both Bangladesh and India have agreed that we need to join our hands together to fight terrorism as it is a great threat to Bangladesh also,”

Though Dr. Dipu Moni urged the opposition party to separate out politics from policy on the issue of regional cooperation, it is quite apparent that the Awami League leadership has been stirred into action to defend its policy of rapprochment with India.   After all, the document is publicly available to anyone interested in seeking it out.  Why then would the government make public declarations to make a public a document that is already publicly available?  To combat the whiff of gated-off private back room deals between the two leaders.   This is not cheap talk amounting to smoke and noise.  Though costless the move is a signal: by moving to silence the opposition on this issue the government has signaled the opposition’s strength.

Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh is planning a mass protest movement against the Awami League’s signed agreements with India.  Claiming that the agreements are bound to diminish Bangladeshi sovereignty, the leader of Jamaat, Maulana Matiur Rahman Nizami claimed that he would persuade Islamic leaders, students and intellectuals that their claims to Bangladesh as citizens would best be met by Jamaat’s platform.   This claim would seem to might have seemed less dishonest were it not also pegged to reinstating the fifth amendment and fighting education reform in Bangladesh.

Even though Maulana Nizami has promised that the grass-roots movement would be coordinated by all 4 members of the BNP led rightist coalition, his own claim to the necessity of standing against the government signed agreements requires an even broader anti-incumbent than the leading BNP party might allow.  For instance, Jamaat is against the education reform promised by the government, principally because the Awami League enacted education reform would also reform–and would likely reduce– government expenditure on madrasas and madrasa education.  Striking out against necessary education reform on the grounds that madrasa education might be badly served strikes me as being an entirely ideological move.  It does not take into consideration that madrasas educate a small fraction of the total number of students enrolled in primary and secondary education in Bangladesh.  What’s more the move doesn’t carry the slightest note of populism; it’s all ideological demagoguery, any time all the time, for these folks.

The claim of populism, of course, belongs to the 4 party coalition.  And in that pretext for one-up manship, the Daily Star reports, Nizami argued India has the upper hand in the deal,

“We are left with no choice but to move against the government.”   Indeed, he claimed, as did Khaleda Zia before him that behind the signed agreements, there stands a secret security deal.  And how did he come to know about a deal that is supposedly a secret?  He claimed that he came to know of the deal from reading about it in a newspaper.  Although, this “secret deal has been sealed between the two governments and, therefore, it is not possible for others to know about it.” 

And just so that we know, Nizami is worried about Bangladesh.  After all, now that an agreement has been signed between the two governments, wouldn’t India use the Chittagong port for militaristic purposes against China if war were to break out between these two regional powers? 

Nizami’s claim beggars the imagination to the possible depths of idiocy that can be plumbed by one who claims to hold the public’s interest in high regard.

Begum Khaleda Zia has accused the Awami League government of selling out Bangladeshi’s interests in favor of  security and India’s regional ascendancy. Insisting that she has not taken a stand against India, per se, she nevertheless claimed that Sheikh Hasina had given away Bangladesh;s national sovereignty during her state visit to India.

The Daily Star reports that in a written statement that she read out during a press conference at her Gulshan office she reared:

“The prime minister could not bring anything. She returned from Delhi with an empty hand…She gave all the things to India.

“Whatever happened in this tour has gone in India’s favour and against the interest of Bangladesh. The prime minister’s India visit was not only a failure but also a harmful event for the country,” Khaleda said.

Asked how she had concluded that anything in the agreements might be harmful to Bangladeshi sovereinty and security given that she had not read the content of the agreements, Begum Zia claimed:

“It can be understood easily if you go through the joint communiqué.”

Moreover,  ”The 50-point joint declaration proved that the prime minister has sold the country’s interests. She unilaterally gave her consent to allow India to use the seaports, road, rail and waterways and assurance about supporting India’s bid for permanent membership in the Security Council. She also gave the nod for building the Tipaimukh dam and providing permanent transit facilities to India.”

Further, “A country of 15 crore people cannot be run only by renting out roads and ports. Our industrial sector will lose competitiveness if India gets port and transit facilities,“

Nevertheless, Begum Zia argued: “We are not anti-India. We are opposing the policy of making everything favourable to India and India-oriented. That is why we are rejecting the joint communiqué and people have to be united against it.”

That Bangladesh is making favorable deals with India that will disproportionally hurt is not obvious by simply reading off the joint communique. The communique does suggest that India is investing heavily in Bangladesh and that Bangladesh will stand to reap the rewards of that investment. This is a mutually advantageous move, one that will benefit both parties through time. Any argument that one party or another will be disproportionally advantaged depends on contingent facts that have yet to materialize. Begun Zia stands on rickety ground if she thinks that any such argument is less than sheer demagoguery.

The Awami League has yet to forcefully counter these claims, so as of this writing, an Awami League standing committee member has claimed that Khaleda Zia is not thinking about her country’s interests.

Her argument, or screed, is stronger yet. “People of the country are worried about the outcome of the prime minister’s India trip. The government has left no option [for us] but to forge a movement to protect our national interest, security, and independence and sovereignty,”

“I am urging all to participate in the struggle to save the country and the people and build a national unity” Begum Zia rang out. Notably, she failed to provide details about how she would go about arranging such a broadly convened national dialogue.

The onset of closer relations between Bangladesh and India has set off quite a bit of celebratory humming in the blogosphere concerned with South Asia–some of it distinctly emanating from my neck of the woods. Though the new developments are promising, nevertheless we may be calling the game too soon. Whatever the merits of the new agreements and though some of the agreements do spell out contingency plans–principally the agreement to share electricity–I’ve seen nothing that admits to costs borne if one or another of these agreements should fall.

And that’s the issue: if it is costless for any party to enter into an agreement, then any one party can defect from that accord as long as any other state of the world obtains a better outcome for that party. Indeed, though the visit has been wildly successful, already some of the difficult negotiations have fallen off the track.  The difficult talks on the water sharing deal on Teesta River that runs through India and Bangladesh fell apart at the secretary level.  Without mutual costs borne, it is not clear how long these deals will be something more than signed documents.

Still, attention must be paid to the milestones already reached.

We’ve only just begun/Before the rising sun we fly/ So many roads to choose/ We start out walking/ And learn to run/ And yes! We’ve just begun.

The Carpenter’s pedigree is gleefully appropriate today: Bangladeshi domestic and foreign has been a planar patchwork of sawed and hacked retro-fitted pieces of woodwork and sawdust.  The Awami League might now lay claim to re-arrange the country’s working affairs by retooling afresh for the long sly-crafted job ahead.

The Daily reports this piece of welcome breaking news:

“India tonight announced 1 billion dollar line of credit for infrastructure development in Bangladesh.”

“This is the highest one time credit by India to any country.”

“This was conveyed to visiting Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina by her Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh during the delegation level talks led by them”

This news follows a diplomatically productive day.  The Bangladesh and India deledgation have signed 4 agreements on issues ranging as widely as mutual cooperation on counter-terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking and commodity transfers.   The Daily Star reports that:

“[Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh], leading their countries at the delegation-level talks at the Hyderabad House from 5:30pm to 7:30pm, had a detailed discussion covering the entire gamut of bilateral issues with particular focus on terrorism, security, connectivity, trade and investment, border concerns and sharing of water and power resources.”

Perhaps most interestingly, under the agreement on organized crime, indiviuduals convicted of crimes in either country may serve out their terms in their native country.  This seems like a patently unnecessary move from a criminal justice perspective.  Strikingly, perhaps, this move is meant to rebut and obviate the argument of right-leaning opposition parties in both countries that the ruling party delegation is trading out national sovereingty for a few billion dollars.

On th occasion of the Hasina’s visit, P.M. Singh proclaimed that:

“India stands ready to be a full and equal partner in the realisation of your vision of social change and economic development for Bangladesh.

He continued, “India seeks to build a new future with Bangladesh. The time has come to chart a new path. We are ready to pursue a bold vision for our relations, based on mutual respect and mutual benefit”

“Our two peoples want peace, security and prosperity. We should move forward to achieve these common goals for ourselves and for all the people of South Asia.”

This is very good news.  But we’ve only just begun.

Let’s ring in the new year with forward looking news.

Bangladesh and India are moving closer to politics in concert.  The cabinet approved a memorandum of understanding that Dhaka and New Delhi would import and export electricity from each other over the long term.

The Daily Star reports:

“A meeting of the cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also approved a proposal to amend policy guidelines for expanding private sector’s participation in generating power.”

“Hasina asked the authorities concerned to increase scopes for the private sector to generate power to meet the growing demand of electricity. She also directed them to fix the price of electricity on the basis of production cost.”

The move puts together a set of policies that mechanically induces greater opportunities for cooperation. For example, setting up this deal requires that a new electrical grid be put in place to deliver connectivity between the countries.

Moreover, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has instructed the Bangladesh Police to move toward becoming a policing force that is capable of dealing with Islamic militancy and terrorism.   She stressed the need for meritocratic values and public spiritedness of police conduct.  This is promising news.  It might imply that the Awami League is paying attention the the United Nations and NGO’s like International Crisis Group.  Secondly it implies that Sheikh Hasina views terrorism as a police matter, not an issue that might require military mobilization.  Both implications are worthy of attention and quiet celebration.

The mourning of Ashura has come and gone, and not a whimper in Bangladesh.  As readers of the New York Times and Guardian know Ashura is the commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.  The events of that date in 680 AD are considered to have created the fault lines between the epochal political and social contest between Sunni’s and Shia.  Unhappily, of course, those countless readers also know all too well, that at least 40 innocent people have died in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city during a Shite mourning procession.

That Sunni’s extremist are being blamed is not surprising.  What is surprising is that the attack should have occurred at all.  Muslims are now killing Muslims with greater intensity that would seem justified under Jihad.  Though the extremist Sunni groups that constitute teh Pakistani Taliban have always considered the Shiite population apostates, their definition of apostate has shifted to include any group outside of their constitution who they think would support the apostate government in Islamabad.

In a surprising turn, Iraq seems to overcome its own sectarian history at least for this year, though 4 individuals have been killed in attacks in Northern Iraq.  Contrast that to the pronouncements of peace and amity by  the three leading politicians in Bangladesh.   Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, President Zillur Rahman, and oppostion leader Khaleda Zia have each invoked peace and harmony as the step forward in national reconciliation.  It remains to be seen whether those words can translate to facts on the ground or whether they are only so much cheap talk.

The Shia constitute less than 5% of the population Bangladesh.  It is surely because of this demographic fact that Islamic jihadi extremists haven’t taken up a more militant course against that minority.  It is also because of this fact that almost every politician in Bangladesh can rally to the commemoration of Imam Hussein’s martyrdom and express his sacrifice as their own.

Merry Christmas to all.  It is a sign of the rising urgency of the necessary work that  still needs to be done in order to foster tolerance in Bangladesh that the Awami League has taken security measures in order to ensure that peace prevails for the Christmas celebrations in Bangladesh.  It were as if the voice of the government pronounced: “Let peace prosper by arming the police force.”

As the New Nation reports:

“Members of police and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) will remain on guard at the churches across the country today. In a press release, RAB said that stringent security measures have been taken up to ensure peaceful observation of the Holy Day.”

Moreover in a signal of solidarity the Hindu community has reached out to the Christian in Bangladesh to declare greetings of peace and prosperity.

Bangladesh is–or rather, should be–dogged by a long history of anti-Christian and anti-Hindu persecution.    I insert the discomfiting phrase–”should be”– in order to emphasize that it is not clear whether successive governments in Bangladesh had done much to tamp down violence initiating from religious sentiment.  Indeed, it is entirely possible that the previous sitting government led by the BNP stoked the fire of religious hatred because it included in its coalition the Jamaat-e-Islami, a rabidly intolerant political party, which dominates other Islamic social groups.

Bangladesh is now being looked upon with less disapprobation for adhering to some semblance of human rights protection, where NGO’s expect that the Awami League government will do more in the years to come.  Considering this the government of Bangladesh must crack down on threats to evict Christians from their rightful property and other acts of violence against members of the Christian, Hindu and Ahmadiyya communities in Bangladesh.

Civilized nation-states should not  seek to foster anti-religious fervor.  As Bangladesh wishes to join the community of civilized and exemplary nation-states–it has already shown itself to be an exemplary moderate democracy of Muslims–so it must reify its promise of protection to its minority communities, the same promise whose unfulfilled specter unleashed the dogs of civil war and led to its sui-generis birth in 1971.

Overview:

The most notable news this year in the conflicted politics of Bangladesh was the renaissance of the Awami League as a party ready to govern in a way that might give it another run at executive office in the next election cycle.  After securing an overwhelmingly popular public mandate for governing Bangladesh in the December 2008 elections, the Awami League have set about fulfilling its election promises.  So far, they have done a creditable job of setting about implementing reforms that were addressed in their platform and that increasingly also seem like necessary moves to ameliorate the pestilent state of politics and public policy in Bangladesh.

Along with paying lip service to democratic platitudes, including cheap talk about some new dawn of politics and history in Bangladesh and eradicating poverty, the 2008 Awami League election manifesto promised to combat terrorism; streamline the educational system and increase enrollment and literacy in primary school; curb political corruption; increase the supply of electricity in this country of chronic brown outs; and lower the rising food prices in Bangladesh.  To a notable degree, fulfilling each one of those promises will have significant impact in Bangladesh’s international political economic standing.   Happy news, then that the Awami League has already started to combat domestic and international terrorism by breaking apart militant terrorist cells along the Eastern border with Assam. The Awami League has started to re-align the varyingly taped together education policy to a sensible vision of Bangladesh’s future by standardizing primary school education.  Finally, the government has started to negotiate with India to import electricity  and has begun to develop plans to achieve power grid independence.  All this bodes well for the Awami League’s re-election bid.  Indeed, even though much more needs to be done, including figuring out a way to square child labor laws with domestic production, without negatively effecting economic growth, and reining in the macroeconomic the risk associated with inflation and rising food prices, it may soon come to pass that an incumbent government in Bangladesh will have been re-elected for a second term and may actually come to serve out that term.

Person of the Year

The person of greatest import in Bangladesh is, arguably, Begum Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the current leader of the Awami League and the sitting Prime Minister of the Peoples’ Republic of Bangladesh.  Quite apart from having the necessary heft of character and personality, she has woven herself into the fabric of the nation’s history in a manner unlike any other living Bangladesh leader.  This is principally because she promised a reckoning against those who plotted the assassination of her father and the founding leader of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.  The public debate, which though rankled of a predetermined verdict, forced Bangladeshis to revisit its founding history and helped the electorate re-connect that dawning history to the current reawakening of democracy in the country.  Indeed, it is a measure of the gravity of that moment in Bangladeshi history that when the Supreme Court declared a guilty verdict on all individuals charged in December 2009, opposition group did not riot as many had expected.

Most Unexpected Event of 2009:

The winning candidate for the most unexpected event of 2009 is the unlikely arrest of the son of a leader of one of the main Islamist political parties in Bangladesh, in connection with a plot to attack the U.S. Embassy and the Indian Commission in Bangladesh.  This arrest forced the authorities to move quickly to dismantle the cell that was implicated in the attack.  The costs of inaction were too high: at risk was the U.S. government and donor agencies positive evaluation of the Awami League’s government in Bangladesh.  More importantly, perhaps the arrest shed light on the international sources of domestic terrorism in Bangladesh.   At last count, Islamist groups in India, Pakistan and Myanmar have been implicated in the plot and it will take a tremendous upheaval in cross-border cooperation to prosecute this case in a just and legally convincing manner.

What to Watch Out for in 2010.

Since 2008 two left leaning, originally so-considered Socialist parties have been in power in Bangladesh and India.  Though the Awami League and the re-elected Congress Party of India have always held each other in mutual admiration—partly due to a shared anti-Pakistan history—the recent spate of cross-border cooperation between these two allies offers some hope of regional cooperation and stability.  Most analysts expect that trend to continue and, indeed, expect quickly developing, mutually advantageous cooperation on a roster of policies to dominate the day.  Indeed, Begum Sheikh Hasina Wajed was, scheduled to be on a state visit to India to discuss issues as widely ranging as cross-border electrical grids and electricity production, child trafficking and international terrorism.

Nevertheless, recent news of unrest in India might challenge the growing cooperation between the two states.   If rising calls for autonomous state-hood in India has roiled day to day politics in India and if opposition parties oppose with sufficient popularity state-creation along ethnic lines, then the Congress Party might back down, contrary to its own move.  To defend itself from the right, then, the Congress Party might hesitate to cooperate with Bangladeshi on issues of broadly mutual advantage.

Finally expect the Awami League government to ratchet up its anti-terrorism policies in order to plausibly reflect its growing cooperation with India on terrorism.   Expect the Awami League government to highlight its rising stature as a state that can be relied on by the U.S. and NATO as a bulwark against Islamist militancy and Nativist fundamentalism.  Already, these policies and the associated moves such as ensuring greater respect of the rights of minorities are bearing fruit on the international stage: NGO’s and IGO’s are according Bangladesh new respect as metric by metric, policy by policy, Bangladesh has been observed shoring up its governance structures and anti-corruption practices. 

Regional cooperation was written in the cards when two avowed socialist, left wing-ish governments came to power, in turn in India and Bangladesh.  And now, it seems the promise of regional cooperation between India and Bangladesh has come to pass, quite in contrast to its historic lineage and border linkage.

So says the Economist.

As if to prove its commitment to regional cooperation, the Economist writes, the Awami League led government of Bangladesh

“arrested and handed over to India Arabinda Rajkhowa, the chairman of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a militant group fighting for an independent homeland for ethnic Assamese in India’s north-east state of Assam. In the past two decades at least 10,000 people have died in the insurgency. Bangladesh had already handed over a number of other ULFA leaders in November.”

Traditionally India has been worried that Bangladesh harbors jihadis who might commit terrorist acts in its own hindu land, a view that seemingly came to pass last November.  Bangladesh has been afraid of domination in its political economy.  These two countries–one of which envelops the other on three sides– are not economically important to each other, though each stands to gain much by establishing closer ties.

“The benefits of co-operation could be huge. Full economic integration with India could raise Bangladesh’s average rate of economic growth from 6% to 8%, estimates Farooq Sobhan, the president of the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, a Dhaka think-tank. Now, says Mr Sobhan, for the first time, there is agreement that “unresolved problems should not stand in the way of things that can be done.”

The biggest difficulty for the Awami League may be to explain its new policy of engaging India to voters, in a country with a strong tradition of anti-Indian sentiment. But like India’s ruling Congress party, with which it has long-standing friendly ties, the League has a thumping majority and four years until an election.

Contrast this news with the developing story of the Pakistani military’s realignment with the mujahideen Haqqani network, in order to achieve “strategic depth” in Afghanistan after the much talked about, future, U.S withdrawal.  Even as Bangladesh and India come together, Pakistan is moving farther away from Bangladesh and, some might argue, India as well.  And, now U.S involvement in the region seems to be encouraging extra-statist groups to coalesce around seemingly greater ambitions, namely to expel U.S. forces from Afghanistan and Pakistan.  At the same time, the government of Afghanistan is getting closer to India, while rebuffing diplomatic efforts of Pakistan.  

Where will be we be five, ten years from now? Perhaps, we’ll observe regional bipolar alignment? Perhaps we’ll observe broader regional cooperation, though this prospect seems to be diminishing by the day.  This all remains to be seen but, really, both forecasts seem like ripe, forbidden fruit.  We eat of each and become infused with the flavor that each imparts.