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Hark to India's Saarc concept

4 March 2005, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By Alif Zabr Dhaka
4 March 2005, 18:00 PM
After going through the two commentaries on India's stand on SAARC (DS Feb 16) one by Indian columnist Kuldip Nayar and the other by the Indian Foreign Secretary (FS), as a Bangladeshi (born, educated and brought up in Kolkata in the then British India before settling in Dhaka: hence somewhat familiar with the Indian psycho), I agree with the columnist in principle, but am not impressed with the effusiveness of India's official foreign policy stand. India is facing an acute shortage of energy resources (gas, oil), and is now very keen to import the some through international pipelines from Iran, CTS and Burma: passing through two member states in the Saarc region (Pakistan and Bangladesh ). India's relations with these two are not thawing for different reasons (the Kashmir issue, and secularism bogey).

The FS conveniently bypassed India's "Big Brother" bullying attitude, which has been noted time and again by the media in Dhaka. India is apparently piqued at Dhaka reluctance to allow transshipment of alleged military and semi-military hardware by train transit through Bangladesh to Assam (and the 6 or 7 sisters) to contain the upsurge in that region for decades.

The Bangladeshis have also noted India's non-cooperative attitude for not allowing sea-route transits to Nepal and Bhutan to the Bangladesh ports. The FS also conveniently forget to mention the huge smuggling across the borders, and putting restrictions on normal export of Bangladeshi products into the Indian market; specially the NE region (with much lower prices than that of the Indian goods through Siliguri in a roundabout way, increasing the transshipment costs). Smuggling means there is demand and supplies through recognised channels are not encouraged. The markets do not understand politics (one facet of the complex combinations and permutations).

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India's inability to attend the Dhaka Saarc conference does not matter much, recalling the (premature) still-born background of this organization. Nothing much would have achieved except, as usual, speeches of platitude.

Change of heart is necessary, and it is not there, plain and simple. Those in the dock can be easily identified.

India is very keen to grab the markets in the smaller Saarc states, hence the foray of giant Tata is not unexpected -- it is probing the testing ground for further elaborate injections in the years ahead. Tata is welcome, but the reciprocal facilities should not be forgotten. There is also the possibility of shifting of some Western industries to India, as affluence declines in the industrialised countries, and the cost of living is going up (that it why our RMG export is on the upward trend, as also the pharmaceutical industry). India is already number one in IT outsourcing, targeting USD3b (recent report in the press).

The current malaise is non-transparency in political culture at the international, regional and national levels. Diplomacy is the art of lying for the country. What's new to learn or unlearn?