Love's labour lost?

When Bangladesh liberated itself from Pakistan in 1971, with some help from India, it was easy to foresee a "made in heaven" relationship on the eastern fringe of the subcontinent. Forty years later, India and Bangladesh are struggling to keep a lid on residual bad blood, latent suspicions and a general feeling that "they just don't get us."
In New Delhi, politicians, unless they are from West Bengal, are generally disengaged from Bangladesh.The West Bengal government has played hot and cold. Whereas someone like Jyoti Basu took strategic steps to engage Bangladesh, current incumbent Mamata Banerjee mostly frees herself from any such lofty responsibility.
At the official level in South Block, there has been a subterranean feeling that Bangladesh should feel indebted to India and basically agree to stand in line and wait for Indian attention.
Several factors have contributed to the difficulties in managing an India-Bangladesh relationship. In India's foreign office, the obsession with Pakistan has sucked the energy out of New Delhi's ties with almost all its other neighbours. The netas and babus here would know that Paresh Barua is in Bangladesh, or the number of Chinese bridges being built there, but really have no idea how to engage our eastern neighbour.
History has not been kind to this relationship either. Take the issue of the Farakka barrage, which has impacted water sharing agreements; the current impasse over the Teesta waters treaty and even the Bangladesh fury over the Tipaimukh dam. The Ganga waters treaty was only signed in 1996 due to the good offices of Jyoti Basu. Manmohan Singh failed to show similar foresight, particularly when he needed a capricious ally like Mamata Banerjee on board. In 2011, India and Bangladesh could have got the Teesta agreement done with. National Security adviser Shivshankar Menon told journalists then: "India and Bangladesh have to get into the habit of working with each other." From the Bangladesh point of view, it is India that failed to step up to the plate.
It was only in 1992 that India gave Bangladesh access to the Tin Bigha corridor to access its own enclaves inside India. It took a far-sighted Manmohan Singh and Sheikh Hasina to sign the boundary agreement in September 2011, and exchange the enclaves and areas under adverse possession.
India, says Sumit Ganguly, professor at Indiana University, US, "has failed to demonstrate the requisite skill and dexterity in handling the relationship. The roots of India's failure run deep. It placed an inordinate amount of faith in Sheikh Mujib, it did not anticipate the depth of anti-Indian sentiment within sections of the army and it did not move with speed to remove real and imagined grievances in bilateral relations."
However, Bangladesh is not blameless. Through periods of their history they, too, have fallen prey to the belief that encouraging anti-India activities. Islamist terrorism, which is also mixed up with the issue of illegal migration into India and smuggling has clouded border management, even leading to skirmishes.
Ganguly says, "Significant segments of the Bangladeshi population, not to mention its elite, have schizoid selves. On some days of the week they take solace in their Islamic identities. On other days they privilege their Bengali linguistic selves. This schism has important consequences for their dealings with India."
Major-General Muniruzzaman of the Bangladesh Institute for Peace and Security Studies believes both countries need to give greater attention to each other. "It is critically important to have a positive and balanced neighbourhood policy for India as it progresses towards becoming a great power. In that context, the relationship with Bangladesh is very important, both politically and strategically."
To be fair, Manmohan Singh does try. He has not only walked the extra mile to engage Bangladesh successfully, he has also embedded the Bangladesh relationship within India's Look East policy. That may be its salvation.