Just eight months after former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster by angry mobs, it seems the India Bangladesh relationship has reached an inflexion point.
India’s decision late on Wednesday to ban transshipment of Bangladeshi goods at Indian ports due to “congestion”, does suggest a new low in the relationship. The ban does not apply to Bangladeshi goods transiting India by land, that remains untouched.
“But the ban could trigger retaliation by Dhaka, that could include not allowing Indian transit traffic to the northeastern states,” warned a former diplomat with long experience of Bangladesh.
Yunus could also stop Indian goods using Chittagong and Mongla Ports, although that may not be such a big deal.
“India did send a consignment of LPG cylinders to the northeast some years through Chittagong but that seems to have been discontinued due to clogging at Chittagong,” the former diplomat said.
In his view, more serious is the implication that the meeting between Prime Minister Modi and Bangladesh Chief Interim Adviser Mohd Yunus, at the BIMSTEC summit in Bangkok, did not go off well.
The Indian readout of the meeting had Modi calling for a peaceful, stable and progressive Bangladesh, underscoring the strong people to people ties and the need to ensure safety of minorities including Hindus.
The Bangladesh version, attributed to Shafiqul Alam, press adviser to Yunus, claimed that Modi was not negative about the extradition of Sheikh Hasina. Later Indian sources were quoted as saying that Alam’s remarks were “mischievous and politically motivated”.
But it may have been Yunus’ China visit which sent alarm bells ringing in Delhi. He invited the Chinese to invest in a big way in Bangladesh, claiming that his country was the natural gateway to the oceans for India’s northeastern states.
But his invitation to China to refurbish the former British World War II airbase at Lalmonirhat, in Rangpur Division of northern Bangladesh, may have been the trigger for India slamming the brakes on Dhaka.
The airbase in northern Bangladesh is no more than 10 km from the Indian border, and 160-km from the Siliguri Corridor, which connects India’s northeastern states to the mainland.
If China is brought in to modernise the base, expect Chinese air force personnel to be involved … could Yunus allow the Chinese air force to operate from there? He could, it’s Bangladeshi soil.
But that would be the red rag to India, crossing our red lines, therefore unacceptable, and with unforeseen consequences.
As Indian diplomats who told StratNewsGlobal, the understanding with ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina ensured no Chinese or Pakistani presence in northern Bangladesh, basically Rangpur Division. When she went that understanding, it seems, also went.
The million-dollar question is who is advising Yunus? Is it elements of the Jamaat-e-Islami, is it disgruntled elements from the army or is it a cabal of people, believed to be pro-US but India haters, who seem determined to push the bilateral relationship to the brink?
Former intelligence officers are clear that if the Chinese or Pakistanis are given access to Lalmonirhat, Yunus would have crossed a Rubicon from which there may be no turning back.
