What West Bengal does today may well shape how Dhaka deals with Delhi tomorrow. BJP’s big Bengal win, dethroning the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC, has ruffled feathers in Bangladesh. While there is hope about the Teesta water sharing agreement, the new West Bengal government’s take on beef, Islamic religious beliefs and barbed wires have heightened tensions between the two countries.
And these may well prove to be a roadblock to how diplomatic relations between Delhi and Dhaka progress from here on.
The Teesta test
The Indo-Bangladesh Ganges Water Sharing Treaty, a landmark 30-year bilateral agreement between India and Bangladesh to share the dry-season flows of the Ganga at the Farakka Barrage in West Bengal, signed in 1996, is due to expire in December this year. The BNP government in Bangladesh has said that the country’s relations with India will depend on a new treaty and has sought immediate talks with Delhi.
“We want to send a clear message to the Indian government that a (new) treaty must be implemented immediately through discussions according to the expectations and needs of Bangladesh’s people,” BNP secretary general and current minister for local government, rural development, and cooperatives Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has said.
Interestingly, the Teesta water sharing deal that was on the verge of being signed by the previous Manmohan Singh-led government was opposed by West Bengal’s former chief minister, Mamata Banerjee. The contention was that North Bengal does not have enough water and will go dry if the Teesta water is not shared judiciously with Bangladesh.
Referring to the 2011 agreement, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman said on 5 May: “We hope that the agreement reached at that time can be ‘considered’ again under the current circumstances.”
According to Bangladeshi journalist Jebun Nesa Alo, the formation of a BJP government in West Bengal has indeed raised hopes in Dhaka for a breakthrough on this long-stalled Teesta water-sharing deal.
“The agreement has been on hold for 14 years, largely due to opposition from former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who lost the recent assembly polls,” Alo wrote.
Also read: Dhaka is afraid of BJP-ruled Bengal
Beef, barbs and more
With the BJP now in power both at the Centre and in West Bengal, Dhaka is apprehensive of the future of bilateral ties between Delhi and Dhaka. One of the early announcements of the Suvendu Adhikary-led BJP government in Bengal was its commitment to hand over land to the Border Security Force within 45 days to speed up fencing work along the India-Bangladesh border.
“This transition from a loosely managed frontier to a more securitised one may reduce illicit movement, but it will also disrupt informal economies that sustain millions on both sides,” Bangladesh’s leading daily, The Daily Star, wrote.
The report added that the potential human cost is more concerning.
“Bangladeshi civilian killings along the border, long a source of tension, could increase under a stricter enforcement regime. Without meaningful accountability and restraint, greater control may deepen grievances rather than resolve them, turning the border into a site of recurring humanitarian crisis,” the paper said.
Another point of contention in Dhaka is the new West Bengal government’s anti-encroachment drives in and around Kolkata. “Bulldozers have rolled into localities of Kolkata, including Sealdah and Howrah railway stations. Bengal minister Dilip Ghosh said that the drives in Kolkata were just the beginning, and more bulldozer action across the state would follow,” the India Today reported on 19 May.
Bangladeshi press has reported such bulldozer action by the new BJP government as primarily anti-Muslim. In a report, Bangladeshi newspaper Prothom Alo English states: “Following a fire incident in a factory in southern Kolkata that led to the death of two people, alleged illegal structures in the area have been demolished using bulldozers. The area is predominantly Muslim. Residents have staged protests over the incident.”
The same report has mentioned that ahead of Eid al-Adha, restrictions have been imposed on the cattle trade in West Bengal.
“Government notifications state that no cattle under 14 years of age can be slaughtered, and prior written permission from local authorities or the state livestock department is required… Beef and beef-based food items are reportedly unavailable in restaurants across Kolkata. The directive has created unrest and confusion in minority-dominated districts,” the Prothom Alo English report states.
Quick to drum up anti-India sentiment after such reports, Nasiruddin Patowari, the chief coordinator of the student-led National Citizen Party, told a huge gathering of supporters that the saffron flag has been raised in West Bengal, but Bangladesh is ready. In an impassioned speech, clips of which have gone viral on social media, Patowari is heard saying that Bangladeshis are afraid of no one but Allah.
India-Bangladesh strategic ties had suffered a serious setback under the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government. Delhi and Dhaka would do well not to let the BJP’s Bengal win become a roadblock to the mending of ties that are currently underway between the two neighbours.
Deep Halder is an author and a contributing editor at ThePrint. He tweets @deepscribble. Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)