On the night of July 17, 2008, Indian BSF intruding 1.5km inside Bangladesh shot and killed two soldiers of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) without any provocation while the 2-day foreign secretary-level meeting between India and Bangladesh was in progress in New Delhi. This type of incidents takes place frequently, which simply uncovers India's ugly behaviour with Bangladesh.
Time has come to tell officially that India is not a trusted friend of Bangladesh. During the last 37 years it was repeatedly proved that India is inimical to Bangladesh. It is imperative to tell on the face of Indian leadership that their attitude is contrary to friendship. They should either shun their aggressive attitude and policies against Bangladesh or declare themselves as the foe of Bangladesh. My study on the Indians and their duel policies against Bangladesh made me to make such blunt comments. India verbally claims that it is our friend, but practically its acts prove that it is our enemy. Friendship and enmity cannot go side by side, as the former is contrary to the latter. India is our overt friend but covert enemy. It is easier to face an overt enemy than a covert one.
Common people in most cases cannot recognize a covert foe. As a result many of our common people are confused. For this reason it is difficult to create public opinion against such enemy like India that overtly claims itself as the ally of Bangladesh. India on the other hand, succeeded in managing a group of politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, intellectuals, member of civil society, university teachers, journalists, trade unionists, students, cultural activists who round the clock preach that India is a friend in need. To justify their claim these people refer to India's support for our liberation war in 1971. But they never refer to money and materials that India misappropriated, which were sent from all over the world for the refugees who took shelter in India. They even, as if, forgot the plunder that India committed in Bangladesh just after December 16, 1971. According to a conservative estimate after the 16th December India plundered assets of Bangladesh worth Tk. 60 thousand crores. The extent of Indian exploitation under the cover of legal business and smuggling exceeded thousands of billions of dollars over the last 37 years.
Those intentional and preplanned plunders prove that India extended its support in our war of liberation not for our sake or on humanitarian ground, but to exploit and squeeze us and implement its expansionist design by weakening, if possible, wiping out the existence of the Muslim homelands from the south Asian region.
India ugly behaviour is not confined only in plundering Bangladesh. By blockading the waters of the international rivers, India causes Bangladesh's agriculture, fishery, water transport system, ecology and environment and forestation through India-made drought during the dry season and repeated floods in the rainy season. Indian ignition to covert and overt subversive activities that include general strike, sit-in and blockade, arson on vehicles and industrial installations and business establishments, etc., cause heavy loss to Bangladesh's economy, divert foreign investment to India, and ruin its rising industrial growth that ultimately make Bangladesh dependent on India. Adopting many nefarious tactics India ruined our large and medium scale industries to make Bangladesh its monopoly market. Applying same tactics India captures our international market of jute, shrimps, tea, readymade garment products, medicine, cement, etc. It even slanders against our armed forces working in UN Peacekeeping Missions and Bangladeshi immigrants working and residing in different countries.
India designs to capture our mineral and sea resources and control and later capture Bangladesh in the name of transit. It let loose
its agents to secede Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), one-tenth area of Bangladesh. India illegally keeps Bangladeshi lands of South
Talpthi Islands, Padua, Daikhata, Ashalong (forest in CHT) Muhurir Char and a vast area in shoals of Surma River in Sylhet region of
Bangladesh. To infuriate and provoke the international community India relentlessly propagates that Bangladesh is a haunt of Islamic
terrorists of Osama Bin Laden; so that they allow India to invade Bangladesh in the name of war on terror. In brief it can be said,
India does everything to keep Bangladesh shaky economically, disunited politically, chaotic domestically, isolated diplomatically and weak militarily India without any provocation turns Indo-Bangladesh border the most explosive and dreadful one in the world.
India erected barbed wire-fence along the international border with Bangladesh and setup observation towers to look over quite inside Bangladesh. Indian hooligans enjoying the cover of Indian border security force (BSF) frequently intrude quite inside Bangladesh and loot and plunder crops, cattle and other valuable belongings of the Bangladeshis living in the bordering areas. BSF crullers kill the Bangladeshis without rhyme or reason. During the last two years (2006 and 2007) BSF shot and killed 607 Bangladeshis while in 2008, from January to July 24, BSF killed 79 Bangladeshis, including two BDR personnel. It is alleged to put pressure on Bangladesh during the latest round of Indo-Bangladesh foreign secretary-level meeting held in New Delhi on July 17 and 18 India instigated the BSF whose personnel intruding 1.50km inside Bangladesh shot at BDR personnel and killed two of them on the night of July 17. Bangladesh cannot be threat to India.
According to WIKIPEDIA, the free encyclopedia, India (1,269.219.3 sq miles) is 25 times bigger than Bangladesh (55,126 sq miles) in respect of territory. India is a nuclear power with an armed forces of 2,414, 700 personnel that include army, navy and air force). The number of total active troops is 1,414,000, total troops 3,773,300 and paramilitary forces 1,089,700 while Bangladesh has an ill-equipped armed forces below two lakh (.2 million) personnel.. It is impossible and impractical for Bangladesh to disturb India in any sector, particularly in its border with Bangladesh. It is India that keeps our border volatile and explosive in order to scare our people and weaken them psychologically.
For the last 37 years hundreds of thousands of meetings in several levels were held between the two countries to resolve various irritant problems that India created and imposed on Bangladesh. But those meetings failed to resolve any of them. After every meeting it is customarily claimed that the meeting was held in a free, frank and cordial atmosphere and all the issues concerning the two countries were discussed and both sides agreed to continue the process. Bangladeshis and the world community hear the same cassette for the last 37 years. But the process never ends. If the meetings cannot yield any positive and desired results in one hand and the attitude of India becomes more aggressive and attacking daily what is the benefit of continuing such futile meetings and dialogues.
What is the utility of wasting time and money by attending these meetings for years? Bangladesh should categorically inform India that unless it stops and abandons its all types of expansionist and anti-Bangladesh aggressive policies Bangladesh will no longer sit with it in the same table. Bangladesh has no room to wait for bilateral solution of the disputes, as India adopts dilly-dally policy to kill time. So Bangladesh should seek the mediation and assistance of international community in resolving the problems and disputes that India imposed on us.
India treats our soft and tolerant behaviour as our weakness. For the sake of friendship and cooperation Bangladesh silently consumes India's repeated humiliation that makes India more desperate. The more we remain submissive, the more India becomes aggressive. It also undermines separate identity and sovereign and independent status of Bangladesh. We should revise our entire policy with India. We can no longer bear the burden of Indian friendship. India assistance in our liberation war does not mean that we would allow India to treat Bangladesh as its satellite state like Bhutan or defunct Sikiim. * (Mohammad Zainal Abedin is a Bangladeshi researcher & journalist.)
Request: Please stand for Bangladesh and send this article to your friends.
E Mail:
noazabd@email.com
