Curious Case for Connectivity?
As Tacit points out in the comments, there is a factual error in the piece that makes its representation of the BNP as "anti-connectivity" even more suspect. The piece characterises BNP's stance as:
Khaleda Zia, the leader of the main opposition group, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, likes to remind the electorate that under her leadership "no foreign vehicles" would be allowed to cross Bangladesh's territory.
But BNP's position has actually been "No foreign vehicles, without paying taxes or fees". That is what its leader has said in the arena of inflamed emotions that is the moidan, where leaders take extreme positions. Which is why the debate in Bangladesh has been over "transit with fees" and the "civilised" (but not shushil) people who think that transit should be free.
If you read the Economist and did not have access to local media, you just would not know. A very readable article on the transit/corridor debate here.
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In an otherwise intelligent post about the Indo-Bangladesh border on Banyan, the Economist's Asia-focussed blog, this curious sentence crops up:
The Dhaka-based Bangladesh Enterprise Institute estimates that full economic integration with India could raise Bangladesh's average rate of economic growth from 6% to 8%. Full integration is a long way off.
Full blog post below.
Firstly, what exactly is this "full economic integration" business? European-style monetary union? That grand technocratic experiment which is proving to be highly susceptible to realpolitik? We are not told.
One of the factors that has led to Europe's current predicament is that linguistic and cultural barriers stop people from migrating as freely as they would wish to in search of better economic prospects. Even if there were "full economic integration" short of monetary union, say via fixed exchange rates and abolishing capital controls, that would mean ceding control of monetary policy through the trilemma. At that point, there is effectively one monetary policy for Bangladesh-India, as there is in Europe today. In a blog post covering the jaundiced attitudes of a segment of the Bangladeshi population towards India, it is curious there is no mention of the growing tide of anti-Bangladeshi sentiment across certain segments of India. Kind of sad that a magazine known for its topical references has missed how the Assam elections have shown this ugly side of a rising regional power.
Secondly, I think we would all like to take a closer look at this BEI study and see how it has come up with the 8% figure. What exactly are the assumptions behind this number? WE are not told.
Thirdly, I find it hard to believe that economic integration with India is being held up mainly by the inflamed rhetoric of the BNP when the last BNP government presided over some of the biggest increases in Indian imports we saw. If the Tata investment were really such a solid case, held up only by the fact that an "anti-India government" was in power then why isn't Tata back now that an openly pro-India government is in charge?
All in all, more questions than answers.
(Please keep comments relevant. This is not a post for expressing whatever unrelated AL/India grievances you hold. H/t to Tacit for the pointer to the Banyan piece. This post greatly benefited from discussion with Jyoti bhai and Tacit.)
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http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/04/indias_border_bangladesh
India's border with Bangladesh
Almost all quiet on the eastern front
Apr 18th 2011, 15:26 by T.J. | DELHI
AT LAST, some good news from one of the world's bloodiest international borders. Last month, the number of Bangladeshi nationals killed by India's trigger-happy Border Security Forces (BSF) along the India-Bangladesh border dropped, like a stone. Down to zero.
This is a first. For years, not a week had gone by without news of yet another killing. The death toll between these two democracies dwarfs the number killed attempting to cross the inner-German border during the cold war. According to Human Rights Watch, India's border force has killed almost 1,000 Bangladeshis over the past ten years.
The recent ceasefire is not total. On April 10th, the BSF shot dead a Bangladeshi cattle trader at Naogaon on the eastern border.
Still, the change is striking. In March, the head of the BSF announced that "non-lethal weapons" would be issued to Indian border guards in sensitive areas on an "experimental basis". If successful, this practice would be implemented along their meandering 4,095km border, the world's fifth-longest.
The change to India's shoot-to-kill policy comes only months after the BSF shot dead a 15-year-old girl named Felani at an illegal crossing point between Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. Soon afterwards the walls adjacent to the office of Bangladesh's prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, were plastered with a picture of Felani, calling for the killings to stop.
Shootings along the border have been one of many obstacles that have hobbled Sheikh Hasina's attempt at a rapprochement with India. Bangladesh's giant neighbour to the west, midwife to its birth forty years ago, nowadays tends to be regarded in the public mind as a wicked, overbearing stepmother.
The sort of normalisation of economic relations that would reflect the two countries' shared history and geography is still far off (Bangladesh's biggest trading partner is China; India is not even among its top-ten foreign investors). India regards China's growing influence in South Asia as a major headache.
The leaders of both India and Bangladesh hope to make progress on a number of knotty issues when India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, visits Bangladesh later this year. The topics up for discussion ought to range from water rights along their common rivers to terrorism, trade and even to swapping parcels of territory.
Sheikh Hasina has already agreed in principle to allow India to use its ports and roads for transit. The biggest difficulty for her party, the Awami League, will be to explain its new policy of engaging India to voters, in a country with a strong anti-Indian sentiment. Khaleda Zia, the leader of the main opposition group, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, likes to remind the electorate that under her leadership "no foreign vehicles" would be allowed to cross Bangladesh's territory. She declares that she will resist her rival's "move to turn Bangladesh into a state of India".
Mrs Zia's rhetoric sounds like a voice from the past. The Dhaka-based Bangladesh Enterprise Institute estimates that full economic integration with India could raise Bangladesh's average rate of economic growth from 6% to 8%. Full integration is a long way off. But a less bloody border seems a fine place to start.
http://unheardvoice.net/blog/2011/04/22/curious-case-for-connectivity/__._,_.___
