India Mania : Built on Mud – Part II

This post is a translation of “Bharot-Piriti : Balir Badh (ভারত-পিরিতি : বালির বাধ)“ by Rezwan Siddiqui published in Daily Naya Diganta; Translated by xanthis. This is the second part of the write-up and the whole write-up will be published here in three parts. Thank you.

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India Mania : Built on Mud

Part II

The manpower effort in Malaysia is also having the same fate as that of Middle East. Malaysia once ensured to recruit 0.2 million Bangladeshi workers and Bangladesh is now about to lose that opportunity. We have India in this case too. Allegations have been talked of, about the possible Indian aid to grow stronger unrest among Bangladeshi workers, but Bangladesh Embassy has been found completely apathetic on this issue. This whole matter has been covered by several newspapers but the authority of Bangladesh has remained uninterested mysteriously.

The foreign policy of the present government sounds like all their interests are totally concentrated into India. “Indo-Bangladesh relation should be improved”, “Two Bengals should come nearer in all respects”, “and trains will run through Indian steel cage”, these are the issues those are getting highest emphasis. Some upstart counsels of this government who are in no way concerned about the interest of Bangladesh but however have been given top priority by this authority, have been misleading the foreign policy of Bangladesh since this 1/11 regime has appeared. This has resulted with a completely India-dependent diplomacy and now Bangladesh is having troubles in all respects.

The new phase of the Indo-Bangladesh relationship started after the India tour of Gen. Moeen U Ahmed. He has been given the highest attention which is usually spent behind heads of the state or the government. After a grand red-carpet welcome, Gen. Moeen has been attended by the Chief of Staff of Indian Army, the minister of foreign affairs, the minister of interior and the minister of defense. There were plans of meeting with the Prime Minister & The President. They have classified Gen. Moeen as a person friendly to them. The issues those got importance are, Indo-Bangladesh railway, joint military collaboration, India’s domestic secessionists, allowing India to use Chittagong port, transit, air corridor for Indian airliners etc. Indian electronic & print media have reported these quite straight forwardly and Bangladeshi media has followed them up. There was fury, there was confusion, and there was tension about our national security. But the ultimate result of Gen. Moeen’s tour de India whether it has been a success or not, is unknown yet.

Chief of Staff of Bangladesh Army Gen. Moeen U Ahmed made cordial request to the Foreign Minister of India for the export of .5 million tons of rice to India to be unscathed. But our rice import from India is facing new problems each day since the day it’s been started. India is restlessly exploiting the rice crisis of Bangladesh at full phase.

Let’s go deeper to the drama that India is playing with rice export to Bangladesh.

Two floods in few months and the cyclone Sidr put the food management of Bangladesh into great trouble. The food crisis was nothing new but the devastating Sidr made the situation worse. As a requirement of the circumstance, the government of Bangladesh decided to go for an import of .5 million tons of rice from India. After Sidr, Pranab Mukherjee came to Bangladesh to show his tear-dropping sympathy for Sidr affected population. While wiping his tears out, he gave the word to smoothen the rice import and deliver them as early as possible. At his false words, the authority of Bangladesh ultimately closed their hunt for other eligible rice sources. The rice price in Indian market then was around $350 per ton. The price is still almost same there. More importantly private importers of Bangladesh opened LCs for the import before Mukherjee came here. But, the rice import got dramatically barred under condition immediately after Mukherjee returned to India. The condition was, Bangladesh will have to pay $420 per ton for receiving further supplies. Negotiations up to this unlawful bar started. But Bangladeshi negotiators had no option due to tremendous scarcity of rice here. So they let the deal go with $420. Still Bangladeshi authority did not look for alternate affluent sources such as Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand. Still they thought the relationship with India is greater here. Extra $70 for each ton, which shows up as a big loss in greater sum, did not appeared more vital to the present government than the relationship with India.

To be Continued