Shaukat Hayat Buneri
BANGLADESH’S inclination towards Pakistan and China is not good for India on diplomatic front. It has no doubt worried India. According to a leading Bangladeshi newspaper, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid has not met Indian High Commissioner for past four months despite several requests, citing strained relations with New Delhi and close ties between Pak, China.
The Indian newspaper The Hindu quoted Bhureer Kagoj, a leading Bangladeshi newspaper, as saying that all Indian projects have slowed down since the re-election of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid in 2019, while Chinese infrastructure projects have been speeded up. Getting more support from India’s concerns, Bangladesh awarded the contract for the construction of an airport terminal in Sylhet to a Chinese company. Bangladesh has not even sent a note of appreciation to India in response to Indian aid for the coronavirus.
The Hindu said that this shows the recent shift of Dhaka towards Pakistan and China and a similar move was seen recently in Iran which decided to proceed without India on the Chahbahar port railway project on which the two countries agreed to work together. Bhureer Kagoj’s report also mentioned an unusual phone call made by Prime Minister Imran Khan to his Bangladeshi counterpart. The Bangladeshi newspaper said that the Beijing Urban Construction Group (BUCG) has won a contract to build a new terminal at the MAG Osmania Airport in Sylhet, which meets the northeastern region of India and is therefore new. It is considered a sensitive area for Delhi. A diplomatic source at the Bangladesh High Commission confirmed to The Hindu that the Indian Ambassador had requested a meeting with Sheikh Hasina, but this did not materialise. However, neither the Indian High Commission in Dhaka nor the Indian Foreign Ministry responded to the newspaper’s questions.
A diplomat from the Indian Mission said that High Commissioner Ganguly Das had left Dhaka on a visit. Comments on the state of bilateral relations came at a time when Sheikh Hasina Wajid and Prime Minister Imran Khan had a telephone conversation. Although Dhaka declined to give details of the talks between the two leaders, Pakistan’s state-run news agency said Imran Khan had briefed Sheikh Hasina on the situation in occupied Kashmir. The Hindu said that India appreciated Bangladesh and said that Dhaka considers Kashmir as an internal matter of India. As far as the recent development in the foreign policy shift of Bangladesh is concerned, it is no doubt a great breakthrough for the strengthening of regional peace and stability of the region. It will definitely lead to the boosting of the morale of the Kashmir brethren as they have been very much persecuted by the Indian forces during the last one year in particular.
Similarly the Indian policy toward the neighbouring countries is also not based upon mutual trust and understanding but it wanted to overpower its neighbours to retain its hegemony as a rogue state in the region. In this backdrop the bilateral relation between India and China and Pakistan have also been strained for a long time and there seems a great peril to the peace and stability of the region. The new development or shift in the foreign policy of Dhaka also reveals that the neighbouring countries are not happy with the role of New Delhi being a big regional power.
Being a [self-acclaimed] champion of democracy and guardian of human rights, India under the leadership of Modi has shown a dismal performance on diplomatic front and that is the reason that all the bordering neighbours especially China, Pakistan and now Bangladesh are openly showing mistrust on the overall diplomacy of Modi Raj. Particularly after the unconstitutional control of India-occupied Kashmir coupled with violation of the norms of human rights there, international honour and respect of India being a great democracy has fallen down in eyes of the international community.
—The writer is free lance journalist based in Buner, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
