Bangladesh can’t afford to lose India; needs workable relations: Kugelman

Highlighting the importance of a workable relations with India, South Asian affairs expert Michael Kugelman has said the interim government in Bangladesh will need to be “very careful” about how it pursues its relations with New Delhi.

“I think that we need to be very clear. At least in my view, Bangladesh cannot afford to lose India. It needs that partnership for reasons of trade, border security and geopolitics,” Kugelman, Director of the South Asia Institute at Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. said in a webinar hosted by Right to Freedom – R2F.

He thinks it really needs to maintain “workable relations” with India, not necessarily “super warm” relations.

Kugelman also thinks India’s own interests dictate a workable relationship with Bangladesh.

It is going to need to take care not to do anything that could further inflame the existing anti-India sentiment.

“And this is why I think it should combine its outreach to India with a principled stand against any attempts by India to meddle or try to meddle or exert outsized influence,” said the expert.

Kugelman put forward three suggestions to the interim government including to engage with New Delhi.

Interim government Chief Adviser Prof Yunus will likely meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the 79th UNGA meetings, assuming that they both will be there.

Kugelman said it is perhaps Bangladesh’s most complex foreign relationship (with India) right now and it is one of the only countries and certainly it’s the only close friend that “has not rushed to embrace or at least welcome” the new government.

He said there had been a brief engagement and a call between Prof Yunus and Narendra Modi.

Second, there are some steps that Dhaka can take that would advance its own interests, particularly its security interests, but would also address some of India’s concerns, said the expert.

And third, he said, “Don’t unthinkingly succumb to the temptations of populism. There is, as we all know, extensive levels of anti-India sentiment in Bangladesh. One can understand why.”

Very recently, he said, there was a fuelled speculation that India opened up a dam that helped to precipitate the recent floods in Bangladesh.

“And Nahid Islam, one of the top student protest leaders and now a member of the interim government holding a minister status, repeated those allegations, even though there’s no indication that actually is true,” Kugelman said.

He said Bangladesh’s domestic situation and its domestic policy priorities are very much linked to its foreign policy right now.

Kugelman mentioned how the law and order situation and political uncertainty in Bangladesh could impact the perceptions and potentially the actions of foreign governments and foreign investors.

Right to Freedom Board Member Jon Danilowicz moderated the webinar while Right to Freedom Executive Director Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey gave a brief introduction of the panel of speakers and Ambassador (retd) William B Milam, Board President of the R2F, offered opening remarks.

Executive Director, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Dr Fahmida Khatun and Secretary, Citizens for Good Governance, Dr Badiul Alam Mazumdar spoke at the webinar which aimed to foster conversations on critical aspects of Bangladesh’s new journey under the leadership of Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus.