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The fundamental problem with India is its passivity, and slow and ponderous mentality.
The problem is there's no "zeed" which you might find in a Japanese persona. "Zeed" or spirit, indignation, self righteous anger drives nations forward when it is collectivized and channeled in the right direction constructively.
The "Zeed" in Japan meant that after WWII, and total defeat and destruction the Japanese embarked on the plan to become "Ishiban" or number one economically with a population of just 75 million in 1945, with no resources in the country. Well they aren't number one yet, but with a population of 126 million they are now the third largest economy in the world.........a magnificent feat for a nation with no natural resources, save for superb organization and sound strategic thinking by the bureaucrats of the nation who set the long term parameters for success.
No wonder Tagore near the end of the 1930's exhorted the young educated elite of India to look to Japan for inspiration.
We may be talking here racial issues, after all India is a hot tropical country filled with hot tropical people.......and marshaling your "zeed" in that 45 degrees Delhi heat may be difficult. Better to accept the daily power cuts, the daily corruption of administration, mis-governance of the central government, the massive poverty, membership and unqualified unabashed CELEBRATION STILL of the Commonwealth Coolie kuta exploited subject Countries, the sheer disorganized filth and dirt of Indian cities as acceptable inevitable facts of life...........what can you do but acceptance of inevitable facts, and thus resignation is the best policy (Karma...Hari Om Shanti).
Yes there is "Zeed" or violence in India with 32,000 murders a year...highest in the world, and 200,000 road fatalities a year, the highest in the world, but the "Zeed" is usually of the wrong sort which also involves directing ones anger against fellow Indians be they children with 1.2 million of them working in the sex trade or 15--60 million bonded child laborers, the maids, non-standard Indians of the communal sort......and the wrong caste.
The National "Zeed" in India what little there is is directed in the wrong direction.
Partition should not have taken place.......strategically Gandhi should have seen what problems would be created by acceptance of Pakistan. However it did take place, also the premise that most Muslims wanted a separate homeland, and the Muslim League was a legitimate representation of wide spread Muslim sentiments in the whole of South Asia. (I am implying it was not; it was purely a Raj created mischief and fiction activated from 1940 with Winston Churchill's blessing)
Bangladesh is created in 1971 with the help of India, and logically relations between the two countries should have been on a sound footing uninterrupted for the last 40 years, based on how Bangladesh was created, with considerable Indian help.
India should have set up a whole department of a few thousand civil servants within the MEA, focusing on maintaining and improving this relationship........simple example.....what were the challenges Shaikh Mujibur Rehman faced between 1973--1975? How could India have helped? Certainly regular liaison should have been maintained between the leadership of Bangladesh and India, which would have saved all the problems in the relationship that ensued after 1975, with the American/UK backed military dictators of General Zia ul Rehman, General Ershad and the right wing BNP.
TALKING regularly with your strategic neighbor is extremely important, as is strategic aid as a follow up reinforcement policy....significant military and economic aid beyond tokenism. This India failed to do settling instead for a negative destabilization policy of Bangladesh especially between 1975--1981....which would create further problems for India, with Bangladeshi economic refugees pouring into India numbering 20 million (1971---2011).
You would think with a pro-India Awami League government in Dhaka with a landslide electoral victory behind it (December 2008), India would take the HISTORIC opportunity to cement permanent strategic ties with Bangladesh........both on security with a bi-lateral Security Pact providing significant military aid annually; and the more important military training of cadets; and regular inter-action of senior security personnel from both countries..military, police, intelligence; joint security exercise....military...police...and intelligence. AND an economic pact with a fully pro-active FTA agreement to balance the lopsided trade between the two nations (as with India's FTA with ASEAN)........and significant economic aid regularly.
India has provided Bangladesh with a $1 billion credit for strategic projects belatedly in 2011! But no real movement in the other important aspects of the relationship. Hari Om Shanti, Hari Om shanti, Hari Om shanti.....just pray and meditate and it will materialize. AND of course whine, whine, whine how other nations are making great inroads at the expense of India in her own back yard.
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Other fish to fry
Indrani Bagchi at TOI blogIt's not necessary to have a passing knowledge of Rabindranath Tagore to get the Bangladesh relationship right. And Bengalis (read Bangladeshis) don't actually break into song and poetry at the mention of Gurudev.
(I've not read Tagore extensively, though I have heard his songs many times when I was younger within the Bangladeshi cultural Associations, and his books into movies on TV which my parents watched a lot. I don't think though I could be wrong whether intellectually or in terms of time and effort, Tagore focused on East Bengalis....60% of the population of undivided Bengal, that much did he? He was an intellectual who presided in the West of the state, and an intellectual for the whole of India and the world.......but for the masses of Bengal I think the man was a bit too esoteric and irrelevant. I could be wrong)
But try getting anybody in Delhi's corridors of power to understand that. Yes, Bangladeshis share a love of the poet with our own Bengalis. When they want to sing, they don't automatically run to Bollywood (You mean mafia underworld controlled Goondawood, Thank God, Bangladesh has her own version churning out 80 poor quality movies a year) ;they have the luxury of living their literature (Bengalis are wordy animated emotional people). They don't pile their plates with food (there's never enough?); they prefer to consume a meal in courses - with a portion of hilsa. Kind of civilized, huh? And no, they don't shrug their shoulders, raise a finger and knee, and hop to the beat of a drum.
(I've danced to Bangra at university its irritating....the language is even worse; Tagore I think said, translate my work into ALL languages except Punjabi. We must not conflate Punjabi Sikh culture with all India identity.....and nor should we imply that somehow Punjabi culture is less sophisticated than other parts of India...regional chauvinism)
As the Bangladeshis are only dimly discovering, the last trait is essential to be heard in New Delhi, which does not actually function as the heart of a rising power, but more like a provincial capital.
(No that's a problem in a lot of countries. In the UK, London and the SE is very rich, whilst parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland, North Wales are Third World in many respects....ditto in Russia where Moscow is doing very well, but the regions poorly. That's why decentralized federal governments are good for large nations...you get greater accountability, and administrative efficiency. The 40 million Punjabis of India have done well, due to hard work and talent......and the benefit of being ruled by the Raj for 98 years in comparison to Bengals 190 years....which were pretty destructive on the state. Punjabis served in the Raj military, security and bureaucracy.......Bengalis ceased to do so after 1857. India in that sense is a post-colonial society that reflects the bias's and choices of the former British masters. Bengalis in India as I understand are relatively strong in the academic/intellectual field...and thats it, and the problems of a weak state government which has managed to stifle economic and business led development)
With its eyes firmly trained to the West in love and loathing, it only responds to the terror tactics most favored by Pakistan.
(India in that sense is a post-colonial society that reflects the bias's and choices of the former British masters.....the Raj in Delhi also focused on the West, the last part to be conquered...to the detriment of the rest of India. Pakistan is a failed client state of the USA, run by the USA, the USA bankrolls the ISI, and the Pakistan military. Solve the problem of American control of Pakistan, and you solve the whole Indo-Pak problem)
Translated, it means the netas and babus here would know Paresh Barua is in Bangladesh, or the number of Chinese bridges being built there, but really have no idea how to engage our eastern neighbor in a language it understands. We think Bangladeshis must speak an alien tongue, which only Pranab Mukherjee can comprehend. So, oftentimes the beleaguered finance minister has to double up as foreign minister for Bangladesh. Everything is horribly complicated.
(Indians tend to make things complicated.....as one notable British philosopher noted. Bengali is a Sanskrit based North Indian language similar to Hindi, evolving over 800 years with considerable patronage given to it by the Turko-Afghan overlords that ruled the state, who wanted to create a distinct regional identity.
China does not merely build bridges in Bangladesh, but has constructed 4 of the 5 ordnance factories in the country as well as power stations, ports and other strategic projects. Most of Bangladeshis defense weapons comes from China... In that sense after India gave birth to Bangladesh, CHINA is the best friend of Bangladesh in a real meaningful way........and naturally the country orientates that way. India is a late arrival in that sense, and has a lot of catching up to do.........suggestions are posted below, but not in a INDIA complicated way, and doable)
Last year, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh diverted his attention away from his adoration of Pakistan long enough to mark a new strategic direction in India's ties with Bangladesh. (He is Punjabi....emotionally affected by the terrible partition experience) When Sheikh Hasina, at considerable domestic political cost, came to New Delhi in 2010, you could be forgiven for thinking that it was a new dawn in our ties with Bangladesh. A line of credit worth $1 billion, the promise of 250 MW of power to Bangladesh, boundary demarcation, and free trade were all on the table.
The boundary agreement is crucial to better the whole situation - but we held it hostage to Mamata Banerjee and her crusade against the Left Front government in Bengal. That's done, Didi's won. Now, it's our turn to move swiftly on getting the last bits of the agreement done. But movement is painfully slow.
(Whose at fault? A government at once can be doing many things and yet accomplish NOTHING. I can't see the finance minister solely shouldering the burden of pushing for this.....he's got other things on his plate....who has the PM earmarked to see this job through?)
As it is with freer trade. Bangladesh got a duty-free concession on 8 million pieces of garments to India last year. This year, our commerce minister, Anand Sharma, went to Dhaka and increased it - to 10 million! No surprise when Bangladesh described it as "peanuts. " You think a country as big as India can't absorb 16 million pieces of garments from Bangladesh without our domestic industry going kaput? Sharma should have offered far more to Bangladesh and taken along Indian textile guys to set up joint ventures in Bangladesh so they can add value, decrease costs, and increase exports.
(Need an bi-lateral FTA between the two states asap)
At least we're moving forward on getting those power lines built, so it might be reasonable to expect that, by 2013, Bangladesh can tap into at least 250 MW of power from India. In May, Bangladesh complained about significant procurement issues that bedevil 20 projects that have been identified under that huge $1-billion line of credit. Their implementing agencies have been waiting for over eight months for clearances from New Delhi, which are not coming through.
So we're again in danger of losing the strategic momentum with Dhaka, because we can't get our backsides moving. Primarily, it's because nobody in this government really thinks about the neighborhood in any strategic manner.
(Indian strategic planning is very very poor)
As soon as actions devolve to the bureaucracy, they sink under the weight of pending files. These would move to the top of the line if there were a PM visit on the anvil. There are rumblings that there might be one in June, but then again, it might not happen. He hates to travel, Bangladesh is not Pakistan, Parliament session, cabinet non-shuffle . . . there are any number of reasons - take your pick.
Let's repeat this to ourselves: Bangladesh is an important neighbor to India's east.
(150 million capable people.
20 million Bangladeshis in India, but there should be a reasonable strategy to ensure large numbers of future potential economic migrants don't come to India...which significantly affects West Bengal and Assam....and thus greater "cooperation" beyond building fences with security is required between Bangladesh and India.
If there is "action" in the North East, Bangladesh is the only transit route through which considerable logistics can pass......or to put it another way if the government in Dhaka is unfavorably disposed, it can block supplies going to the NE.....in the future )
It is not competition; Bangladeshis are fellow travelers in the journey to prosperity. We are a big country, a rising power; we can learn to give a little. We don't want them to fall into the clutches of either the Chinese or the Islamists. They should be made India's gateway to South-East and East Asia. Let's rethink our neighborhood.
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1. The Indian government needs to sign a security pact with Bangladesh.
(i) The security pact can guarantee annual military aid of $300 million to Bangladesh of NEW weapons and ammunition, not second hand.
(ii) India should OVER TAKE THE UK in providing military training of cadets, and the training of ALL security forces in Bangladesh (The importance of this cannot be over emphasized)
(iii) India must under-take regular inter-action of senior security personnel from both countries..military, police, intelligence (annually...bi-annually).
(iv) India should conduct joint annual security exercise....military...police...and intelligence with Bangladesh.
2. India should sign a fully pro-active FTA agreement to balance the lopsided trade between the two nations (as with India's FTA with ASEAN)
3. India should provide annually $500 million in grants and credit loans to Bangladesh which utilize resources in India, and increases the dependency and interaction of the two nations in the economic field.
India Bangladesh trade and transit rights
