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India makes another brave attempt at peace

Kanchan Gupta in Dhaka

As the sun dipped into the brilliant green of verdant Dhaka and the slate-grey sky heavy with monsoon clouds darkened a shade further, the two gaily painted 'Sauhardya' buses on the inaugural run from Calcutta to Dhaka drew into the courtyard of the Osmani Memorial Hall.

Waiting to greet the passengers were Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee flanked by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed of Bangladesh and West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu.

Also present were India's Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, Vajpayee's Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra, and Railway Minister Nitish Kumar.

The orderliness, military precision, hoopla and grandeur that marked the Lahore bus yatra in February this year were missing. There were no bands (you could hear rickshaws honking in the background) and festoons. There were no starched uniforms and glistening boots. With humidity at 90 per cent, Dhaka's polyester-blue-shirted policemen on duty looked more haggard than usual.

Instead, there was an air of casual bonhomie. The passengers shook hands with Vajpayee and Hasina, posed for photographs, and gave sound bytes to television crews. After a while, everybody moved to the adjacent hall where nice words were said about India-Bangladesh relations. The words, unlike the words said in Lahore, were not seized upon eagerly for meanings and nuances. The initiative, not the symbolism, was of greater consequence. The Jamuna had been crossed.

Till the bus rolled in at the Osmani Memorial Hall late Saturday afternoon, fingers were kept crossed - a monsoon shower could have washed out the carefully planned show and the attendant media hype, reducing the entire exercise into a non-event. Thankfully, it did not rain: the monsoon clouds hung low, but steady. If there was any blot, it was the non-presence of West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu at the airport to receive Prime Minister Vajpayee. Comrade Basu, it is believed, has been sulking at not being able to hog the entire limelight. He wanted this to be his show, but was obviously unable to have his way.

Saturday's bus to Dhaka has naturally revived memories of another day. Vajpayee's bus journey to Lahore on February 20 this year had held out immense possibilities of sub-continental peace and co-operation. It was a gesture of goodwill that was supposed to mark the beginning of a new chapter in India-Pakistan relations.

Three months down the line, Indian troops are fighting a bitter battle to regain crucial heights surreptitiously intruded upon and seized by Pakistani Army regulars and other assorted 'holy warriors'. In retrospect, it appears that gestures cannot over-ride realities and expression of goodwill runs the risk of being misinterpreted as weakness. Seen from a certain perspective, it would be wholly logical to say that the strong fight for supremacy while the meek plead for peace.

It would, therefore, be foolish to be swayed into believing that the problems that plague India-Bangladesh relations have ceased to exist or have become irrelevant with the commencement of a Calcutta-Dhaka bus service amid media-dictated fanfare. They have, at best, been brushed under the red carpet that was rolled out for Vajpayee by Sheikh Hasina. And let there be no mistake: The magnitude of these problems is no less than those that have bedevilled - and continue to bedevil -- India's relations with its western neighbour.

For instance, there is this problem of illegal immigration from Bangladesh into India. At the last count, there were as many as 1.8 crore (18 million) Bangladeshis living illegally in various parts of India. Each day, scores, if not hundreds, cross the border into India, changing the demography of entire districts and posing serious threats to India's internal security.

Illegal immigration is not tolerated by any country, including the developed nations. There is no reason why it should be tolerated by India. But a dialogue on this issue has been rendered virtually impossible on two counts: first, the Bangladeshi government refuses to acknowledge that illegal immigration has been taking place; and, second, it is not considered politically correct in India to go after illegal immigrants because that could end up hurting vote-banks.

Then there is the issue of ULFA and other north-eastern insurgent groups using Bangladeshi territory as their base. Once again, this is a delicate subject that needs to be raised in a firm but non-confrontational manner and sorted out before the situation gets too sticky for us. There are also irritants regarding the sharing of Ganga waters, notwithstanding the treaty whose implementation has been broadly successful so far.

At the same time, it merits reiteration that India and Bangladesh share a great deal in common - factors that bond the two countries in an unseen, unfelt manner. Not only have the national anthems of the two countries been penned by the same person, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, but the very fuel that propelled Bangladesh to freedom and liberty from West Pakistani tyranny is equally sacred to all Indians: human dignity.

A third common denominator shared by the two people is intense pride in their cultural heritage. Bangla literature, Bangla music and Bangla cuisine, indeed the Bangla way of life, have survived the greatest leveller of all - pan-Islamism. The green in the national flag of Bangladesh does not symbolise Islamic vigour but the vigour with which Bangla flourishes in Bangladesh.

India and Bangladesh could build on these bonds and prove that all bus journeys do not necessarily end in full-scale combat.

More importantly, India can prove that it is the brave who seek to forge peace while cowards wage war by proxy.

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