Bangladesh has just embarked its journey of 50 years since its independence. As the country turns 50, the golden jubilee is an occasion not only for celebration but also for introspection. Bangladesh is indeed crossing its journey of cumulative progress while establishing a strong footing both regionally and globally. In fact, the country, despite all challenges, has been praised particularly for its economic progress by the global community. In order to sustain the growth momentum, what was imperative for Bangladesh is to maintain strong geopolitical ties with different countries worldwide, especially with its neighbours, and in doing so, Bangladesh has been certainly successful. Moreover, the cooperation received from the friendly countries has helped it to continue to move forward in the journey.
Since its liberation war, India has been acknowledged as Bangladesh’s trusted friend, and Bangladesh turning 50 also marks the 50th year of Bangladesh-India friendship. This relationship, in retrospect, covers a wide range of aspects including trade, investment, geopolitics, education, culture, health, energy, and so forth. This partnership is particularly important for Bangladesh from two interconnected viewpoints—firstly, harnessing advantages of closer bilateral cooperation, and secondly, leveraging this cooperation to strengthen regional as well as global integration of the economy. However, as future unfolds, it is important for us to understand the embedded challenges and to address various emerging issues through concrete actions by both countries considering the evolving scenario. Hence, with a view to strengthening the relationship and upholding the sentiment, Bangladesh needs to reimagine its policy options, and India can extend its utmost support in this regard.
In this context, a dialogue titled “50 Years of Bangladesh-India Partnership: Towards a Journey in the Next 50 Years” was held on Wednesday, 1 December 202. It was organised by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), in collaboration with the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), India. The dialogue underscored a number of issues important for strengthening the partnership between the two countries, e.g. trade cooperation, connectivity, development aid, water cooperation, connectivity, among others.
Dr Fahmida Khatun, Executive Director, CPD, moderated the dialogue. She said, this event is a reflection on Bangladesh’s eventful journey and the progress it made during the last five decades. This dialogue is being held at a historic moment when Bangladesh has marked 50 years of its independence. During its journey in past five decades, Bangladesh has been able to maintain excellent diplomatic relationship with countries across the world. India, among others, has been the most trusted friend during Bangladesh war of liberation. In the discourse of bilateral relationship between these two countries, many new issues have emerged, and therefore, it is important to understand the embedded challenges and emerging opportunities through concrete policy actions. She remarked that the bilateral relationship is particularly important at a juncture when Bangladesh has embarked its journey towards dual graduation—first, from low-income country to middle-income country, and second, from least developed country (LDC) to developing country status.
Given the consequential implications of the bilateral relationship are serious and manifold, it is high time to address the existing problems at the crossroads, said Professor Rehman Sobhan, founding Chair of CPD. He talked about the major chronicles as well as historical accounts of the bilateral issues, and shared how all the deficiencies of Bangladesh’s economy immediately after its liberation particularly during the first year was met greatly by the massive inflow of bilateral economic assistance of India. While delivering issue-setting presentation, he remarked that the major problem railed over Indo-Bangladesh economic relations, apart from the duty-free access and water-sharing issues. He also said, we have still made limited progress in terms of connectivity—be it riverine or road-based. Moreover, he emphasised the activation of a joint river commission, and underscored the importance of diversifying and enhancing Bangladesh’s export capacity to accelerate exports to India.
Md. Shahriar Alam, MP, Hon’ble State Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Bangladesh (GoB) was the Chief Guest of the session. He said, the relationship between Bangladesh and India is multifaceted in nature and rooted in the shared geopolitical proximity. Bangladesh’s liberation war was a dominant factor in formulating the relationship, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has taken it to a new height. Alongside the common issues, including economy, water sharing, border management, countering terrorism, etc., Bangladesh-India partnership encompasses a lot of emerging areas—satellite, internet connectivity, outer space, nuclear cooperation, to name a few. He emphasised the issue of integrated water resource management of trans-boundary river basins, and hoped that India would soon conclude Teesta water agreement at the earliest for an equitable water sharing. While mentioning that the bilateral trade has grown to 17 per cent in last five years, he also hoped for the removal of all kind of trade barriers including non-tariff and para tariff ones. He further called for a more consolidated, stable and mutual partnership to make this sub-continent a safer and better place.
Mr Kazi Nabil Ahmed, MP, Member, Standing Committee on Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh Parliament was present as the Special Guest of the session. Highlighting the government’s efforts and success stories in upholding the legacy of long-rooted partnership with India, he said that the bond must be strengthened further based on mutual trust which is imperative for the progress of both countries. He hoped that India will continue its support in working jointly to address the mutual problems.
H E Mr Vikram K Doraiswami, High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh graced the dialogue as the Guest of Honour. He considered logistics as one of the key barriers to trade and called upon for simplification of payment system. He opined that both Bangladesh and India need to gear up efforts to stop border killing and suggested increasing legal economic activities on the border to curb illegal border trade.
Dr Sachin Chaturvedi, Director General of RIS, remarked that any diplomatic relationship, especially between developing countries, needs to encompass technology and finance alongside trade and investment, as it is evident in light of the global recession post 2014. Echoing the importance of crucial issues like trade, investment, and water resources and sharing, he shed light on the issues of people-to-people partnership, technological cooperation and external development finance.
Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, Distinguished Fellow, CPD remarked that the Indo-Bangladesh bilateral relationship can be explained on the ground of three types of agendas. Firstly, outstanding agendas which were dominated by trade, water disputes, and border management; secondly, built-in agendas that include connectivity, health cooperation and other investment issues; thirdly, prospective agendas that primarily focus on technology, innovation, digitisation and macroeconomic coordination. Putting emphasis on strengthening mutual trust, he said that the research and evidence-based analysis are lagging far behind the reality.
Farooq Sobhan, Former High Commissioner of Bangladesh to India, Former Foreign Secretary and Distinguished Fellow & Board Member, Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) said that we need to review the existing mechanisms and focus on the follow-up actions. He pointed out some critical issues as follows: integrating the labour market, leveraging the potential of youth, repatriating the Rohingyas, cooperation within the framework of the Bay of Bengal and blue economy, and so on. There still remains a fair amount of scepticism which needs to be sorted out through strengthening people-to-people relationship.
Ms Veena Sikri, Founder and Convener of South Asia Women’s Network and former High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh opined that the interest of the younger generation should particularly be included as an important pillar of Bangladesh-India relationship. She called for coordinated efforts from all levels—including governments, civil society, think tanks, academics, corporate sector—are necessary to bring the objective of faster progress to reality, and she thinks that CPD is playing a significant role towards that objective.
Mr Md. Shahidul Haque, Former Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh, said that Bangladesh-India relationship is not static and subject to growth in the larger context of Indo-Pacific and global politics. He highlighted the critical issues of trade, technological cooperation, water resources management, and border management.
Dr Sreeradha Datta, Centre Head, Neighbourhood Studies and Senior Fellow, Vivekananda International Foundation, India, talked about the importance of building trust and having track-II conversation.
Taking proper advantage of the benefits of duty free quota free (DFQF) market access is one of the determining factors of Bangladesh’s trade growth. On this note, Professor Mustafizur Rahman, Distinguished Fellow, CPD, said that the ways forward are—translating opportunity into reality through comprehensive economic partnership, building a production network, attracting Indian investment in Bangladesh, enhancing supply-side capacity, and targeting Indian market taking the advantage of zero tariff. “Just creating an unencumbered land will not work”, he commented. He raised significant trade issues including the problem surrounding high customs duty by India and the necessity of India’s extension of the existing DFQF market access beyond 2026.
Export diversification still remains a big challenge, said Dr Selim Raihan, Executive Director, SANEM. He said, Bangladesh and India can get into deeper integration in South Asia and take the lead to play bigger role in major trading blocs. Despite recent trends of improvements, there are many non-tariff issues yet to resolve, and there are yet many more potentials for Bangladeshi goods to enter into the Indian market, Dr Raihan highlighted.
Dr Prabir De, Professor, RIS, India, remarked that there are lots of opportunities as regards new and emerging areas on the trade front and value chain front. Having said that, the bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) restrictions in various sectors need to be reconsidered and reviewed, he opined.
Dr Arvind Kumar, President, India Water Foundation, emphasised that dialogues between both countries on water sharing issue alone should be arranged with new impetus. He also highlighted integrated basin approach and sustainable ecosystem.
Dr Ainun Nishat, Professor Emeritus, Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Research, BRAC University, suggested that the countries should manage water resources using a basin-wise approach. Following phenomena—drought, salinity control, sediment management, navigation, river bank erosion, industrial water—will turn out to be major concerns for Bangladesh in the next five years, Dr Nishat said. He also shed light on maximising benefits from hydro-power generation and formation of a joint river commission.
Professor S K Mohanty, Professor, RIS, India, while presenting at the dialogue, said that the rising trade is leading towards rising trade imbalance and CEPA can work towards addressing the issues. He presented that the bilateral trade sector is dominated by final goods, and tech-intensive trade has gone up in recent years. He discussed that the realisation of trade potential can help reduce trade imbalance, and trade potential of Bangladesh is 3 to 6 times higher than India.
Another Panelist Dr Uttam Kumar Sinha, Research Fellow, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, India, also shed light on water cooperation issue. In this regard, he mentioned, capacity development programmes and appropriate policy measures are imperative. He said, “India-Bangladesh cooperation is critical for the development in South Asia, and rivers are one of the catalysts towards that.”
The event was followed by open-floor discussion. High-level policymakers, political leaders, researchers, development practitioners, academics, business leaders, civil society representatives, international development partners, and eminent journalists attended the dialogue.