If the Teesta river water-sharing deal is clinched, it will dramatically change the relationship between Bangladesh and India, according to Bangladesh’s High Commissioner to India Syed Muazzem Ali. Muazzem Ali said the single most important achievement of Bangladesh under Sheikh Hasina government and India in the last ten years has been to restore trust and confidence in bilateral relations.
“Restoring trust and confidence in our relations is the most important achievement of the two countries in the last decade or so,” he said.
Interacting with the members of the Press Club of India here on Tuesday evening, Muazzem Ali, who returns to Dhaka next month after a five-year-tenure as High Commissioner, said sharing of 54 common rivers is the biggest challenge for India-Bangladesh relationship because water is a highly emotive issue in both the countries.
Muazzem Ali will be succeeded by Mohd Imran as Bangladesh’s next High Commissioner to India. He said since Bangladesh is largely agrarian and northern part of Bangladesh is a water-scarce region, it is important that the Teesta deal is arrived as early as possible. Pointing out that there are three to four hydro-electricity projects on the Teesta in Sikkim, where the river origins, two irrigation projects in West Bengal and one irrigation project in Bangladesh built by H M Ershad, the quantum of water in the river has come down.
The Teesta deal has been pending for the last eight years due to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s strong opposition to it. Muazzem Ali said the Farakka barrage project has not helped India meet the purpose for which it was built because it has not helped the Haldia port and large ships cannot enter there due to siltation. “In fact, Farakka has led to more siltation in Haldia.”
The veteran diplomat also pointed to the frequent complaint by the Indian state of Bihar about the adverse effect of the Farakka in terms of siltation and rise of the river bed causing flood in the state. According to Muazzem Ali, both Bangladesh and India should now focus on enhancing the navigability of their common major rivers by undertaking dredging so that they can hold more water and big ships can sail through them to use Mongla and Chittagong ports. There was a time when ships used to ply from the Ganges in West Bengal to the Brahmaputra in Assam through what is now Bangladesh, he said.
The Bangladesh envoy was asked a number of questions on a range of India-Bangladesh issues including Bangladesh-China military ties, NRC and illegal immigration. On the NRC issue, Muazzem Ali said India has repeatedly conveyed to Bangladesh officially that it was an “internal” issue and he would not like to comment on it.
Regarding illegal immigration, he said if a Bangladeshi can afford he would more like to go to the west of the Mediterrenean than India. However, he said, Bangladesh has been on the road of economic prosperity for the last ten years and the problem of illegal immigration will cease to exist.
To a pointed question, Muazzem Ali said the biggest achievement in India-Bangladesh ties during his five-year tenure as the High Commissioner was undoubtedly the signing of the bilateral land boundary agreement in 2015. He said maintaining peace at the over 4,000-km border was the second most important challenge for the two countries and they have done that to become South Asia’s only countries to resolve their land and maritime boundaries.
Answering another question, Muazzem Ali said there is no Chinese military base in Bangladesh and Bangladesh’s purchase of submarines and defence hardware from China is aimed only at protecting its marine resources from illegal fishing and guarding its ports and special economic zones along the coast.
In this context, he pointed out that during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India in October this year, the two countries signed an agreement under which New Delhi would supply a coastal surveillance system to Dhaka to protect its coastline. He said Bangladesh’s purchase of certain military hardware from China was prompted by price factors and Dhaka would also slowly initiate the process of acquiring military hardware from New Delhi too.
During Hasina’s visit to India in April, 2017, India and Bangladesh signed an agreement under which India would extend 500 million dollars line of credit for sourcing defence hardware. This was the first time such a deal was inked by the two countries.