Odds of Tarique's India Visit ‘Slim’ Until ‘Appropriate Environment’ Created, His Adviser Says

New Delhi: Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's proposed visit to India continues to be uncertain, with his foreign affairs adviser Humayun Kabir saying the chances of a bilateral visit ahead of next month's BRICS summit would remain “slim” unless an “appropriate environment” is created.

Kabir's comments, made in an interview with state-run news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) on August 17 and published on Thursday, come even as New Delhi has continued to push for an early visit.

Indian high commissioner Dinesh Trivedi said on August 18 that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had told him, “We need to meet”, and wanted him to convey to Rahman that he would receive an “honourable reception” in India.

India had first extended an invitation to Rahman in February after he took over as prime minister. Another invitation was issued separately to take part in the outreach session of the BRICS summit.

While Delhi and Dhaka have been in talks for dates for a bilateral visit in late August or early September, the trip had appeared to be in doubt after Dhaka said that the process had been “vitiated” by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina's August 5 press interaction from New Delhi, but Bangladeshi officials subsequently stressed that they had not ruled out the trip.

“There is no justification for rushing into a top-level visit by going beyond the national interest,” Kabir told BSS at his official residence in Dhaka.

He said the visit could take place once an environment based on “mutual trust, confidence, respect for sovereignty, diplomatic dialogue and a dignified invitation” had been created. He also described reports about the visit as “baseless and assumption-driven”.

The adviser said the possibility of Rahman visiting India before the BRICS summit in New Delhi on September 12-13 remained “slim” unless the two countries reached consensus on specific issues.

Kabir, who is also joint secretary general of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party's international affairs committee, made clear that Hasina remains a major concern for Dhaka.

He said India needed to understand the reality of Bangladesh's July mass uprising, which he said had involved the sacrifice of more than 1,500 people. Allowing Hasina to use Indian territory for political or media activities, he said, was contrary to India's “democratic etiquette”.

The proposed visit also comes as the two sides face a difficult set of substantive bilateral issues, including the future of the 1996 Ganga Water Sharing Treaty, which expires in December after 30 years.

That issue acquired a new political dimension in India on Thursday, when Sanjay Kumar Jha, working president of the Janata Dal (United), a BJP ally, published an op-ed in the Times of India arguing that India should seriously consider allowing the treaty to lapse rather than renewing it in its present form.

Jha, a former Bihar minister for water resources, wrote that “Bihar has lost much” under the treaty and argued that an agreement that places the burden on one Indian state while offering no reciprocity should not be carried into a fourth decade.

The treaty, he wrote, “must be allowed to lapse”, after which India could negotiate a new arrangement based on updated scientific data and a fresh assessment of water requirements across the Ganga basin.

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