As India tries to shape the global agenda through G20, it needs Bangladesh’s support to translate many of these ideas into action in its neighbourhood
In recent years, Bangladesh-India relations have entered the ‘Sonali Adhyay’ or the Golden Chapter in their relations. Setting the seal on this bilateral bonhomie, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina has received an invitation from her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, to attend the upcoming G20 Summit on 9-10 September, as India’s special guest. Holding the presidency of the G20 this year, India is following the tradition of inviting other non-member countries and international organisations to the Summit. The other countries to have been invited are Egypt, Mauritius, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), making Bangladesh the only South Asian country to have a place in India’s guest list. The Prime Ministers of India and Bangladesh are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the G20 Summit, in a last meeting before the general elections that are due in both countries in 2024. In preparation for Prime Minister Hasina’s visit, several high-level meetings will be held in both New Delhi and Dhaka.
The two countries are also preparing to sign the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, for substantial enhancement of trade and commercial partnerships between the two countries.
India’s invitation to Bangladesh as its guest speaks volumes of the high priority the country accords its immediate eastern neighbour and ‘best friend’ in the neighbourhood’. Three main reasons why Bangladesh is cardinally important to India, are:
India’s largest trading partner in South Asia
In 2021-22, Bangladesh emerged as India’s largest trading partner in South Asia and India is Bangladesh’s second-largest trading partner and its largest export market in Asia. Despite the pandemic, bilateral trade has grown at an unprecedented rate of 14 per cent from 9.46 billion US dollars in 2019 to 10.78 billion dollars in 2021. The two countries are also preparing to sign the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, for substantial enhancement of trade and commercial partnerships between the two countries. As one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, Bangladesh will become even more important for India in future.
Gateway for India’s Northeast
Geographically couched between the Indian State of West Bengal and the landlocked states in India’s Northeast, Bangladesh is ideally positioned to provide the latter easier access to the rest of the country, as well as to the sea to improve its trade and connectivity. To realise this potential, in the past few years, several initiatives have been undertaken by both governments to improve connectivity between Bangladesh and India’s Northeast. Prime Minister Hasina has on multiple occasions invited India to use the Chattogram and Mongla ports, which would benefit the Northeastern states of Assam and Tripura. Several new ports of call and protocol routes have also been added to the shared inland waterway network for better trade. To further improve transport, the Maitri Setu (bridge) has been constructed over the Feni River in 2021, connecting Sarboom in Tripura, India to Ramgarh in Bangladesh. The newly inaugurated Padma Setu is also expected to improve connectivity between the two countries. In terms of rail connectivity, the Mitali Express was operationalised in 2022 to make bi-weekly journeys from New Jalpaiguri in northern West Bengal to Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Akhaura-Agartala rail line is expected to be functional by June 2023.
Geographically couched between the Indian State of West Bengal and the landlocked states in India’s Northeast, Bangladesh is ideally positioned to provide the latter easier access to the rest of the country, as well as to the sea to improve its trade and connectivity.
Connectivity aside, a peaceful Bangladesh also corresponds to more stability in India’s insurgency-prone Northeast. Reportedly, the “neighbouring country has been an outstanding partner of India on security issues”, especially with its “zero-tolerance” attitude towards terrorism. On several occasions, Bangladesh has arrested and handed over insurgents from the separatist militant groups in the Northeast (United Liberation Front of Asom) to India.
A central pillar in India’s Neighbourhood First and Act East Policies
The increasing strategic significance of the Bay of Bengal, heightened by China’s rising and assertive presence in this maritime space has led India to bolster relations with the Bay littorals to ensure its pre-eminence in the Bay, which it considers to be a primary area of interest. Furthermore, as its western front remains troubled, India is increasingly trying to build stronger relations with its eastern neighbourhood to realise its Indo-Pacific aspirations. In both these efforts, Bangladesh as India’s immediate eastern neighbour, located north of the Bay of Bengal, is of cardinal importance. As China also tries to make inroads into Bangladesh to gain a stronger foothold in the Bay region, India has felt an added impetus to nurture its relationship with the country, reviving age-old bonds and cultivating new avenues for cooperation. The latter was elaborately manifested in the pandemic years when India prioritised Bangladesh and supplied 10.3 crore vaccine doses to the country, making it the largest recipient of its Vaccine Maitri initiative. The gesture was generously reciprocated, when in India’s hour of crisis at the outbreak of the second wave in March 2021, Bangladesh supplied COVID essentials including 10,000 vials of Remdesivir and 30,000 PPE kits, and medicines, even as its purchased order of vaccines from India remained undelivered.
As the India-Bangladesh partnership expands to broader and newer horizons, it is interesting to note that some of its latest areas of cooperation resonate with the priority areas of India’s G20 agenda. As India’s guest at the G20 Summit, it is these aspects of India-Bangladesh relations that are expected to be at the forefront this year. Four such areas are as follows:
Climate change and disaster management
One of the priority areas for G20, under India’s Presidency, is ‘Green Development, Climate Finance and LiFE’. As the name suggests, the segment is devoted to developing environmental consciousness and understanding the impact of climate change “with a particular focus towards not only climate finance and technology, but also ensuring just energy transitions for developing nations across the world.” The heads of government of both India and Bangladesh have identified climate change as a common concern. In the Joint Statement that was released after Prime Minister Hasina’s visit to India, last September, both countries agreed to cooperate on climate change with particular attention to the Sunderban area which is facing challenges due to climate-induced sea level rise.
India-Bangladesh cooperation in the energy sector has increased in the past few years with various projects such as the Friendship Pipeline and Maitree Super Thermal Power Project, amongst others.
Disaster risk reduction is also a new area of emphasis under India’s G20 mandate. Both India and Bangladesh experience frequent disasters such as cyclones originating from the turbulent Bay of Bengal. Consequently, the two countries signed an MoU on Disaster Management in 2021, to mitigate this transnational threat.
Transition to renewable energy
As has already been noted, energy transitions are an important issue in India’s G20 mandate. Incidentally, last month Bangladesh announced its target of generating 40 percent of power from clean energy by 2041. India-Bangladesh cooperation in the energy sector has increased in the past few years with various projects such as the Friendship Pipeline and Maitree Super Thermal Power Project, amongst others. In the 2020 Virtual Joint Statement, both countries also welcomed the signing of the Framework of Understanding on Cooperation in the Hydrocarbon Sector. However, it was also agreed to enhance cooperation in energy efficiency and clean energy, including biofuels. This claim was reiterated in the 2022 Joint Statement with both countries agreeing to cooperate in green energy.
Cyber security
Digital Public Infrastructures (DPIs) are essentially foundational population-scale technology systems such as identity systems, social registries, and payment gateways, upon which the digital economy is built. These allow a wide section of public and private services to be delivered to citizens at a greatly enhanced speed and scale. Cyber security is an intrinsic aspect of DPI’s and also happens to be one of the areas in which India-Bangladesh have agreed to cooperate. In June 2022, both countries decided to expand their strategic partnership to enhance Artificial Intelligence and cyber security.
Digital Public Infrastructures (DPIs) are essentially foundational population-scale technology systems such as identity systems, social registries, and payment gateways, upon which the digital economy is built.
Forging better multilateralism
Within G20, a priority for India is to promote reformed multilateralism which cultivates accountable, inclusive, just, equitable and representative multipolar international systems, fit for addressing contemporary challenges. In many of the multilateral platforms in India’s neighbourhood (an area India seeks to influence), Bangladesh is also a member, for e.g., SAARC, BIMSTEC, and IORA. The country’s support is, therefore, necessary, if India’s G20 aspiration is to find a reflection in regional multilateral platforms.
As India tries to shape the global agenda through G20 it needs Bangladesh’s support to translate many of these ideas into action in its neighbourhood. This will lend further credibility to its presidency and in the long run, some of these nascent areas of cooperation may add pages to the “Golden Chapter” in India-Bangladesh relations. (Courtesy: Observer Research Foundation. New Delhi, India)
Sohini Bose is a Junior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Kolkata with the Strategic Studies Programme.
