Five CMs to accompany PM to Dhaka

NEW DELHI: Signalling the growing importance of Bangladesh to India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will take along five chief ministers to Dhaka when he travels there next week for one of his biggest foreign policy moves in the region.
The chief ministers of West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram will accompany Singh, an event that is extremely rare in Indian politics. It is intended to signal to Bangladesh that India is ready to press the reset button on ties with its eastern neighbour.
The visit is likely to see India and Bangladesh finally working out a comprehensive boundary agreement. This would be the logical implementation of the Indira-Mujib agreement of 1974, which could not be implemented since Mujib was assassinated in 1975. While its no secret that India's ties with the Awami League is much more pleasant, Indian sources said they were going the extra mile to keep the opposition BNP on board. Bangladeshi opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia will meet Singh, which Indians see as the first step in a continued engagement of all sides of political opinion in Bangladesh.
Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina addressed almost all of India's security concerns in the past year, which made it easier for India to move faster on other areas. But the Indian concern is the sustainability of the new spring in bilateral ties. That will require a lot of political investment by India on the BNP and Jamaat front.
The boundary defied a resolution all these years, which both sides resisted getting caught in the complexities of "enclaves and "adverse possessions fearing largescale migration, uprooting of people etc. But a joint survey of the affected areas over the past few months showed the affected people to be not more than 53,000.
The boundary agreement will keep the enclaves where they are, that is, those on the Bangladeshi side will go to Bangladesh and those on the Indian side will come to India. So there will be an exchange of territory, but in the broader scheme of things, Indians felt this was the right thing to do. Bangladesh will get a greater chunk of land from India, which would also sweeten the deal for them.
The real deal between both sides will be to work for economic integration. Here, the Indians are a lot more miserly, particularly in the textiles sector. Sources said it was much easier to work towards a simplified visa regime between the two countries. Soon, travellers between India and Bangladesh on the Maitree Express can get immigration and customs clearance on board, instead of having to wait an hour on either side.
There is an understanding in India that some thought has to be given to achieving a more just balance of trade position between the two countries. This can happen with greater investment. Here, Bangladesh will have to work hard to attract Indian companies to invest there. This will need some elbow grease by the Bangladeshis particularly after the disappointment suffered by Tatas a few years ago.