Rye wrote:RajeshA wrote:
What worries me is, that China would be able to enlist Bangladesh to become an even bigger pain in the a$$ for India, and this time with solid Chinese support. We already know, how much harm Bangladesh can do. We do not want that doing harm to India becomes its one and only mission in life.
Rajesh,
Why is the reverse of us harming BD not even in the picture and not considered an option by India. In the face of implacable BD hostility towards India, that is just silly and dispels any notion that India has any power to project outside its borders, even if it makes pretensions of sending ships to the Middle East. If BD can make life miserable for India, India can do it ten times in reverse, if there was political will (as opposed to the current political won't).
I am at a loss as to what exactly is the GoI afraid of about BD becoming "rogue" (more than it already is)? that BD will become another pakistan (BD is already past that point)? Is the Indian army existing to smartly salute the PM on Republic Day or does the Cabinet/GoI have plans to use them against hostile countries like BD when they mess with India? BD is not yet nuclear -- are these leaders of ours trying to wait until BD acquires nukes under China's tutelage and becomes even more of a pain than it currently is? How smart is all this denial of the BD problem?
India can proceed and do some engineering on BD. I support that. However there are a few precautions here:
1. India intervenes militarily before China has some naval base or listening post in BD.
2. India intervenes militarily before BD and China have some security arrangement.
3. In order to keep it that way, until some point in time arrives, when India is ready and willing to militarily intervene in BD, BD needs to be kept at peace with its neighborhood, or at least far away from the Dragon's embrace.
4. A proper reason needs to be found/produced, before any such intervention. The Chittagong Hill Tracts can again come alive, where India could intervene because of humanitarian reasons. The world would have to be told about the conditions there. Even here India should keep a certain distance from the issue while it is boiling, so that BD does not panic.
5. The intervention should be swift and should produce a new State of Chittagong in the Indian Subcontinent.
6. After that India should use maximum weight to cower BD to get rid of its hostile attitude towards India.
Disclaimer:/ Take the feasibility of the above approach with a heavy bucket of salt.
Again, it does not need to go this way. BD should just change its deep-seated paranoia of India and inferiority-complex, where any concession to India is considered, as if they are selling off the country, and they think hostility can provide a suitable shield for their weakness. Indian establishment needs to enlist some segments of political players like Awami League, etc. who are willing to break with hostility and show the rest of the BD, that the sky does not come down, if one cooperates with India.
Seems to me that the only way India is going to have a legitimate reason to be involved in whatever "negotiations" Myanmar and BD hold in the future (involving the chinese) by starting our own little "disagreement" w.r.t. maritime boundaries with BD. Now, BD has a conflict with both large neighbours, and even if China can ask Myanmar to back down, it cannot do that to India -- any exhibition of "we are the big dog here" would be undercut. Such a "maritime disagreement" also opens the door for India to say at some point in the future that "all India, BD and Myanmar states need to sit down and iron this out, possibly forming a coalition to help each other exploit the resources in the region or some such". The biggest danger in all that you mention is India being kept out by both BD and Myanmar
If we start a 'maritime disagreement' with BD, it would most probably be in the west, while 'maritime disagreement' with Myanmar is in the east. It will be a bit difficult to pursue both disagreements as a single issue to be solved jointly by all three parties involved.
Secondly China is getting involved here through a proxy, Myanmar, while we would be getting involved directly. The method of resolving such conflicts are different. As positions of the parties become intransigent, each party being greedy (strategic reasons, or mineral wealth, or transit routes, etc), the weaker party (BD) tries to look for help from outside (China), which can help influence the other party (Myanmar) to back down.
In case of India, BD too would look for another outside party which is stronger than the one (India) causing disagreement, which means even for that they would look up to China. China does not have influence over India, so that does not solve the problem for Bangladesh, but if Bangladesh is sufficiently afraid of India, they would be willing to become a protectorate of China, where China can put up its naval bases, etc. Should India then attack BD (on being provoked), then it becomes a case of India attacking China's vital interests, and the conflict can expand to all our borders in the North East.
---this "disagreement" with BD also gives India a card it can offer as a concession down the line (by removing the "disagreement" -- basically taking a leaf out of the chinese playbook for sikkim/AP by creating a problem and "solving" it at one's leisure when the circumstances work out right or in exchange for a more valuable card down the line, when some current card loses value).
India already has a couple of open issues with Bangladesh, most notably the river water distribution issue. I am not disinclined against having even more pressure points, as long as those pressure points are seen as resolvable issues, and which cause a certain rancor but do not put BD in such a panic mode, that it runs into the open arms of China to serve as its minion.
If BD decides to have a pakistan like attitude, India needs to invade BD and wipe out all the pro-pakistani people who are currently controlling BD (the ex-razakar crowd) -- India made the mistake of not taking these people out in 1971 and they killed all BD leaders ruthlessly with Pakistani guidance and support. 30 years later the razakars are back to controlling the country. This trend needs to be stopped before it gets any worse and a harder problem to solve for future Indian govts.
These people need to be fought from inside the country. The least India can do, is financially support the making of documentaries and feature films which try to reproduce the situation prior to 1971 and the politics of treason that followed. One could make films on Ayub Khan, Mukti Bahini, Mujibur Rahman, Ziaur Rahman and others. I personally don't know of any feature films which portray the Bangladesh Independence. Some epic like 'Gandhi' of Richard Attenborough comes to mind. After all, it was also a victory for India. If the film(s) is well-researched and well-depicted, it can make an impression on the Bangladeshis. At the moment, I lack the $60 million need for the film.