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Gold Spot was a poor cousin of Fanta in the 1970's. Not a spot could be found after 1975 when Fanta and Coca Cola came in -- "and you know, a lot of junk was dumped on us," he chuckled. With his elder brothers, he had thrown garlands in 1971 at victorious Indian soldiers as their trucks rolled onto Dhaka streets.
A retired senior bureaucrat comfortably settled into a sourcing and shipping business in Dhaka with whom I had a working "homemade" lunch -- his wife sent food for three omnivores --seemed apologetic as he ladled out rice for me. He felt it was far below Indian standards and lamented about the stupidity of breaking up Pakistan, since long-grained basmati rice was sold even from ration shops before 1971. A few more years of agitation could have corrected the economic imbalances, he reflected. He despised the shortsightedness of those who fought in the liberation struggle.
Different allegiances way back in 1971, but more than 20 years later in the mid-1990s -- one disillusioned by the savior India and one feeling pangs of separation -- both wondered whether the savior had latent intentions to become a devourer.
Unofficial estimates peg at 18,000 Indian soldiers killed in the eastern sector during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war. Recent remembrances for the dead and feting the 10-member Indian delegation of Bangladesh's liberation war veterans who were invited for the event came too late, but it was a path-breaking step in Indo-Bangladesh relations.
General Moeen U Ahmed, the real power behind Bangladesh's caretaker government, visited India in February this year. Garrisoned in West Pakistan as a junior lieutenant during the turmoil, he has put both former prime ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina behind bars. He should be judged from the perspective of the shifting paradigms in South Asia in the 21st century.
Moeen's idea of joint cooperation and training with the Indian army to combat natural disasters and share advance information on tsunamis and floods was perhaps intended to render U.S. marines wading in post-calamity floodwaters irrelevant in a time of renascent religious bigotry.
To reduce Bangladesh's gross trade imbalance, India allowed the import of 8 million duty-free garments last year. This and the goodwill gestures by India after Cyclone Sidr did massive damage in Bangladesh were humanitarian steps forward.
A future sovereign, economically viable and stable Bangladesh is in India's interest.
With elections promised by the end of this year -- deferred earlier, as is usual whenever the military calls the shots -- it is too early to say if Moeen is a power hound. In an interview with the Bangladeshi magazine "Weekly Holiday" some time back, he said he wanted to keep fighting corruption in his country, when asked what he would do if he had just 48 hours to live.
Although six top leaders of the radical JMB (Jamat-ul-Islam Bangladesh) were executed and corrupt businessmen and politicians imprisoned, Moeen's caretaker government is yet to nail the culprits who nearly killed Hasina during a rally in August, 2004. Despite a commander of Harkat-ul-Jihadi-Islami (HUJI) Mufti Hannan's confession of a BNP conspiracy, headway is yet to be made.
HUJI imprints have been found in recent terror attacks in India. The parental roots of HUJI and those of terrorists holed up in Pakistan's northwest are no different. Fundamentalism in the name of Islam may be dormant now, but it has struck roots in most villages of Bangladesh.
The Pakistani army may have left Bangladesh long ago, but the Inter-Service Intelligence continues to have considerable leverage on the anti-India lobby. Northeast India's militants are reportedly entrenched in Bangladesh.
There is nothing like an India-friendly secular Awami League or an anti-India Bangladesh National Party anymore. The Awami League aligned with the religious-right Khilafat-e-Majlish to fight the last aborted election The Election Commission has ruled that religious parties can take part in future elections.
During Sheikh Hasina's pro-liberation AL government, Indian border security personnel were hacked to death by their counterparts while she swallowed the epithet of "miscreants" for the freedom fighters by the Pakistani High Commissioner in Dhaka during Bangladesh's independence silver jubilee.
Now the first train from Kolkata to Dhaka is scheduled for an inaugural run on April 14, Bengali New Year Day. The date may be deferred due to West Bengal's village-level elections, but this service will help clear up past diplomatic nettles.
Can India and Bangladesh open a new chapter in their relations?
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(Susenjit Guha is a freelance writer living in Kolkata, India. He can be contacted at sguha60@yahoo.com. ©Copyright Susenjit Guha.)
