LIVING WITH A GIANT


News from Bangladesh
01 January, 1998


We are living with a Giant- India, our neighbour: This is the undeniable and unavoidable fact of our life. There is no reason to think that this Giant would pursue an open-hearted policy to develop foreign relations with us. We can always expect her friendliness and goodwill, but her national interests shall always guide her diplomatic policies. Thus, we must search out the best diplomatic ways to deal with this Giant, so that we can make the most out of the worst. In searching out these diplomatic manoeuvres, the question that we must ask ourselves is: How can we possibly benefit from foreign relations with our neighbour by creating a situation of hostility, which BNP has continued to do so aptly, so deliberately and so nakedly?

Anthony Wilson-Smith, a celebrated Canadian columnist, describes, in very bald language, how American presidents treat Canadian prime ministers in their private or summit meetings (21 July, The Maclean's, a Canadian Weekly). Here I quote the relevant section for my readers:

When it comes to private talk between the leaders of Canada and the United States, the traditional policy of American presidents has been that it is far better to give than to receive. Which is to say they would dish it out than take it. Examples are legion- and legendary. In a May, 1961, memorandum, John F. Kennedy described John Diefenbaker as; The relations between Lyndon B. Johnson an d Lester Pearson went one better, as author Lawrence Martin recounted in his 1982 book, The Presidents and the Prime Ministers. Johnson, enraged at a speech that Pearson gave criticizing American actions in Vietnam in 1965, harangued him for more than an hour during a meeting at Camp David while aides watched. Finally, Martin wrote, Johnson "pinned the much smaller Pearson against the railing... garbed him by the shirt collar, twisted it and lifted and lifted the shaken prime minister by the neck;- while continuing to berate him. Richard Nixon was so exasperated after being lectured once by Pierre Trudeau that he used an anatomically crude seven etter word to describe him.

Truth is stranger than fiction. So long as Canada goes along with the US hegemonic policies, diplomatic relationships between two of the world's most developed and most civilized neighbouring countries are very sweet. Problems arise when Canada refuses to go along.

American presidents' dealings with Canadian prime ministers hardly surprise me. In fact, I do not think that any one, who has the courage and conscience to confess the truth, should be surprised by this fact.

The evolutionary history of human species teaches us one fundamental fact of our life: Our species began its journey of survival, millions of years ago, in the midst of all kinds of hostilities, which Nature created for us. As we began to develop civilizations and to live civilized life, Nature's hostilities started to be replaced by human hostilities. Darwin's theory, natural selection and survival of the fittest, truly describes the nature of struggles we had fought and will continue to fight for ever. Darwin was talking about humans' fight against Nature; we now have to think about humans' fight against humans. Ours is the goal for survival; and our struggles for survival have made us out-and-out selfish.

The extent to which we are able to achieve our selfishness is determined by the strength of power and means we possess. The sources of power and means- both natural and social- are very unevenly distributed: Nature creates us with high degrees of inequalities and imperfections. On birth, we inherit and struggle with the inequalities and injustices that the society has created and institutionalized for us.

The history of human civilization teaches us another fundamental fact of our life: The fundamental force determining relationships among humans in the society is Power that each member commands. History testifies that the more powerful humans oppress, exploit, or at least dominate, the less powerful humans. Jean-Jacques Rousseau describes this phenomenon very eloquently in his DISCOURSE ON POLITICAL ECONOMY: You need me, for I am rich and you are poor. Let us come to an agreement between ourselves. I will permit you to have the honour of serving me, provided you give me what little you have for the trouble I will be taking to command you. Marx and Engels say in their THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO : The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Thus, I find nothing to be astonished by the way American presidents treat Canadian prime ministers. This is the naked reality of our life.

Our situation with India is much more worse. There are horrendous reasons, but I shall describe here two. First, we are two underdeveloped nations. Fashionable it is today to examine underdevelopment of a nation from the economic perspective; but, economic conditions are the consequence rather than the cause of underdevelopment. The fundamental purpose of a nation is to preserve human freedom and human rights; therefore, the basic criterion to judge the state of development of a nation must be the extent to which this vital human goal has been realized. Both of our nations are unpardonably guilty in violating these two perpetual demands of the humanity.

The implication is absolutely clear: We do not belong to the class of nations called Civil Society. Our social life is guided, not by the Rule of Law, but by the Rule called Might is Right; reason and rationality play very little role in our social life.

Second, two major religious groups in the region- Hindus and Muslims- have developed acrimonious communal relations over centuries. I do not want to dwell on this issue; I believe my readers have very good idea about what I am talking about.

India is virtually our only neighbour; and she is huge, compared to us, in all respects. She is approximately 23 times bigger than us geographically: her economy and population are respectively 9 and 8 times larger than ours. Above all, she is politically more stable and economically more advanced. All these facts lead to what constitute the notion of "Big Brotherhood", a concept that is used to imply domination, exploitation and extortion, if not obedience, for respect and cooperation in foreign relations.

The situation we are in is well known and well identified. The question before us is: How are we going to live with this situation and make the best out of it? Or more specifically, How are our political parties, our representatives, going to tackle this situation?

BNP has made its position perfectly clear to us; it is not going to tolerate India's domination and interference in our national affairs. Let me quote some of the statements which BNP leaders had made in protesting against the treaties concluded recently with India.

In announcing the first hartal programme in March, to protest against Water-Sharing Agreement, BNP Chairperson, Begum Zia said, " The government has hatched out a blue-print of selling out the interests of the country: if the government remains in power, our sovereignty will be sacrificed." BNP Secretary General, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan said, "The Foreign Minister has added a new chapter of slavery in country's history just on the eve of the completion of 25-year treaty with India by signing the JEC documents in New Delhi on March 12. The question now remains whether we will be able to remain as an independent nation as our sovereignty and independence are threatened." BNP Vice- President, Mr. Moudud Ahemed said, "After 25 years, the country is facing a challenge: it has no economy, no foreign policy and no social policy. This government is overpowered by the spectre of destruction and conspiracy: it is selling out the country to India. An interim election is a must to restore political stability in the country."

They made similar statements when the transit treaty was concluded. Now BNP leaders are implicating India in the CHT treaty, expected to be concluded soon. In a public meeting on 23rd November, BNP Chairperson said, "The government wants to hand over the huge natural resources of CHT and Chitagong Port to India by signing a CHT accord".

Thus, BNP is keeping it no secret that it does not trust India and has vowed to do everything possible to "protect our independence, sovereignty and national integrity" from the evil clutches of India.

We do not know what it means by the "threat to our supreme values"; we have not asked it to explain "how these values are threatened"; and we never demanded it to "prove to us how it is going to protect these values".

During our quarter-century old independence, BNP had been in power for almost half of the period. So it has given us enough evidence how it had protected our supreme national values from the evil designs of India. If it returns to power again, "how is it going to do better?"

Without strong opposing political parties (PPs), the spirit and intents of democracy can not survive, as the distinction between democracy and any other political system vanishes. We are indeed very lucky that we have very strong opposing PPs. But if PPs use people's emotions and past miseries to gain politically, then our infant democracy could turn to be a worse political system than any other.

No more silence; no more tacit support. Time has come to raise questions- both to our politicians (BNP and its allies) and to ourselves. How BNP is going to face up to the Indian challenge and Indian Might? The way it did in the past? How are we going to be better off from foreign relations with our neighbour by creating a situation of hostility?




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Update: 01 January 1998

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