The future is now

The main need is to integrate ourselves completely with the world community. Time and technology cannot stand still at the Bangladesh border, and we should be sparing no expense to make sure that we are able to compete in the world marketplace on an equal footing with everyone else. The most important thing is to bring us up to international standards when it comes to business practices, technology, and infrastructure.

If we are not up to the mark then we will be unable to avail ourselves of the advantages of the new global regimen, and will continue to fall behind. One example is the submarine cable deal to bring faster broadband cable access to the nation, something that we are in desperate need of. The government's failure to sign on to a similar accord in the early nineties is a good example of its almost criminal incompetence due to its lack of comprehension of today's imperatives, and the entire nation has suffered from the resulting limitations.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

Now, the government has belatedly signed on to a new protocol, but is far behind schedule when it comes to developing the infrastructure inside the country necessary to link us up to the submarine cable. These are the kinds of issues that the government needs to pay closer attention to if we are to ever have any chance of catching the technological wave that is sweeping the region and that can help us on the path to modernisation and development.

The key is the understanding that as a nation we need to open up to the outside world. Too many people in government and the administration seem to have a Fortress Bangladesh mentality that translates into an unwillingness to open up the economy to outsiders and total lack of comprehension of the need to integrate ourselves with the community of nations.

These ministers and bureaucrats are living in yesterday's world. They need to move beyond out-dated and unhelpful concepts of narrowly-defined sovereignty and self-interest that are absolutely counter-productive to advancement in the world today.

Why the resistance? Why the old-school thinking? In some cases it may be because those who have profited handsomely from business and politics as usual are unwilling to relinquish their fiefdoms, and know that opening up will entail precisely that. In others, it may just be a case of yesterday's men and women being unable to come to terms with, and having no idea how to navigate, today's world.

Either way, these people need to be retired from public service. The nation needs to look towards leaders who understand the modern world, and are able to articulate a compelling vision for the future and lay out a coherent plan for how we get there. For the sake of the nation, the days of old-school, self-defeating foreign policy thinking must come to an end.

Exhibit A when it comes to self-defeating foreign policy is our stance on transshipment of Indian goods through Bangladesh.

Transshipment contemplates only that Indian goods -- not Indians -- be permitted to travel through Bangladesh. Transshipment arrangements would permit the unloading of Indian goods into Bangladeshi trucks at the border which would then transfer them across Bangladesh to the opposing border. Thus the movement of goods would be accomplished without granting India the right to travel through Bangladesh at any point in time.

This was the deal which was on the table in negotiations between Bangladesh and India in 1999, before three continuous days of hartal and a well-coordinated campaign by the then-opposition caused the government to shelve the plan.

The benefits of transshipment are self-evident for both countries. India would get faster and more cost-effective access to its presently more or less inaccessible North-Eastern states, and Bangladesh would benefit due to the additional employment generated and transshipment fees paid.

There are a number of arguments put forward by domestic opponents of transshipment, none of them convincing.

First, there is apprehension over the probability that the gain to India will outweigh the gain to Bangladesh. Second, there is apprehension that permitting transshipment would diminish the prospects for market for Bangladeshi goods in the North-Eastern states of India. Another argument is that national security would be endangered if Bangladesh becomes involved in India's dispute with North-Eastern insurgents by granting transshipment facilities. Finally, it is argued that transshipment should be discussed in the context of India granting transshipment facilities from Bhutan and Nepal through India to Bangladesh.

India points out that the apprehension that the route would be used to transport arms to the North-East is unfounded, as military personnel do not travel separate from their weapons, and that, in any event, the transshipped goods would be subject to international protocols and conventions, which permit them to be checked, and which outlaw the illicit transportation of arms.

In any case, since 1980, India has been using Bangladesh waterways for limited transshipment of cargo, and up until 1965, transit rights were granted by the Pakistani government with no discernible ill effects.

Finally, when it comes to Bhutan and Nepal, these countries do have limited transshipment rights through India to Bangladesh at present. Certainly, these rights could be expanded and this is the kind of arrangement, together with greater market access to the North-East, that Bangladesh should be seeking to negotiate in return for granting India transshipment rights. But refusing to even entertain the notion of granting transshipment rights gets us nowhere.

The real problem is our mind-set. Part of the problem has to do with the anti-Indian sentiment in the government and administration which I have already written about.

But part of the problem is also that the concerned politicians and bureaucrats insist on clinging to out-dated and counter-productive notions of the appropriateness of opening up our borders and permitting others to use our land.

Forget about transshipment. We should really be talking about granting India and other countries transit rights through Bangladesh. With southern China and the Asean countries either on our border or just around the corner, there is serious money to be made letting them use the Bangladesh route.

More to the point, the ancillary benefits of opening up the country in this way are limitless. We gain nothing from shutting ourselves up in our own little box of 55,000 square miles. India, China, and South-East Asia are growing by leaps and bounds. If we play our cards right and open ourselves up to these countries, we can benefit from our proximity, but if we do not, then we are destined to remain an insignificant backwater.

Essentially we need to change the way we think about Bangladesh.

Take the example of Chittagong port. There is no reason on Earth why we can't permit it to serve the land-locked hinterlands of North-Eastern India, Bhutan, and Nepal.

This would entail granting them transit rights, but the pay-off would be immense, including making them contribute towards the upgrading of the infrastructure that they will be using. It is true that Chittagong is not a deep-sea port, but that does not mean that it cannot be of great utility to our land-locked neighbours, and at the same time earn us millions if not billions of dollars a year in additional revenue.

Bandar Abbas in Iran and Rotterdam in Holland are examples of ports that have generated their host countries billions of dollars by opening themselves up to serve the land-locked hinterland.

But this requires a more enlightened policy with respect to opening oneself up to one's neighbours and permitting them transit rights through one's country. We need to do the same. The time has come for Bangladesh to make a decisive break from the self-defeating and inward-looking policies of the past.

Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.