Prologue to India visit
PRIME Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to visit India shortly. The visit is expected to be fruitful mainly because of a changed mind-set of politicians and bureaucrats in Bangladesh, and hopefully in India, in approaching the festering issues in an objective manner. Indo-Bangladesh relations have been bedeviled by a host of issues that both countries have been viewing from the narrow plane of self-interest instead of the changed global situation where integrated approach to presumed insoluble issues have proved to be more successful than disjointed approach aimed more at domestic audience than at the long term interest of the country and the people.
The reality of global political structure indicate asymmetric relationship that engulf many nations of the world has put into question the Westphalian concept of sovereignty, and no less, absolutist nature of "nationalism" that the Bush administration neo-cons and "new sovereigntists" who endeavoured to subordinate international law to US domestic law. Their attempts not only flew in the face of liberal democracy that flourished after the demise of communism but also succeeded in making the US feared, and lost for the US the role of beacon light for liberal progressivism.
Undoubtedly, the leaders of all nations are engaged in bettering the lot of their people through socio-economic development. An example is putting on the back- burner the centuries old Anglo-French rivalry, the Thirty Years' War among European nations, and the German initiated carnage of the First and the Second World Wars to facilitate the birth of the European Union founded on common values of democracy and freedom as opposed to communism.
Though, as early as the 1920s, Austrian economist Ludwig Von Mises had perceived that vesting ownership of all productive resources in the state was irrational for once all markets and market prices were abolished, there would be no way of computing or comparing values and costs and no way of determining the efficiency of distribution of resources, the world had to wait for decades for the tearing asunder of the umbilical cords among the constituents of the Soviet Union.
The success of the Western democracies in awarding the people technological advancement hitherto unknown in human history, leading to the quantum leap to globalisation, has turned the world into a village where Thomas Friedman's flat earth has become a virtual reality.
But neither regional economic cooperation nor globalisation is an unmixed blessing. As Japanese economist (Foreign Affairs Sept/Oct 1995) Eisuke Sakakibara noted: "Globalisation with economies of scale leads to oligopolisation of the world market, inviting strategic trade rather than free trade. More important, the interests of multinational corporations and those of workers and consumers start to diverge, and the cohesion of nation state as an economic unit disintegrates." This view in a way converges with that of Ziaudin Sardar who considers globalisation as the modern incarnation of colonialism.
But if one were to accept the reality of globalisation and regional cooperation, and improvement of bilateral ties, as beneficial then Sheikh Hasina's visit to India that, according to information available in the public domain, would result in India's giving non-reciprocal and concessional facilities for import of Bangladeshi products, discussion on transit to Bhutan and Nepal through Indian territory, purchase of power from India, food security, integrated approach to terrorism etc should be regarded as milestone in Indo-Bangladesh relations.
It is generally recognised that reproducibility is a key concept of the economics of production. While capital and labour are reproducible, energy remains an important non-reproducible factor of production. The possibility of India selling Bangladesh electricity is encouraging. Equally, cooperation ensuring food security would be of prime concern for Bangladesh. According to the US Agriculture Department July 2008 report, the global economic meltdown combined with food and fuel price hikes (though now fuel price is going down) contributed to the ongoing deterioration in global food insecurity, with negative impact on countries that are most food insecure.
USDA's long term projection of price increase states that 90% of the price shift that the world had seen in 2005-07 will persist, putting tremendous pressure on low income households. FAO/WFP crop and food supply assessment mission to Bangladesh, in its August 2008 report, estimated that 40%, or 56 million, people were "absolute poor," i.e. unable to acquire the minimum level of food required to maintain normal health. Within this, 27 million were categorised as "hard core poor," i.e. unable to acquire two-thirds of the minimum level mentioned earlier; and 11 million as "ultra poor," i.e. unable to acquire half of the minimum requirement.
The prevalence of absolute, hard core and ultra poor increased from 2000-2005 due to population growth. For Bangladesh, external sources of food will decrease because Myanmar, due to cyclone Nargis, will not be able to export as much as in the past. In Thailand, too, exportable quantity is expected to decrease. India, that at the moment is importing food, will remain an important source for us.
Perhaps one of the sticking points will be the demarcation of maritime boundary between India and Bangladesh. Given the new found global status of India and the benefits of economics of integration Bangladesh and India would be well advised to take advantage of the impending visit to sweep away the irritants of the past and chalk out a time-bound road map for politico-economic cooperation.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments