India-Bangladesh talks: Land agreement squeezed in as a face saver

Dhaka, Sep.6 (ANI): The land transfer deal would have also fallen through just like the Teesta and Feni agreement and the transit agreements were a no show on the list of deliverables.

Officials flitted back and forth from the meeting room this evening in the Bangladesh Prime Minister's office, while the Dr Manmohan Singh and Sheikh Hasina and their delegations tried to hammer through the deals.

In an evening reminiscent of the Indian-Pakistan failed deal in Islamabad in 2010, and the tensions of botched up negotiations of Sharm-el-Sheikh 2009, again between India and Pakistan, this evening too spelt gloom and despair as the clocked ticked.

The first sign of things not really being gung-ho was when Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of Poschim Bongo, pulled out of the talks without citing any reasons just two days before she was to board Air India One to Dhaka.

But the central government bravely said there was a "paradigm shift" in relations between India and Bangladesh.

Indeed it did seem like Teesta may not be the only issue...there was Feni and there was talk of land, water connectivity, trade and the boundary issues. Indeed the two countries were serious of moving forth rapidly to find solutions that would be mutually beneficial.

But when the list of MoUs was handed out to the media by the Bangladeshi side there was no mention of the land agreement.

Even in the printed version of the Bangladeshi Prime Minister's speech, there is no mention of the boundary agreement and the land swap.

Clearly the Bangladeshi side had no intention to move on either water, or transit and not even on boundary. They were quite content on MoUs on trade which gave them duty free access and conservation of the Sunderbans.

For the first time ever, an agreement has been reached between India and Bangladesh regarding the much vexed boundary issue. The Protocol to the Agreement Concerning the Demarcation between India and Bangladesh and Related Matters signed today between the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh and the External Affairs Minister of India in the presence of Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina and Dr Man Mohan Singh, seeks to address all outstanding land boundary issues and provide a final settlement to the India-Bangladesh boundary.

The outstanding issues addressed include (i) undemarcated land boundary in three sectors viz. Daikhata-56 (West Bengal), Muhuri River-Belonia (Tripura) and Dumabari (Assam); (ii) enclaves; and (iii) adverse possessions. The undemarcated boundary in all three segments has now been demarcated.

The status of 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh with a population of 37,334 and 51 Bangladesh enclaves in India with a population of 14,215 has been addressed. The issue of Adversely Possessed Lands along the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal, Tripura, Meghalaya and Assam has also been mutually finalized.

If anything today was a lesson to India that when you decide to make conciliatory moves towards a smaller neighbour, you have to be pragmatic and not adventurous; you have to be extremely sensitive to hyper sensitivities; you have to assuage hurt, even if it may seem misplaced; you are the bigger one, you have to make concessions. That is the way the cookie crumbles. By Smita Prakash (ANI)