Five-fold embrace for Khalida

In these four and a half years the Indian prime minister found time to get to Dhaka only once, a few months ago to attend the annual South Asian summit. So much for being neighbours.

Few other countries are so condemned to coexist in peace and interdependence than India and Bangladesh. New Delhi is virtually the only neighbour to Dhaka, ignoring for a moment the small border between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Yet the two countries have found so many different ways to be nasty to each other. Nothing short of a perverse genius was required to push this relationship into a crisis. New Delhi and Dhaka have managed the impossible.

A series of simplistic assessments on our eastern neighbour have begun to cloud our judgement. “Bangladesh is turning towards Islamic radicalism and is headed down the road of Talibanisation. Its current leadership, led by Khalida Zia, is pro-Pakistan and is a hostage to religious extremism at home.”

“It is impossible to negotiate with Dhaka, which is completely insensitive to India’s security concerns. Forget being nice to India. Bangladesh does not even recognise its own self-interest in not avoiding more intensive economic engagement with India.”

Like all political myths, this litany of charges against Bangladesh, too, might have a grain of truth. But only a grain. When you begin to paint your neighbour black on the basis of a few strands of truth, the perspective begins to suffer.

In a self-fulfilling prophecy, India has allowed frustration and prejudice to cloud the potential for problem-solving with Bangladesh and allowed the worst-case scenario to develop by default.

By putting out positive signals on his commitment to sort out problems with Bangladesh, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has taken the first step forward. What he now needs is a five-fold approach to his talks with Khalida Zia.

The first is to separate, in India’s own mind, the engagement with Bangladesh from its domestic politics. With yet another bloody election round the corner in Dhaka, the Khalida Zia visit is already...