Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will meet in Shantiniketan on May 25 for the inauguration of the “Bangladesh Bhawan” Tagore museum, Indian and Bangladeshi officials confirmed to The Hindu. The three are also to visit two universities named after the two most celebrated poets in Bengal and Bangladesh: Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul. No formal talks have been scheduled between Ms. Banerjee and Sheik Hasina on the Teesta or between Mr. Modi and the visiting PM on the Rohingya crisis.
Movement on the Teesta talks for a higher share of water from the river has long been opposed by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and officials held out little hope of making any headway on the issue that has been pending between Dhaka and Delhi since negotiations began in 1983. Meanwhile Dhaka is also looking closely at the visit by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to Myanmar on May 10-11, hoping that she may extract some assurances from the government in Nay Pyi Taw for a rethink on the issue of 700,000 Rohingya refugees who were forced out of Rakhine state last year, and are living in camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazaar area.
According to one official, a formal meeting between PM Hasina and Ms. Banerjee was still being worked on, but confirmed that both would also be present together at the Kazi Nazrul University, where Ms. Hasina will be conferred an honorary doctorate. Mr. Modi had met Ms. Hasina in London in April on the sidelines of the Commonwealth summit, and while the two leaders will also attend the convocation of the Vishwa Bharati University in Shantiniketan, diplomats working on the agenda of the visit said that they might not schedule formal talks this time around.
Ahead of PM Hasina’s visit to India, a senior delegation of her party the Awami League had visited Delhi last month, and met with PM Modi and other government and BJP leaders, emphasising the need to make progress on Teesta as it would be an issue during the Bangladeshi general election campaign expected later this year.
“We have told the Indian PM that the Teesta issue is a serious problem for us that we need to see a resolution of the problem…our opponents are trying to make this an election issue. We hope that you in the centre can convince West Bengal CM to agree to a resolution soon," Awami League general secretary and senior minister Obaidul Quader said after the meeting on April 23rd.
Similarly on the Rohingya issue, PM Hasina has called on India and other countries to intervene in the crisis on an urgent basis, warning that heavy rains this season may wash away some of the camps, and heighten the chances of casualties and disease.
In 2017, PM Modi had offered that India would rebuild Rohingya homes in Rakhine during his visit to Myanmar if they were allowed to return, and Ms. Swaraj is expected to enquire about progress on the repatriation of the refugees during her visit.
“We have shared that the normalcy in the Rakhine state will be restored with the return of the displaced persons i.e. once they return to their state and that is a very important component of how the normalcy can be restored,” MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said on Thursday, using the term “displaced persons” rather than “Rohingya refugees” in deference to the Myanmar government’s stand on refusing to recognise them at citizens.
As a result, with little indication that either the West Bengal Chief Minister or the Myanmar government is in a flexible mood on the issues impacting India-Bangladesh ties at present, PM Modi may have to walk a diplomatic tightrope as he plays host to Ms. Hasina in Bengal.
( With inputs from Suvojit Bagchi )
