NEW DELHI: The three-day state visit by Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is the first major step in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s new policy of lifting relations with Dhaka over and above personalities and institutionalise these at a government-to-government level. Officials on both sides were quick to point out that no one should expect a “dramatic breakthrough”, but admitted that the visit was largely promoted by the decisive shift in Indian policy that had moved away from “taking sides” in the bitter feud between the two women leaders of Bangladesh and limiting it to the government, regardless of who was in power.

Dr Singh, sources said, had been trying hard to break the New Delhi mindset that liked to play off the more friendly Awami League against what is often described as the “anti-India” Bangladesh Nationalist Party. The directive to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka was to reverse policy, and to lay the ground for better relations with the present government. The Prime Minister also sent emissaries like Mr Arjun Sengupta to Dhaka to meet people and send out a strong signal that his government was not keen to get involved in local politics.

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who attended a dinner hosted in her honour by Bangladesh High Commissioner Liaqat Ali Choudhury, told this newspaper that she was here to begin discussions “on not one, but several problems” between the two countries. She was optimistic of a new beginning, although cynics at the same dinner insisted that the visit was prompted more by domestic politics and the forthcoming elections than the larger initiative of the Prime Minister.

However, former foreign secretary and high commissioner to Bangladesh Muchkund Dubey, who was also present, disagreed. “Even if that is so, her visit is an important step,” he said. The ministry of external affairs was hitherto inclined to take a more partial position towards the Awami Leagues Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who has visited India more than once since the UPA government took over on private and official visits. The distance between the Indian Foreign Office and Begum Khaleda Zia’s government was tangible in New Delhi’s “over-obsession”, as Mr Dubey described it, with the security angle and the issue of terrorism that was repeatedly raised at different levels.

Trade and economic relations came to a virtual standstill, with mutual suspicion and an acknowledged lack of trust hounding bilateral ties. Dr Manmohan Singh, the sources said, had been trying to bridge the gap and, sources said, “if handled right” relations between the two neighbours can improve rapidly. There is a whole gamut of problems that have not been addressed since Begum Khaleda Zia came to power in 2001. Terrorism, illegal migration, tariff and non-tariff barriers, sharing of river waters, gas pipeline, travel links, border fencing, free trade where progress has been minimal and where New Delhi’s inclination to join in the politics between the two women leaders of opposing parties has definitely not paid dividends.

Dr Singh said during his visit to Dhaka to attend the 13th Saarc summit last November that these problems were not “insurmountable”, and as the sources pointed out, the movement would be fairly fast-paced if these were delinked from domestic politics and taken up on a direct government-to-government level.

The government is now working overtime to bridge the gap, and use this visit by the Bangladesh Prime Minister to assure her of the shift in New Delhi’s position. The sources said that the coming weeks would reveal whether she had also given relations with India a rethink, or whether the visit was prompted again by her domestic rivalries and a desire to score brownie points against Sheikh Hasina.—By arrangement with The Asianage