India can be said to have poured out its heart and lungs to Bangladesh, and has repeatedly "cut meat" to help Bangladesh, however, Bangladesh's way of repaying India is unexpected, what is it?
India supports Bangladesh
During British colonial rule in India, Bengal was a province of India and was divided into eastern and western parts by the British. In 1947, after the partition of India, the western part of Bengal was given to India and the eastern part was given to Pakistan.
India could not tolerate this, so it encouraged Bangladesh to become independent, and invested a lot of money and military resources to support Bangladesh in waging war and getting rid of Pakistan.
In 1972, Bangladesh officially declared independence, and since then, Bangladesh has become an "ally" of India, and India has invested heavily in order to help Bangladesh.
First, high-level officials visited Bangladesh, built railways, roads and other infrastructure for Bangladesh, and gave preferential tax policies to Bangladesh's exports.
In terms of economy and military, India has also given Bangladesh great resources.
For example, in 2017, Modi gave Bangladesh a heavyweight package that included $4.5 billion in concessional loans and $500 million in credit lines to allow Bangladesh to better buy defense equipment with India.
India has also contracted the development of the three ports of Payala, Mongara and Chittagong in Bangladesh, as well as the road and rail route between Kolkata and Khulna in Bangladesh.
Indian Foreign Minister Sushua Swaraj said in October that Bangladesh is the "top priority" in India's foreign relations development policy, and that relations between the two countries have gone beyond the level of strategic partners.
How does Bangladesh react to India's cooperation with Bangladesh, which covers almost all aspects of cooperation, from domestic infrastructure construction to foreign economic relations and trade?
"Grace will take revenge"?
One of the key reasons why India is willing to spend a lot of effort to help Bangladesh is that "India must first use Bangladesh to counter China's development."
This can be seen from the fact that every time India cooperates with Bangladesh, it has to bring mainland hype. Bangladesh also knows this, and since India does not really want to cooperate, Bangladesh will naturally not repay India with all its heart.
For Bangladesh, they are at odds with India.
The first major disagreement is the issue of the border line.
In 1905, after British colonial rule in India, Bengal was made a province of India and divided it into two. It was not only the administration of the land that was separated, but also the local religion, which was partly Muslim and partly Hindu.
In 1947, under the operation of the British, India was divided, and Bengal was divided into two separate lands, the west to India and the east to Pakistan.
However, since Pakistan and eastern Bangladesh are separated by India, this "eastern region" has become an enclave of Pakistan, with a total area of about 47.7 square kilometers and about 92 pieces of land. The "Western Zone", which belongs to India, covers an area of 69.5 square kilometres and has about 106 parcels of land.
After Bangladesh became independent, the enclave that originally belonged to Pakistan was given to Bangladesh.
But the situation of these two enclaves is extremely complicated, like a nesting doll, and there is a small enclave belonging to India within the enclave belonging to Bangladesh, which can be roughly divided into "triple enclaves". In addition, there are more than 10 points of contention along the border between Bangladesh and India.
In 1974, Bangladesh and India held the first round of border talks, in which the two countries exchanged most of the enclaves and India provided Bangladesh with an "overland corridor" connecting the two Bangladeshi enclaves in India.
Bangladesh soon agreed to the deal, but India reneged on it, and it was not until 1982 that the "land corridor" was leased to Bangladesh, but the exchange of enclaves was not a foregone conclusion.
Due to the delay in resolving the border issue, the relationship between India and Bangladesh has undergone subtle changes.
Between 1996 and 2001, there were 186 clashes in India-Bangladesh enclaves, resulting in the deaths of 122 Bangladeshi citizens and military personnel, as well as casualties in India.
As the enclaves of India and Bangladesh remain unresolved, more than 50,000 people were affected by 2011. These enclaves are developing extremely slowly, with no infrastructure such as roads and no electricity, and the local population is living in poverty.
India's "duplicitous" approach has played a good game, openly dragging its feet and not resolving the enclave issue, privately building isolation nets in these disputed places, increasing border posts, and implementing measures such as "multi-purpose identity cards".
Based on this, Bangladesh, of course, has no good face for India, and turns its head to deal with the mainland.
India suddenly became anxious, they supported Bangladesh in order to weaken the mainland's influence in South Asia, and now Bangladesh has taken the initiative to engage with the mainland, how can India not be in a hurry.
In June 2015, India and Bangladesh finally reached a Land Boundary Agreement, in which the two countries exchanged 162 enclaves, of which Bangladesh returned 51 enclaves to India and India handed over 111 enclaves to Bangladesh.
The two countries reached a consensus to allow the more than 50,000 residents of the enclave to take nationality according to their own wishes, and only 1,000 of the people who did not expect India to remain in India International, and more than 40,000 chose Bangladesh. The chaotic enclave dispute was finally resolved.
In addition to the disputed land borders, India and Bangladesh also have disputed maritime borders. In the 80s of the last century, India also had conflicts with Bangladesh over the allocation of water resources on the Ganges River.
Today, India has poured out its heart and lungs to Bangladesh and given many preferential policies, but for Bangladesh, India's move is for other purposes, and it does not really want to develop with them.
After comprehensive consideration, Bangladesh still chose to maintain cooperation with the mainland and refused to side with India.
At the end of December 2023, the Bangladesh think tank Selection Research Center released a report on "China's National Image in Bangladesh", according to the poll results, the people of Bangladesh have a good impression of the mainland and are eager to deepen their understanding of the mainland.
Bangladesh is one of the important partners of the mainland's "Belt and Road" initiative, and the mainland is also an important trading partner of Bangladesh. The mainland has participated in the construction of infrastructure such as 12 roads, 7 railways and 31 power stations in Bangladesh. In the future, there will be more cooperation projects between the mainland and Bangladesh to jointly develop the economies of the two countries.
India's plan to use Bangladesh against us will fail.
Resources:
[1] Overseas Network, "India-Bangladesh Territorial Swap Ends Border Dispute or Affects China's South Asia Strategy", 20150608
[2] Global Network, "India Will Upgrade Defense Cooperation with Bangladesh Indian Media: To "Counter China"" 20161116
[3] Shangguan News, "In order to contain China, India has repeatedly "cut meat" on this country" 2017079
[4] China Daily, "Promoting the China-Bangladesh Strategic Cooperative Partnership to a New Level - An Interview with Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Yao Wen", 20240112