New Delhi: Ahead of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s proposed visit to India soon after the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the External Affairs Ministry has dismissed a so-called ‘Indian products boycott’ campaign being run and supported by opposition forces in the eastern neighbour stating that the two countries share a comprehensive and vibrant partnership.
“India-Bangladesh relations are very strong and deep,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in response to a question during his weekly media briefing here on Thursday. “We have a very comprehensive partnership that spans across sectors from economy to trade to investment to development cooperation to connectivity to people-to-people (contacts). You name any human endeavour, it is part and parcel of the India-Bangladesh relationship. That is how vibrant this partnership is and it will continue to be so.”
Soon after the parliamentary elections in Bangladesh held on January 7 this year that saw Hasina’s Awami League sweeping back to power, some Bangladeshi online activists started a campaign calling for the boycott of Indian goods. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami parties, both of which had skipped the elections claiming that the poll process was unfair, extended support to the campaign.
Both these parties allege that India had backed Hasina during the elections. New Delhi has always maintained that the elections in Bangladesh are an internal affair. Hasina has struck back strongly against the campaign asking why those running it are not burning their wives’ Indian saris.
“When will BNP leaders burn their wives' Indian saris in front of their party office? Only then will it be proven that they are truly committed to boycotting Indian products,” the Dhaka Tribune quoted her as saying during a discussion organised by the Awami League late last month. She also said that she knew some BNP leaders’ wives who were involved in selling Indian saris when their husbands were ministers.
“We are importing onion, ginger and masala from India. Can they cook food without these Indian products?” Hasina further asked. In a separate media interaction with the media, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman AK Abdul Momen described the campaign as a political stunt.
“It is irrelevant, political stunt. Connectivity is productivity. We are open and interdependent. It is suicidal,” Momen was quoted as saying. Awami League’s general secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister of Bangladesh Obaidul Quader also said that the BNP was trying to destabilise the country’s market system in the name of boycotting Indian products.
“Reckless BNP is trying to destroy our relations with neighbouring states. These are nothing but acts of madness and unrealistic activities,” Quader was quoted as saying. According to Sharin Shajahan Naomi, an academic and social activist of Bangladesh who is currently pursuing her post-doctoral fellowship at KREA University in India, the ‘Indian products boycott’ campaign was started on YouTube by Pinaki Bhattacharya, a France-based physician by profession.
“Bhattacharya is a well-known supporter of the BNP and the Jamaat,” Naomi told ETV Bharat. “He is a persona non-grata in Bangladesh.” She said that those running and supporting the campaign are supporters of the 1947 ideology when India and Pakistan were created via partition by the British colonial rulers and not the 1971 ideology when Bangladesh was carved out of Pakistan.
However, at the same time, Naomi said that there is a separate anti-India lobby of intellectuals active in Bangladesh which is also supporting the campaign. “These intellectuals are mostly Leftists and do not support either BNP or the Jamaat,” she said. “They are sometimes invited by groups in India. This needs to be investigated”
According to Naomi, the support extended to the campaign by the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami holds no water because of their political ideologies. “They claim that the Bangladesh market is filled with Indian clothes. But this is not true. Pakistani salwar kameez is more popular and Pakistani henna is what people prefer,” she said.
However, at the same time, she said that the group of Leftist intellectuals is more troublesome and can have a long-term impact on India-Bangladesh relations. Coming back to the ‘India products boycott’ campaign, she said that many small businessmen in Bangladesh buy and sell Indian saris. “If the campaign continues, their businesses will be affected,” she said.
Naomi also stressed that people in Bangladesh cannot afford to target India in any way because it is a prime healthcare destination. “Flights from Bangladesh to India are full of cancer patients and people seeking infertility treatment,” she said. “To travel to India, you have to book air tickets one month in advance.”
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