I rented a service apartment in Gulshan for a few months recently. I was surprised to find in the premise a good number of people who did not speak Bengali. These people were not western but looked like us but did not speak our language. Only when I was connecting to my Wi-Fi did I realise the nationality of these non-Bengali speaking fellow residents in my apartment block. The list of Wi-Fi that came on my laptop exposed their nationality. They were Indians! It is common knowledge in Dhaka these days that there are a large number of Indians in the country. A few years ago, a news item from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) startled many in the country. The news item stated that Bangladesh was the fifth largest remittance destination for India and in the year for which the RBI gave statistics, the amount Indians officially remitted to India was close to US$ 5.0 billion. The figure leaves little doubt that there must be a huge number of Indians in Bangladesh to be able to remit that much money to their country. Strangely, despite the fact that the country is supposed to have such a vibrant media, there has been no investigative journalism on how many Indians are in the country and what is the sources of income for them to be remitting such a huge amount of money to India. Those like this writer who has dealt with India officially (as Director-General for South Asia in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) have all along been aware that India earns a great deal from illegal trade or smuggling worth billions of US dollars. But quietly and surreptitiously that there would be so many Indians to be officially remitting close to US5.0 billion a year to India would be absurd to think those days.Lack of investigative journalism on Indians in Bangladesh notwithstanding, it is common knowledge that most of them are involved in the ready-made garment (RMG) sector, the backbone of the country’s economy and its road to becoming a middle-income country. As a consequence of the nature of politics in the country, buyers of the country’s RMG products from USA/Canada and Europe have not been coming to Bangladesh. That role has gone to the Indians that would explain the presence of some Indians in the country. Nevertheless, that alone would not add up to the number of Indians to explain the amount of money they are officially remitting to India. However, again by common knowledge but nowhere officially acknowledged, an unknown number of Indians are also working in the RMG sector at the managerial and technical levels that could give some idea about remittance from Bangladesh to India by Indians but only partly. Therefore, the details about the sources from where the Indians are officially remitting US$ 5.0 billion from Bangladesh to India remain a mystery. In the backdrop of the above, the Bangladesh Garment manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has stated what should scare the wits of those who are steering Bangladesh towards becoming a middle-income country and those who are hoping and believing that the country is going that way. The BGMEA in a briefing to the media has stated that in the last three years, 618 RMG factories have closed down and if that was not disastrous enough news, BGMEA also stated that 319 more are on the way to being closed. In 2014, there were nearly 5000 RMG factories in the country employing over four million people and earning nearly US$ 20 billion a year. The BGMEA’s recent statement means that Bangladesh would soon lose 1/5th of RMG factories. By any definition, the news is nothing short of an impending disaster for Bangladesh. The country’s phenomenal economic development that has encouraged the present government to predict that Bangladesh is on the brink of becoming a middle-income country has been based primarily on the success of the RMG sector. In the context of this critical sector, it is not just the closures of a large number of factories that is the worrying issue. The present government has granted land transit to India together with allowing the underdeveloped and landlocked Seven Sisters of India the use of the ports of Chittagong and Mangla. India and Bangladesh are currently engaged in developing the road and rail infrastructure to allow the Seven Sisters to develop to their full potential. The Seven Sisters had a population of nearly 50 million by 2011 figures with a joint gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate roughly half of the rest of India for which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted a 7.3 per cent growth in 2016. Therefore, the lifeline that Bangladesh has given to these States would bring in a flood of investment from mainland India. That investment is most likely to go to labour-intensive industries where RMG would undoubtedly figure on top. With backing of Indian investors and the Indian government and with labour expected to be cheaper in the Seven Sisters than in Bangladesh, it would only be natural to assume that the grant of transit and use of ports by India at a time when the country’s RMG is facing an uphill task could very well prove disastrous for Bangladesh’s RMG sector. The fact that Indians have already a major presence in the country’s RMG sector, as buyers for the international markets and in managerial and technical capacities in Bangladesh factories, would no doubt be another reason for worry for Bangladesh when the Seven Sisters emerges economically in the not too distant a future. The present government’s policy upon coming to power in January 2009 for a paradigm shift of relations with India was a very positive one. Its decision of zero tolerance of any extremist action against India from Bangladesh soil was also an equally positive one. It was expected that with the offer to grant it with land transit, India would reciprocate in a major way to meet Bangladesh’s critical water needs by the just settlement of the waters of the major rivers starting with Teesta. Unfortunately, India apparently has forgotten the fact that the Teesta was a “done deal” that was supposed to have been delivered in September 2011 but was not because Mamata Banerjee had put a spanner. New Delhi nevertheless continued to assure Bangladesh that it would be delivered “soon.” Five years down the road, even the assurance of “soon” has faded like there was never any discussion over it and the Indians had never promised Bangladesh anything. The Bangladesh Government needs to reassess its relations with India. The gathering cloud over the RMG makes such a reassessment extremely urgent before it is too late. On New Delhi’s part, it should realise that it has exploited the willingness and graciousness of the present government for a paradigm shift in bilateral relations almost entirely to its benefit. If it wants to be a responsible power and lead South Asia, it is time for New Delhi to reciprocate the concessions made to it by the present Bangladesh Government to prove it worth as a great nation to the rest of the region. This notwithstanding, the future of the RMG sector in Bangladesh is on a perilous and uncertain course.
