Dhaka, Aug 18: India will benefit if it supports the current transition in Bangladesh and moves to build relationships with other political parties instead of “focussing on one person and party”, several political analysts and foreign relation and security experts said on Sunday.
“I think understanding should be the starting point for resetting our relationship, having that we have our interdependence, so we need each other to recalibrate our relationship,” head of the leading thinktank Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) Humayun Kabir said.
He said being Bangladesh’s next-door neighbour, India was “always with us when we are in difficulty and in the current transition also if they come and support us then I think people of Bangladesh will look at India as a friend”.
Kabir, a career diplomat, said India would benefit if it “positively supports” the current transition In Bangladesh along with moving to build relationships with other political parties, instead of “focusing on one person and party” taking into account the “uniqueness” of the change.
President of the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies (BIPSS) retired major general Muniruzzaman said India “must see the reality in Bangladesh where a people’s revolution has happened”.
“They (India) need to be on the right side of history and express their desire to cooperate with the people of Bangladesh. For too long they were seen to be siding with a particular party and leader,” he said, adding bilateral ties should be based on people-to-people relationship.
Leading civil society figure and economist Debapriya Bhattacharya of Bangladesh’s Centre for Policy Dialogue said the Bangladesh-India relationship is important for both the countries from the perspectives of peace, security and development. (PTI)
