Indians are welcome to think whatever they think about Bangladesh and the Bangladeshis living in India. And we should be welcome to speak whatever we think happened between us and India after the '71 war.
India thought that they will use this as a "divide and conquer" strategy. They wanted Pakistan separated from the chapter, and in the long run strategically get easy access to Assam through our land. Any sane government will protest against this, and that's what our governments did so far. I thank them for stopping this so far.
My understanding about the Farakkah dam was that, India wanted to threaten Bangladesh with that dam that if Bangladesh doesn't give them access over to Assam, they will suffer. Well guess what, we did suffer. And we still are suffering.
Does that mean we should give them the access? Absolutely not. India has tried to do that using other strategies too. For example, the whole idea about the Asian Highway was about all that...access to Assam province. And their latest strategy...providing Bangladeshi terrorists every possible help to destabilize the government, or have an effect in the government's activities, and what not.
One of the best things that I believe Bangladesh government ever did is refuse to supply natural gas to India. It's praised by not only Bangladeshis, but non-resident Indians and Pakistanis here in Toronto. Illiterate people (like the ones in rediff) are welcome to think whatever they think...they can't go much further with their golabaji.
And finally, some of the hostilities that they are talking about in the border region, it's true that there's an exchange of gun fires b/w BDR and indian army every so often. And let me tell you this...tali khali ek hathe baje na...dui haath use korte hoy. The hostilities are not because of Bangladeshis only, but also due to Indians too.
What I simply can't understand is, Indians have the feeling of an affluence in their nationstate. They really don't have so much to brag about, except for a few big corporations that can literally swallow the 200 biggest corporations in Bangladesh easily. In terms of quality of life, I guess you can pretty much see when you hear jokes like "dada aj kichu khelen na...next time kintu oboshoi ek cup cha kheye jaben". BTW, this was a real story.
And cut the long story short (which must have bored the hell out of a lot of you), Bangladesh is right in not giving India the open access for their trade with Assam. We are an independent state, which was formed partly with help by Indian government. But as you can tell about any government, we have to safe our a$$ too...and giving them access is not the only way to show our thankfulness for their help in '71.
|