Next stop, Dhaka

After Lahore, it is Dhaka's turn tomorrow for a tryst with bus diplomacy. This time, the problems are fairly pedestrian. The bus starts a...

After Lahore, it is Dhaka8217;s turn tomorrow for a tryst with bus diplomacy. This time, the problems are fairly pedestrian. The bus starts at an unearthly hour, for one, at a time when good Bengalis are still abed, dreaming dreams of rosogollas and red salutes.

Also, the road ahead is notoriously potholed, like most roads in the east of the country, but it is reported that Ashok Leyland is fitting the bus with an unimpeachable suspension system. Anyway, there will be no amoral souls in Dhaka cooking up plans of subversion along with the biryani, as was the case in Lahore. In fact, the bus to Dhaka may help dispel some of the bad odour that came to be attached to bus diplomacy after Kargil. This will certainly be the case if it becomes a vehicle that brings to fruition other proposals that were floated during the Gujral government.

The most important of these would be a road across Bangladesh connecting Calcutta with the Northeast. A lot of the region8217;s problems stem from a lack of easy access to the rest ofthe country, cut off as it is by the chicken8217;s neck8217; in north Bengal. A direct road across Bangladesh would help dispel the isolation that inspires separatist and insurgent movements in the region. But the symbolism of the bus service alone will have a salutary effect on a border that is notoriously criminalised.

This is the first legal way to cross over on a border that is among the easiest in the world to infiltrate. In the past, apart from the Chakma problem, illegal immigration across this border was part of the rationale for the ULFA insurgency in Assam. Today, inhabitants of the border districts of West Bengal complain of a burgeoning population of Bangladeshi immigrants, an early-warning signal of a problem that may develop at a future date. A legal entry point will, to some extent, help clean up this border.

In addition, the freight rail line, which now terminates at the border, will go through to Dhaka. The next logical development is the introduction of passenger trains. The BJP deservesespecial credit for going through with these measures, given its previous stand on the border issue.

It might be recalled that it was opposed to the rationalisation of the Tin Bigha problem. In this age, the free movement of people across borders is a characteristic of all progressive nations. Trade barriers were the first to go, followed by arcane restrictions on the legal movement of human capital.

The subcontinent will have to fall in line with this trend if it is to make progress. And insular responses, like that of the West Bengal unit of the Congress, will have to be denigrated. Its attempt to put a spoke in the wheel by making the bus a Centre-state issue is based on the Ministry of External Affairs8217; refusal to let one state government invitee travel to Dhaka. True, the person in question is one of the leading cultural figures of West Bengal and the MEA has proven itself to be unusually insensitive, but an attempt to scuttle the whole project is a completely inappropriate response. The Congressshould understand that there is more at stake here than regional pride.