Things Veena Sikri did not mention in her article

Veena Sikri was an Indian diplomat. She served as the Indian High Commissioner in Bangladesh from 2003 to 2006, 32 years after she started her civil service career as an IPS officer in 1970.

Veena Sikri resigned from her position on September 26, 2006, when Shiv Shankar Menon, who was two batches her junior, was appointed as the foreign secretary of India.

Meanwhile, Veena's husband Rajib Sikri from IPS 1970 batch also resigned from his then post over the same matter. Manmohan Singh was the prime minister of India when the incident took place. At present, Veena Sikri is the convener of the South Asia Women Network.

On September 12, an article written by this former diplomat was published in a renowned Bangla newspaper. The headline of the article was "Teesta water-sharing agreement must be signed as soon as possible".

File photo of Teesta barrage/TBS

Without explaining the title of the article, this former Indian diplomat spoke about the history and heritage of Bangladesh-India relations, advised Bangladesh on different aspects.  She also about Bangladesh's foreign policy and what should be done to improve it.

She went on to say that the foundation of the diplomatic ties between the two countries is secularism, as per the constitutions of both the countries.

However, the Modi government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of her country has deviated from secularism long ago by adopting the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which seeks to give citizenship based on religion.  

Besides, another BJP leader Amit Shah termed Bangladesh an Islamic state in the upper house of the Indian Parliament while passing the CAA.

There was no comment in Veena Sikri's article about Amit Shah describing Bangladesh as an Islamic state during the rule of Awami League, the party that led the Liberation War in 1971.

Mentioning the economic cooperation between the two countries, she highlighted a long list of India's financial assistance to Bangladesh, including giving rail engine and buses.

She also mentioned power agreement as well as many other financial agreements between India and Bangladesh. She asked how much of $800 crore given by India had been utilised.

But this diplomat did not mention anything about those sectors of her country that Bangladesh assisted after the incumbent government came to power. 

Our current government has brought relief to internal politics in India by stopping the activities of Maoists and ULFA in Bangladesh.

For the economic development of the eastern part of India, our government has allowed the country to use Chattogram port at almost free of cost and given them the opportunity of using roads of Bangladesh to transport goods.

Ranjan Gogoi was the chief justice of India's Supreme Court when the step of implementing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) accord in Assam was taken. He is now a nominated Indian Parliamentarian.

Earlier, he was nominated to Rajya Sabha by BJP. Later, BJP's Modi government took a step to implement NRC in West Bengal, inhabited by Bengali Muslims, which made Bangladesh feel uncomfortable.

Veena Sikri remained silent in her article regarding the fact that this NRC will create another Rohingya like crisis for Bangladesh.

India has turned its borders with Bangladesh into a 'border-killing' border,  to justify its programmes taken to implement NRC across the country.

The statistics of the killings over the last 10 years shows that these incidents are increasing. This is a very troublesome thing for our present government.

As a result, the anti-Indian forces inside Bangladesh is gaining political strength. Veena Sikri also mentioned the visits of the minister and prime minister but she did not mention why the home minister and foreign minister of Bangladesh had cancelled their pre-scheduled tours to India. Bangladeshi media then blamed India's CAA as the reason behind the cancellation of the tours.

Veena Sikri in her write-up mentioned the agreement of supplying electricity from India whereas Congress, the opposition party of India, raised a question regarding the agreement as Anil Ambani's company was made the representative of India.

When Bangladesh signed the contract, the country did not have the capacity to produce sufficient electricity. Now, though we have achieved the capacity, our government is implementing the contract.

When Bangabandhu was assassinated in August of 1975, Congress led by Indira Gandhi was ruling India and state of emergency was imposed there from July that year.

The ties between India and Bangladesh fell into a long-term crisis after the killing on Independence Day of India. India at that time considered the killing of Bangabandhu as an internal issue of Bangladesh.

To what extent India protested the killing at an international level is questionable. Veena Sikri raised a question about China's financial assistance to Bangladesh but she did not realise that this is against diplomatic norms.

May be she has forgotten that China had extended its hands to Bangladesh when financers, including the World Bank, turned their backs on Padma Bridge project on the allegation of corruption against a minister in 2009.

China played the role of a friend to help Bangladesh government fulfil its promise to its people.

Veena Sikri mentioned China's veto against Bangladesh's application for membership of the United Nations in 1972, whereas BJP or Modi gave space to Trump ahead of Russia, which had been India's friend for a long time. After BJP came to power a second time, the relation between India and America has been developing further though their relationship had not been good for a long time.

America sold F-16 fighters to Pakistan despite India's objection. In this age of globalisation, political friendship does not get priority all the time. Sometimes, economic compulsions play an important role. China-Bangladesh relations now stands on economic imperatives.

BJP government promised Bangladesh to sign the Teesta water-sharing agreement while signing the land transit agreement, but due to Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal, the issue is still pending.

Now when China is coming forward with a Teesta Project, the reason behind Veena Sikri's call to implement the Teesta water-sharing agreement can be easily understood.

However, when Mrs Sikri says China gives more emphasis on trade and business than friendship in financial agreements, she is right. One has to deal with the high rates of interest in exchange for China's financial assistance. However, our government is certainly conscious about its capability of bearing the burden of the loans.

Monowarul Haque, is a political analyst.