http://www.newagebd.com/2009/jul/03/edit.html#1
Govt should now ask India to recall its envoy
THE foreign minister’s realisation that the Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh, Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, ‘might have stepped out of line’ in his remarks at a seminar in the capital on June 21 may be belated but is welcome nonetheless. Also, her explanation as to why, despite being present at the seminar, she did not respond to Pinak’s comments – ‘I don’t think it is prudent on the part of a foreign minister to respond to comments of a diplomat’ – tends to indicate that she may have finally begun to realise the gravity and prestige of the post that she holds. Disappointingly though, she tried to pass her criticism of the Indian high commissioner as a ‘personal opinion’. What she apparently overlooked is the fact that when a foreign minister makes a comment in public it ceases to be a personal view and becomes the view of the government that s/he represents. It follows then that, when the foreign minister says the Indian high commissioner ‘might have stepped out of line in his remarks that day’, her words encapsulate the sentiment of the entire government. Naturally, then, it is expected that the government will do what the government of a sovereign state would do in such circumstances – it should ask New Delhi to recall Chakravarty immediately.
The Awami League-led government does appear increasingly fractured on the controversial Indian plan to construct a dam on the river Barak at Tipaimukh in Assam, some 200 kilometres upstream of the Bangladesh border. At one end, several members of the cabinet have publicly proclaimed their faith in Delhi’s assurance that the proposed dam would not harm Bangladesh in any away and that there might actually be benefit for Bangladesh to be had from the dam. At the other end, at least two cabinet members voiced, in public, their opposition to the controversial project – one on Wednesday and the other before the AL-led government came to power. Also on Wednesday, at the same function, three parliamentarians of the ruling alliance also demanded that the government should take immediate actions to stop construction of the Tipaimukh dam. Thus far, the prime minister and the foreign minister have taken the middle road in the debate and insisted that the government will make its decision in this regard on the basis of the findings and recommendations of a team of parliamentarians and experts due to visit Tipaimukh soon and in the best interest of the country.
Divergence of views is the signature of democratic governance, and it is indeed refreshing that such an issue of national interest as Tipaimukh is debated in different public forums, with the parliamentarians of the ruling alliance joining in, both in favour and against. However, with regard to the remarks of the Indian high commissioner, there is hardly any space for such divergence, for those were not only disrespectful of the country’s leading water experts but also indicative of the Indian establishment’s inclination to arm-twisting the Bangladesh into submission to its whims and wishes. Hence, the AL administration needs to publicly condemn the remarks and ask its Indian counterpart to immediately recall Chakravarty; failure to do so would only be perceived as its unwillingness or inability to exercise the authority befitting the government of a sovereign state.
