On July 8, a United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration’s tribunal in Bangladesh announced its ruling in the arbitration, started in 2009, on the delimitation of the country’s maritime boundary with India. Both sides have welcomed the decision, which will now lead to a clear delineation of maritime territory, and enable both India and Bangladesh to fish and drill for oil and gas legally within their respective economic zones. The ruling can open the doors for India to ratify the Land Border Agreement as well as the agreement on sharing the waters of the Teesta river with Bangladesh.
India can now also work towards demarcating borders with other neighbours such as Nepal. With this ruling, India will be seen in Asia and the world as a country that accepts international legal processes; this can counter perceptions of India’s regional hegemony and differentiate it from an expansionist China.
Q. How do we interpret the ruling of the UN tribunal in terms of India-Bangladesh relations?
New Delhi and Dhaka have welcomed the ruling, which is a very good move. Both countries participated in the process through which Bangladesh took the issue to the tribunal and India joined the proceedings. India had its own nominated representative on the tribunal—former legal advisor to the Ministry of External Affairs, P. Sreenivasa Rao. Bangladesh nominated former judge Thomas Mensah from Ghana for this purpose. Both governments have called for the ruling to be fully implemented—a positive move in finally resolving a dispute that has lingered since Partition, when Bangladesh was East Pakistan.
An immediate benefit of the ruling is that it will enable both countries to legally fish in their respective zones as well as pursue oil and gas exploration. It will also help in the building of a strategic community of countries sharing borders in the Bay of Bengal; this is especially noteworthy because we already have settled maritime borders with Thailand and Myanmar.
Equally importantly, India and Bangladesh can now qualitatively increase cooperation in the conservation of our shared natural heritage in the Sundarbans.
Demarcated and mutually agreed-upon borders are important for good relations between neighbours. The prosperity of today’s Europe is under-girded by the acceptance of borders—fought over for centuries—by members of the European Union. Many of the problems with India’s neighbours are an outcome of history, of colonisation carelessly leaving borders unsettled.
Q. How will the tribunal’s ruling impact the India-Bangladesh Land Border Agreement (LBA), which is expected to soon be ratified?
The ruling can be an impetus for the new Bharatiya Janata Party government to ratify the LBA. It will also enable the exchange of geographical enclaves and adverse possessions, where residents can get identity and benefits like other nationals, whether Indian or Bangladeshi.
India will then at long last have a completely demarcated border with Bangladesh, which will make it the first country after Bhutan with whom we have a fully settled land border. It will allow the governments to move to the next stage of border management, which is to address all the issues that the unsettled border has raised, such as smuggling, human trafficking, the alleged killings of innocent Bangladeshis by India’s Border Security Force, and illegal immigration.
However, a stumbling block in this entire process and in the implementation of the tribunal’s decision can be the potentially destabilising role—as in 2011, when the imminent signing of the Teesta waters agreement was stalled—of the politics of West Bengal.
Q. How will this orderly resolution impact countries in South Asia with whom India has disputed borders?
It will certainly be noted by our neighbours, who should positively assess India’s acceptance of the tribunal’s decision. New Delhi must now to move onto another country with which India has difficult but not hostile relations, like Nepal. The long-standing border issues, including the disputed Susta and Kalapani areas, are likely to be discussed when external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj visits Kathmandu on 25 July. She is expected to announce plans to set up a boundary working group.
With countries like Pakistan and China, boundary disputes are part of a more intractable web of issues. Any progress on territorial disagreements will depend on improved political relations and the conscious creation of greater trust among the people.
Q. Now that Bangladesh has gained legitimate rights to more than 10 oil and gas blocks that India was hoping to use, is co-development of the blocks an option?
According to the tribunal’s decision, Bangladesh will have its own segregated area for offshore exploration, as will India. Offshore-drilled hydrocarbons are one of India’s least explored energy options. This is an outcome of poor policies and a probable lack of interest because of unsettled maritime boundaries with Pakistan, Sri Lanka and, until recently, with Bangladesh. The tribunal’s ruling gives India the momentum to finally begin exploring its offshore reserves.
However, a sound policy for offshore exploration can be drafted only after the political sphere realises that, given India’s multi-crore energy imports bill, our economic and foreign policy posture globally and the dynamic with West Asian countries can be drastically altered if we pursue offshore exploration, unilaterally or in partnership with Bangladesh.
Q. Will our acceptance of the tribunal’s ruling mitigate fears in the neighbourhood of India’s possible regional hegemony?
In bilateral negotiations, countries put forth “maximum positions” and argue their points. However, due to the present heightened nationalism globally, a resolution becomes impossible because opposition parties use the acceptance of a less than maximum result to decry all initiatives by the ruling party.
Agreeing to participate in international arbitration is a good thing, but accepting the result is even better. India’s acceptance of the ruling sends out a message to the world that we are a country that seeks fair and not hegemonic outcomes. Asian countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan, which are being pressured to cede to China’s unilateral territorial demands, are likely to compare India’s reasonable actions with Beijing’s implacable attitude and untenable historical claims, which are backed by its economic and military might. India’s acceptance of international legal processes will also be viewed favourably in the self-proclaimed rule-of-law western countries.
Neelam Deo is Co-founder and Director, Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations; She has been the Indian Ambassador to Denmark and Ivory Coast; and former Consul General in New York.
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