It cannot be said that all those who attended the BRICS summit in Delhi enjoy complete mutual friendship. No state ever enjoys an entirely friendly relationship with another. Relations between states are built on a mixture of problems and friendship. In reality, what states call friendship is a matter of necessity.
Bangladesh needs each of the countries represented at BRICS, to varying degrees. For instance, Bangladesh currently needs substantial financial assistance from China. Although Bangladesh’s prime minister used an NGO conference as the occasion to undertake a long train journey and meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, China has yet to translate its promises of financial assistance into any concrete commitment on paper. Bangladesh needs to pursue the matter repeatedly with China. Since a shortage of funds has forced Bangladesh to hold back the pace of development, there is nothing to conceal about this, either at home or abroad. Yet securing an audience with China’s president, or even its senior officials, is by no means easy for the head or senior representatives of Bangladesh’s present government, which is weak and not genuinely representative of the people.
It therefore cannot be said that, had Bangladesh’s prime minister attended BRICS, he would necessarily have met the Chinese president or secured time for a meeting. At the G20 summit in Delhi, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak came over to Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, knelt beside her chair and spoke to her with a son’s respectful demeanour. Yet even a prime minister as well known as Sheikh Hasina could obtain no time with the American president beyond taking a selfie and exchanging a few words as their paths crossed.
Others in Sheikh Hasina’s delegation, however, did speak with important figures accompanying the American president, and the people of Bangladesh soon saw evidence of that. A few days later, Sheikh Hasina went to Washington and held a lengthy meeting with Jake Sullivan.
Judging by Xi’s schedule at BRICS, there may have been little prospect of a separate selfie opportunity for Bangladesh’s current prime minister. But senior members of the Bangladesh government would have had an opportunity to speak with other important Chinese figures.
We have seen Tarique Rahman playing cricket on a day of hartal. How well he sings, however, I do not know. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, on the other hand, enlivened the gathering at BRICS with a Kishore Kumar song. There would therefore have been an opportunity to join Anwar Ibrahim in song, and perhaps a meeting could have taken place as well. After all, only a short while ago, Anwar Ibrahim jokingly called Tarique Rahman his “magician friend” when he welcomed him on Malaysian soil.
A meeting between the prime ministers of Malaysia and Bangladesh was much needed. When thousands of people are losing their jobs every day at home, and one factory or another is closing each day, even if some of these unfortunate unemployed people could find work in Malaysia’s palm plantations to support their families, despite the intense heat, it would be like having the moon placed in their hands. At this moment, even that modest gain would mean a great deal to Bangladesh.
Even when heads of government find themselves in danger, opportunities arise for them to work for their countries. Bangladesh’s former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, faced an aviation emergency on her way to Hungary. As a result, her aircraft made an emergency landing in Azerbaijan, and she was escorted off the plane. Azerbaijan’s head of government and several ministers welcomed her and spoke with her for more than an hour in the airport lounge. It later emerged that, as a result of their conversation with Sheikh Hasina, Bangladeshi pharmaceuticals gained an opportunity to enter that country’s market.
Bangladesh’s exports are currently declining. Its markets are contracting. Any state may face such a situation from time to time. Declining exports do not mean that exports will decline forever. Contracting markets do not mean that new markets cannot be found. Just as Sheikh Hasina sought a market for her country’s pharmaceutical exports in Azerbaijan even while caught in an emergency, had Tarique Rahman attended BRICS, South African leaders would surely have met someone representing the Bangladesh government, or Tarique Rahman himself. Perhaps a high-level meeting with a South African leader could also have taken place on the sidelines. And it is certainly true that Africa is the next destination for the world economy. Introducing a new product into any African market, or securing a somewhat larger market for an existing product, therefore means gradually expanding across that continent.
Even meeting and speaking with Iran’s leaders would have been important. Nothing in politics or diplomacy is permanent. Iran may be under American sanctions today, but that does not mean those sanctions will remain tomorrow. The possibility of an American president visiting Tehran tomorrow is by no means unthinkable. The same applies to Russia. And both Iran and Russia are energy-exporting countries. Whether at a low price or a high one, Bangladesh will have to import energy. It would be wrong to take a fixed view of these countries’ future political and diplomatic standing solely on the basis of the present. Tarique Rahman, of all people, should understand this truth. Could he have imagined, three years ago, the support he has received and continues to receive from India in this phase of his political career?
By any calculation of practical politics and diplomacy, therefore, the decision to disregard the invitation Bangladesh’s prime minister received to attend the BRICS summit as chair of BIMSTEC is truly difficult to understand and deeply puzzling!
One interpretation is that Tarique Rahman has adopted his present anti-India stance to maintain his anti-India credentials in his rivalry with Jamaat.
This does not seem particularly convincing. A political analyst or journalist may write that Tarique Rahman is competing with Jamaat in Bangladesh. But Tarique Rahman himself knows very well that he still has to compete with the banned Awami League and Sheikh Hasina, who is absent from Bangladesh. And in this contest, Jamaat remains his trusted friend, just as it was before. Someone inexperienced in politics may think that Sheikh Hasina’s political activities from Delhi make it difficult for Tarique Rahman to go there. But Tarique Rahman himself is not as politically inexperienced as they are. He, too, conducted his politics from London for 17 years. In politics and diplomacy, everyone gathers fallen mangoes while the storm is still raging. No one waits for it to pass.
In any event, Tarique Rahman may travel to India on a bilateral visit in the near future. India’s prime minister may also visit Bangladesh at his invitation. He could have arranged this earlier as well. But opportunities to attend summits such as BRICS and the G20 do not come repeatedly to a small country like Bangladesh. Participation in such summits does more than enhance a country’s image; it also creates a range of opportunities, including economic ones. Bangladesh has missed that opportunity.
Even if we accept, then, that Jamaat and Sheikh Hasina were the reasons Tarique Rahman did not attend BRICS, do these arguments really carry enough weight to be accepted in the world of practical politics and diplomacy? A more significant possibility is that Tarique Rahman has some other political and diplomatic calculation in mind. What matters is to identify that calculation.
Whatever the reason for boycotting BRICS, the net result is that, by his own calculations, Tarique Rahman has gained. Bangladesh, however, has lost overall.
