The strike that has just ended in Bangladesh illustrates both the significance of the Gujral doctrine of asymmetrical relations as well as its limitations. More to the point, it underscores again the need for a strong framework of vigorous economic cooperation that alone can offset the negative aspects of a problem that is basically psychological, and counter the historical situation that makes India a factor in Bangladesh?s internal politics. The economic growth triangles that enable Indonesians, Malaysians and Singaporeans to get to know each other, work together and slowly overcome traditional fears and suspicions provide a model. It is not an exaggeration to affirm that no problems that are really important to either Bangladesh or India any longer divide the two countries. It would not be too much of an oversimplification to say either that there are no major populist issues in Bangladesh that do not involve India. Mercifully, religion is no longer an active complication; nor the question of Bangladeshi Hindus. But the difference in size, resources, reach and potential is ? recalling the relevance of what J.R. Jayewardene had to say when the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation made a tentative beginning, ?India, the largest in every way, larger than all the rest of us combined, can by deeds and words create the confidence among us so necessary to make a beginning.? More later of India?s responsibility. But within that larger need to inspire confidence, there is a real danger that the India-Bangladesh relationship will deteriorate if it is allowed to remain stagnant. It is also axiomatic that relations will stagnate if, as Muchkund Dubey told the Dhaka Rotary Club when he was high commissioner, cooperation ?in the economic and other fields [is] conditional upon the solution of particular problems, howsoever important they may be?. Sheikh Hasina Wajed is doing her best to steer a course that maintains constructive relations with India without playing into the hands of her opponents. But, essentially, hers is a defensive posture. It does not tap the potential political dividend from taking the bull by the horns and investing unapologetically in positive cooperation. The immediate domestic response to such action might be adverse, with the Jamaat-i-Islami whipping up chauvinistic sentiment in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and even among some segments of the Awami League and Jatiyo Party. But whoever heads the government in Dhaka will have to ride the storm courageously if the prospect of a stable equilibrium and of initiatives like the little known BIMSTEC (Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic Cooperation) are not forever to be hostage to partition politics. Timidity leaves the field open to Khaleda Zia who is trying hard to get on the comeback trail by raising one emotive bogey after another to attack all Awami League initiatives ? the Chittagong Hill Tract pact, the Farakka agreement and, now, the prospect of transit facilities. This need not necessarily mean that her BNP is flagrantly communal or virulently anti-Indian (regrettably, the two cannot be separated) in the same way as the Muslim League was or the Jamaat still is. What it does mean is that Bangladeshi politicians, like their peers elsewhere, are only too eager to place expediency and party gains above the national interest. If Zia were prime minister and Wajed the leader of the opposition, the latter might also feel tempted to adopt similar strategies. This is the subcontinent?s tragedy. India remains the touchstone of all that matters for many Bangladeshis. On the eve of his first official visit to New Delhi as president, Ziaur Rahman went to great lengths to ensure that he was treated to exactly the same protocol courtesies that had been extended to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. To an extent, his legitimacy in the eyes of his countrymen depended on his being able to demonstrate to them that India regarded him as Bangabandhu?s rightful heir. But it was also revealing that Zia went to considerable trouble to ensure that he was the first head of government to visit New Delhi after Indira Gandhi?s return to power in 1980. Ghulam Hossain Mohammad Ershad was ecstatic five years later when Rajiv Gandhi agreed, apparently in a fit of absentmindedness, to include Nepal and China in riparian talks. He believed that the concession would take the wind out of the sails of ?the India lobby? led by Wajed. Earlier, Ershad had taken the precaution of informing India before staging his coup. India?s is a difficult and delicate position. Such is the mental conditioning of many Bangladeshis that, as Dubey also said in the course of a brilliant analysis of the bilateral equation, ?whatever step is taken is regarded either as a deliberate, pre-planned and conscious effort by India to dominate or having the potential of assuming a form of domination.? But to plead this for inaction would be defeatist and counterproductive. West Bengal, which might have played a catalytic part in India-Bangladesh relations, has not lived up to that challenge despite the much discussed bus trip. Even the Left Front?s role in the Farakka accord followed Inder Kumar Gujral?s pioneering decision. When not an actual handicap, the shared language and culture make a negligible impact on state-to-state relations. More to the point, the Calcutta business community to which the Left Front has mortgaged its soul is responsible for a hardening of the suspicion with which Bangladeshis view India. Fears were aroused even during the euphoria of liberation when they appeared in Khulna, Jessore and other towns to stake out desirable real estate. In later years, one heard many sorry tales of shortchanging by these traders ? exporting cheaper dolomite when limestone had been ordered and paid for, shoddy ingot moulds that soon cracked, and two-ply tyres substituted for the three-ply that bicycles and rickshaws use. Bangladeshi consumers naturally overlooked the responsibility of their own unscrupulous importers for these frauds; for them it was another stick with which to beat the imagined Big Brother. Yet not many two countries are as obviously complementary or share as many practical advantages for cooperation. India and Bangladesh have inherited the same physical and institutional infrastructure in respect of communications, water management, administration and industrial management. Geography creates obvious freight and transport advantages. Technology and expertise are easily transferable because of similar socio-economic conditions. India?s highly diversified and sophisticated experience, especially in fields like software, can save Bangladesh the ordeal of having to reinvent the wheel. It would be a colossal failure of Indian diplomacy if significant Bangladeshi leaders refuse to perceive these advantages. Politically, India has been more sagacious once it had got over the shock of Mujib?s assassination and had learnt to come to terms with Zia?s prickliness. Not even the most jaundiced pro-Pakistani element could convince anyone that today?s Awami League is New Delhi?s tool. But this is something that has to be handled with finesse. A total abdication of interest would be taken for weakness, overt involvement resented as bullying. India?s attitude must be seen to be determined by certain permanent interests ? which could legitimately include an equitable peace in the Chittagong Hill Tracts ? and not by sentimental attachment or personal equations. If the proper relationship is respected, it should not make much difference who rules in Dhaka. If that understanding fails, our eastern flank could easily become even more vulnerable to hostile extraneous agencies ever ready to exploit community grievances and strike at India?s soft underbelly. Security, if not survival, demands that every effort should be made to convince Bangladeshis that it is not in their long-term interest to harbour forces that are inimical to a stable India. The exercise includes focussing more on politicians like Khaleda Zia and convincing them that, as the example of France and Germany in the European Community shows, sound economics can be the solvent for history?s most enduring political irritants.