Sandeep asked: Was it a lack of foresight on the part of India that it did not ask for land transit facilities when Bangladesh got independence?

P.K. Gautam replies: These are ad hoc and post event figments of imagination. It was clearly not a lack of foresight. Too many aims and wish lists would have diluted India’s strategic objectives. The political leadership of Bangladesh was also not fully formed, and it would have been a poor judgement, rather complete lack of foresight, to have asked for such favours.

A country cannot behave like a proverbial camel that enters a tent pushing the owner out. Good diplomacy has to have a stop and an exit. I also find some now desiring and saying that India should have kept areas of Chittagong for better connectivity to the north eastern region. There is no end to these theoretical counterfactuals, and I think India did just the right thing. Transit passage etc., is an issue of continued diplomacy as part of foreign policy which is now slowly emerging.