Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has returned after her three-day state visit to Russia. The visit concluded with signing of six MOUs and three important deals of which $1 billion involves the procurement of military equipment and arms from Russia along with Russia assisting in setting up a nuclear power plant at Ruppur in Pabna capable of producing 2000 MW (two units of 1000MW capacity each) of electricity. What is surprising is that it took forty years for a head of government from Bangladesh to make a state visit to Russia, one of the most important component states of former Soviet Union, a country which stood by our side during hours of need in 1971. Not only it extended its hand to provide material help to our freedom fighters in 1971 but stood alongside with India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in her bid to take our cause diplomatically to the international community. While Pakistan waged an all-out war on December 3, 1971 against India to put it on a defensive mode and take the world attention away from the Bangladesh battle front, the US tried to come to the rescue of Pakistan by moving a ceasefire resolution at the United Nations’ Security Council, which was vetoed by the former Soviet Union on more than one occasion. If the ceasefire resolution was adopted, Bangladesh’s War of Liberation would have died a premature death. Now these are all part of history.

Immediately after Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib’s second state visit was to former Soviet Union, the first one being India, the country that had sacrificed so much for our cause. Bangabandhu visited Moscow from March 1 to 6, 1972 on an invitation from the then Soviet President and General Secretary of the Communist Party Leonid Brezhnev. During his visit, he not only thanked the government and the people of Soviet Union for standing on our side during a very critical time of our history but also signed an important deal for economic co-operation between the two nations. The greatest virtue of Mujib was that he never forgot to acknowledge the contributions made by our friends in need during his life time. The help and assistance of the Soviets did not end with the end of our Liberation War but continued even much later, till Bangladesh was on its own feet. While Mujib was visiting Moscow the Soviet Navy was busy clearing thousands of floating mines (explosives) laid by the retreating Pakistani Army in our two sea ports, Chittagong and Mongla, thus rendering them completely non-functional. The task of mine clearing, whether in water or land is a high precision job and not many countries in those days had the expertise to do it. By the middle of 1972 the two ports were cleared of all floating mines and the ports resumed their much-awaited normal activity. During the mine cleaning operation Soviet marine Redkin lost his life while on his duty in a tragic accident. His remains are buried at the Naval Academy premises of Chittagong. The country needed food, medicine and other essentials but did not have the capability to buy them in the international market as the retreating Pakistan army looted and burnt our bank vaults. Much of the essentials that we needed came as aid while through the active assistance and intervention of Moscow, Bangladesh even practised barter trade with some former East European countries. This was a difficult time for Bangladesh. The first civil service of the country came into existence as the Industrial Management Service to take care of the newly state-owned enterprises and the first batch of officers were trained in Soviet Union and other East European countries. The injured freedom fighters were sent to Soviet Union and other East European countries for treatment. Moscow was also very generous in providing us with scholarships very generously where the first batch of new scholars went to Soviet Union to get higher education. Dr. Debapriyo, Dr. Mustafizur Rahman, Dr. Shah Alam (Chairman-I/C, Law Commission) Dr. Abul Barakat, Dr. Binyak Sen are all Soviet era scholars.

Sheikh Hasina visited a different Russia than her father did in 1972. Much water has flown in the Volga since then. The mighty Soviet empire collapsed in the early nineties, thus ending about seventy years of the world’s first and largest and mightiest communist state founded by V I Lenin. The end of the Soviet empire ushered the way for the USA to become the only global military super power. The breakup of Soviet Union resulted in the creation of twelve independent states known as Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) from which later Georgia broke away. Though the Soviet empire came to an end, still Russia remains the most powerful, economically and militarily. Russia is the second largest exporter of arms in the international market. According to the World Bank, it has a GDP of US $ 1.86 trillion at current prices with a per capita income of (adjusted for purchasing power) $18,945. With a population of 142 million, Russia has to import bulk of its consumer goods from outside. Currently Bangladesh exports goods worth only $700 million to Russia, which has the potential of being expanded up to $1 billion. As both Russia and Bangladesh are members of WTO, the expansion of trade between the two countries can be facilitated much faster. Russia is a good market for our readymade garments, tea, jute, frozen food and leather products. In course of time it will also need manpower to run its industries and other utilities. It is a country whose population is ageing. Russia being one of the emerging economic power houses in the 21st century along with China, Brazil and India, Bangladesh can gain tremendously if it can exploit the economic potentialities that lie in Russia.

Besides setting up the nuclear power plant, the other most important deal signed with Russia is the purchase of military hardware worth US $1 billion. This is the biggest arms deal for Bangladesh since its independence. Many question the wisdom of making such a big arms deal with Russia and whether this was at all necessary. Some have gone to the extent of digging out the history of prevailing corruption in the Russian business deals and expressed fears that such a big deal might open up new doors for corruption. Some retired military personnel have opined that before such a deal was made the government should have consulted military experts. Military hardware is not purchased off the shelves and before any such purchases are made it usually goes through rigorous processes and vetting. The government has not disclosed the terms and conditions under which this arms deal was made. Unfortunately in most countries, details of arms deals are not generally made public in the name of state secrecy. Earlier when eight MIG-29 fighter jets were purchased during Sheikh Hasina’s previous regime, the succeeding government of Khaleda Zia accused Sheikh Hasina of corruption in this purchase, though the purchase did not involve any middlemen. It was a state-to-state purchase as the present one. However, to dispel the suspicion of corruption in the deal, every step in the execution should be as transparent as possible. As to the motivation behind such a big purchase for a small country like Bangladesh, the declared policy of the present government is to modernise its armed forces not only for its own defense but also to cater to the needs of the United Nations. Bangladesh is the largest contributor to the UN Peacekeeping Forces and has about ten thousand of its fighting forces and police personnel in Africa and the Balkans. They need to be continuously modernised. These peacekeepers are also a big source of our foreign exchange earnings.

Before Sheikh Hasina left for Bangladesh after her three-day tour of Russia, she spoke to a select gathering of students and faculty members of Moscow State University on ‘Contemporary Bangladesh-Perspective for Collaboration with Russia.’ Incidentally Bangabandhu spoke at the same university during his visit to Moscow in 1972. In her speech Sheikh Hasina said, “I’m here to sow the seeds of our common friendship and collaboration with President Putin, and the fruits of which will be enjoyed by our future generations.” Let us hope that the wishes of Bangladesh’s Prime Minister are realised and let us not wait for another forty years for another visit by a head of the government of Bangladesh. Let us hope that Sheikh Hasina’s visit will be reciprocated by a similar visit by the head of state or government of Russia to Bangladesh in near future. Hope that the Prime Minister has returned from Russia with lots of love from its people and the government.

The writer is a former Vice-chancellor,

Chittagong University.