For a person as dangerously secretive and tight-lipped as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who is usually wont to thinking many times before airing his feelings, lest any harm should come to his beloved country and to his premiership, his statement that Bangladeshis are anti-Indian and 25 percent of them are die-hard followers of Jamaat-e-Islami was definitely not a gaffe or a faux pas for that matter as his government would have us believe but a deliberately revealed expression of his repulsion for the countrys Muslim masses. He also said something to the effect that the ISI has infiltrated the ranks of Bangladeshs Jamaat-e-Islami and has set up links with the terrorists there. These words were bound to unleash a Tsunami of public anger in the country. The Bangladesh government was quick to summon the Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka for a dressing down over Manmohans comments. It is shameful to say the least that any head of the state should spit venom against a respectable nation and lump 25 percent of them as extremists. It is an insult to the dignity and the way of life the people of Bangladesh have been spending their lives as peaceful and loving mass of people. Such remarks also reek of the outrageous comments often heard coming out of the White House and Obama Administration that believes that the entire world is its fiefdom where it could do whatever it feels like, bully the opponents, hurl insults on dissenting group of people and invade any Muslim country it feels like. India must look what is happening in its own backyard, how dreadful is its poverty and how menacing the threat from the Hindu extremist to the Subcontinent. Manmohans comments have put into jeopardy his pending trip to Bangladesh and even the future relationship between the two neighbours. It is finally time for Bangladesh to discern its enemies from friends. It must realise that India can never be a friend because for one reason it had always been a state that had been loathe to the existence of the Muslims not only on its soil but in the entire neighbourhood. Secondly, in its attempt to establish its hegemony it would always try to bully Bangladesh and would never like to see emerge it as a successful economic and military state. Concurrently, Islamabad must also step forward and strengthen cultural and trade relations not to mention rescue over 300,000 Biharis languishing in the makeshift camps in the suburbs of Bangladeshi towns who still call themselves as proud Pakistanis. There must be broad based cooperation but first and foremost we need to expand trade relations as this could turn out to be a stepping stone towards cementing bilateral ties in the years to come.