On the map of South Asia, if the gentle bend of Nepal's rectangular strip can be seen nestling snugly in the lap of the central Himalayas in the north, Bangladesh in the southeast - a country on water - looks like an amphibian emerging restlessly from the great Bay to bask its rain-drenched skin on the second largest delta in the world. The contrast, somehow, does not end with cartography.

Conflate the world's largest mountain massif with the flatlands bare of snowpeaks, rarefied snow deserts with the densest populations, skyhigh summits with the lowest lands above the sea, rain shadow realms in the north with rain-soaked farms in the south, the noticeably low External Dependency Ratio in Annual Renewable Water Resources of Nepal among the Asian countries with the highest figure of Bangladesh (5.7 vs 91.3%), and threats posed by the decreasing snowline of the Himalayas with the rising sea levels of the sea. Yet this is not all.

The disasters that Nature has been visiting more than 60 per cent of Bangladesh at least once a year - floods, tornadoes, some of the worst famines in history (1769-70, 1943), as also cyclones (1876, 1970, 1991) - offer another contrast to Nepal's tranquil weather and environment. Despite all such travails of Nature or the historic tragedy of the genocidal war of 1971 and military takeovers, despite its paradigmatic status as a fourth world state till yesterday, flood-swept, typhoon-torn Bangladesh is today surging ahead at a surprising pace. But despite the enormous bounties endowed by Mother Nature, despite its tremendous heritage potentials and the historic saga of its human valour, Nepal refuses to rise from the melancholic depth of political decay and underdevelopment.

Given the parity of the two neighbours' areas and a number of socio-cultural features these two states share together, is it the quality of their humanpower or something else that makes the difference? On a number of political and socio-economic indicators, Bangladesh does supersede Nepal: on Social Cohesion Index, Ethnic Fractionalisation, on Relations with Neighbours, as also on the level of institutional trust. In the last case, in fact, the figure stood highest in 2008 among the countries of South Asia.

Also, can what they share in common and what they do not be used to restructure and pace up the course they have adopted so far in their relation-building? Among the four criteria of legal statehood the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States established was the capacity to enter into relations with other states (Article 9) - a capacity that remains utterly under-explored in both Nepal and Bangladesh.

The state-based Track One is the modal track in use thus far where the government does and can play a critical role, but the mode of action is command, mechanism bureaucratic, decisions centralised, and social capital low.

The citizens and the civil society of these two neighbours in this case can come forward to activate Tracks Two (elite-based) and Three (people-based) to make the relation more participatory, the process more democratic, relations more productive, and decisions more decentralised.

The absence of physical connectivity does pose a physical barrier, but it certainly is not insuperable. The warm response seen to the Youth Conclaves started recently adds a new element of hope. This despite the low level of neighbourhood awareness in Nepal. A 2013 survey says26 per cent of Nepal's population is still unaware of Bangladesh.

Conventionally, infrastructure has so far been conceived only in terms of its physical dimensions - roads, bridges, ports, tunnels, and airstrips - ignoring two other legs of the Investment Tripod, which tumbles if Social Infrastructure (education, I&T, medicare, market, labour and capital) and Axiological Infrastructure (civic and value-based awareness and attitude, norms and culture, rights and responsibilities, rules and policies) are missing from the equation.

If connectivity is to be used to bring them closer, investment must be triangulated. But as Parag Khanna reminds us in his volume on Connectography, only one quarter of the world's trade is now between countries that share a border. Such a fragmented approach and fixation on physical investment explains why plans fail, strategies stagger and the traditional mode of relation-building falters.

A preliminary study done on Bangladesh Image and Product Survey by Pragya Foundation with the help of Chelsea International Academy and the support of Bangladesh Embassy in Kathmandu concluded 16 years ago that the experience gained by Bangladesh in politics, education, economy and technology can benefit Nepal, but the lack of travel facilities, low level of trade and co-management of hydro-potential remain the issues. The port facilities offered recently by Sheikh Hasina's government and the pact just accomplished on hydro-energy add a fresh measure of hope.

Travel and tourism apart, visits between neighbours like Nepal and Bangladesh can fetch benefits from another area scarcely put in practice. The compendium brought out by the SAARC in 2014 on Poverty Alleviation and SDGs in South Asia lists as many as 107 cases of the best practices in that field across the region. Bangladesh and Nepal each hold 15 such cases.

One specific reason why Dhaka can take a novel bold step in refurbishing neighbourhood relations in South Asia is the largely positive nature of relationship it has had with most countries in the subcontinent and beyond. A cursory comparison of the bilateral relationships since the colonial days and afterward shows that among the seven dyads that could be conceived at this point, while the relations between UK-India, India-Sikkim, India-Bhutan, India-Nepal, India-China, and India-Pakistan in their nature were essentially imperial, protectorial, protegial, seesaw, conflict-prone, and confrontationist respectively, Nepal-Bangladesh relationship has been relatively tranquil, ranking highest (83%) among the five countries on which data were available in the 2013 survey. The two major dimensions crying for immediate attention here are Nature and Science and Technology. The need of the hour is to bridge our hearts and minds on both sides of the border. Bangladesh and Nepal, after all share much in common, but what they do not, too, can be used for the benefit of both countries. Joining our hearts and minds could become a crucial step in that noble venture.

One reason why Dhaka can take a bold step in refurbishing neighbourhood relations in South Asia is its positive relationship with all

A version of this article appears in the print on September 15, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.