New Delhi: In a message marking Bangladesh’s National Day on Wednesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus that India remained “committed” to strengthening ties but stressed that the relationship must also be founded on “mutual sensitivity to each other’s interests and concerns.”
If this caveat in an otherwise upbeat message was meant to express New Delhi’s continuing apprehensions about the domestic and diplomatic reset underway in Dhaka, the consensus in Bangladesh today is also that India has not been sensitive to its concerns and interests either.
Ever since the popular uprising that overthrew Sheikh Hasina last August – widely acknowledged as a major foreign policy setback for the Modi government – India has been unable to formulate a forward looking policy towards its neighbour.
Modi’s message on Wednesday assumes significance ahead of Yunus’s current visit to China and also to the BIMSTEC summit in Thailand from April 2 to 4. Bangladesh has formally requested the first one-on-one meeting between the two leaders. India has yet to respond to the request. Though it would be highly unusual for the two leaders to not meet properly in Bangkok, fringe Hindutva circles have begun counselling Modi to avoid a ‘one-on-one’ with Yunus.
On Wednesday, Yunus embarked on a four-day trip to China centred around the Boao Forum, a visit that his press advisor has said he would have preferred to undertake after having come to India first. However, Dhaka’s request “did not elicit a ‘positive’ Indian response, he was quoted as telling The Hindu on March 24.
In the past eight months, Modi and Yunus have spoken only once—over the phone—when the Indian leader congratulated the Nobel laureate after he was sworn in as Bangladesh’s interim leader following Hasina’s ouster.
Persisting tension
The former Bangladesh premier has remained in India since her arrival on August 5. The interim government has sought her extradition to stand trial in criminal cases, but India has yet to respond. Dhaka has also been upset at Hasina’s use of her Indian refuge to send messages to Bangladesh seeking to rouse her Awami League supporters into action against the interim government.
Tensions in bilateral ties persist, driven not only by public perception in Bangladesh over Hasina’s closeness to New Delhi but also by the Modi government’s publicly stated concerns about attacks on minorities, particularly Hindus. While it has made some arrests, the Bangladesh government has maintained that most of the attacks were political rather than communal in nature and has also contested the numbers being bruited about. Bangladeshi officials cite reports in the country’s independent media to back up their claim.
The public perception in Dhaka is that Hasina was able to hang on to power for so long – rigging elections, violating human rights and weaponising the law against the opposition and media – because of the support she received from India. Rather than seeking to address this perception by proactively engaging with the interim government, the Indian side has mostly sought to highlight the problems of law and order that emerged as a by-product of the dramatic end of Hasina’s 15-year regime. The fact that the Indian Media have resorted to exaggeration and misinformation – even going so far as to try and get US President Donald Trump to endorse the theory that the student revolt which ousted Hasina was a ‘conspiracy’ hatched by the Biden ‘deep state’ to bring Islamists to power – has further soured public opinion in Bangladesh.
The Modi government has also failed to understand that the manner in which Hasina turned Bangladesh’s liberation struggle into a weapon to perpetuate her authoritarian rule has robbed 1971 of the salience it once enjoyed as a vehicle for bilateral goodwill.
By itself, Modi’s words in his message – “the spirit of the Liberation War of Bangladesh continues to remain a guiding light for our relationship, which has flourished across multiple domains, bringing tangible benefits to our peoples” – are no different from earlier Indian messages delivered to Dhaka. But in the changed context, such references to the past are unlikely to generate warmth.
MEA briefs parliament committee
In a coincidence, the Indian Parliament’s Standing Committee on External Affairs held a meeting on the “future of India-Bangladesh relationship” early Thursday evening, where officials from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) made a presentation that emphasised the yawning chasm between Delhi and Dhaka.
A background note prepared by the MEA for the meeting, reviewed by The Wire, underscored a similar emphasis on Dhaka’s need to be mindful of India’s concerns that Modi mentioned in his letter to Yunus.
“While India continues to be interested in advancing our mutual interests and priorities, it is crucial that the government of Bangladesh pays due attention to our security and strategic concerns in the region, on which we will continue to work with them,” said the MEA’s note.
Stressing that Bangladesh’s stability was of “paramount importance” to the region, the ministry noted that a “constructive and cooperative relationship is, therefore, important for the continued security and safety of our borders.”
India has maintained communication with Bangladeshi authorities on security matters, the MEA informed the panel. “The continued release of violent Islamic extremists who had been sentenced for serious crimes is a matter of grave concern for law and order as well as for regional and global security,” it stated.
On the domestic situation in Bangladesh, the ministry assessed a “marked rise in religious symbolism in public spaces, with extremist groups filling the political vacuum and promoting an ideology of an Islamic Caliphate.”
It further noted that Bangladesh had “not only failed to acknowledge the systematic persecution of minorities” but had also sought to “downplay the scale and nature of violence against Hindus since August 2024.”
The MEA background note described the law-and-order situation as worrisome, citing “regular reports of mob violence, vandalism, crimes against women and minorities, and general lawlessness.”
While Yunus has indicated that elections will be held in December this year, the foreign ministry noted that the timeline for reforms ahead of the polls remains unclear, with growing pressure from major parties to hold early elections.
