New Delhi: India will engage with the current government in Dhaka to pursue mutual interests, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on Friday (August 30), as the MEA defended against criticism over the omission of Bangladesh from the US readout of the phone call between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
About three weeks after Sheikh Hasina was ousted from power in Dhaka in a popular uprising, Jaishankar said that India’s relationship with Bangladesh since its independence has gone through “ups and downs”.
“It is natural that we will deal with the government of the day. But we also have to recognise that there are political changes and the political changes can be disruptive. And clearly here we have to look for mutuality of interests,” he said at a book launch function on Friday.
In the last 15 years, both New Delhi and Dhaka had repeatedly asserted that relations have been at their best, with Hasina perceived as a close friend of India.
While Hasina was praised for improving Bangladeshi economy, there were also extensive reports of human rights and suppression of dissidence within the country through security agencies. The main opposition had boycotted at least two general elections under her government.
The student-led movement, which began as protests against the restoration of quotas for the third generation of freedom fighters in government jobs, quickly evolved into a broader uprising following a massive security crackdown. Within weeks, an estimated 300-400 people were killed during an internet blackout that isolated Bangladesh from the outside world.
After the Bangladesh army refused to fire on protesters marching toward the prime minister’s residence on August 5, Sheikh Hasina swiftly left for India by helicopter and has remained there since.
Her continued presence in India has sparked concern in Bangladesh, with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party calling for her extradition. Numerous criminal cases have already been filed against her and members of the Awami League, including charges related to wrongful deaths and enforced disappearances.
During the weekly media briefing on Friday, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal was asked about India’s likely reactioin to any future official demand for extradition from Bangladesh. He didn’t answer the question stating that the ministry doesn’t respond to hypothetical question.
When asked about Hasina’s status following the revocation of her diplomatic passport by interim government, Jaiswal replied, “As we stated earlier, former Prime Minister of Bangladesh came to India at a very short notice for reasons of safety. We have nothing further to add on the matter”.
There has been an upsurge in anti-India sentiments after the ouster of the Hasina government, with public blame directed at India for everything related to flood to visa issues.
Recently, India had to issue a long clarification denying that a dam in Tripura was the cause for floods in Bangladesh. It continues to have a long shadow with the MEA slamming a report of the international news channel CNN that implied the same.
“It’s narrative is misleading and suggests that India is somehow responsible for the floods. This is factually not correct and ignores the facts mentioned in the press releases issued by the Government of India clarifying the situation. They have also ignored that we have regular and timely exchange of data and critical information between the two countries through existing joint mechanisms for water resources management,” said Jaiswal on Friday.
Even before Hasina’s removal from power, India had sent back non-essential staff due to the deteriorating law and order situation and suspended a lot of visa operations.
With India issuing the largest number of visas worldwide in Bangladesh, it was a major decision.
Earlier this week, there were protests inside the Indian Visa Application centre in Dhaka, when passports were being returned as visas were not being issued.
The senior Indian diplomatic said that India was granting medical visas, but “full visa services can only resume once law and order is restored and normalcy is established”.
He also didn’t react to the recent revocation of ban imposed by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir, stating that it was an “internal” issue.
The most extensive response was reserved for the opposition’s criticism that the US readout had failed to mention Prime Minister Modi’s reference to concerns over attacks on Bangladeshi Hindus, which had been highlighted in the Indian statement.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera questioned this omission on August 27, asking, “If our Prime Minister did raise the issue of ‘safety and security of the minorities, particularly Hindus’ in Bangladesh, why did @JoeBiden not think it was important enough to mention in his press note?” .
The MEA spokesperson said at the weekly briefing on Friday that the claims are “uninformed, tendentious, and motivated and betray a total lack of familiarity with the process of how such contacts between leaders are organised and then followed up on”.
He said that since these press releases are not negotiated joint statements, “it is not unusual for two sides to emphasise different aspects of the same conversation in their respective readouts”
“The absence of an aspect in one press release or the other is not evidence of its absence in the conversation itself. I am very much aware of the contents of the conversation between the Prime Minister and the President and I can tell you that our press release is an accurate and faithful record of what transpired in the conversation.
The subject of Bangladesh, which has been highlighted by certain quarters, was very much discussed substantially by both the leaders,” said the MEA spokesperson.
The phone call with Biden marked the first instance where Prime Minister Modi has taken up the issue of Bangladeshi Hindus with a third country.
Previously, he had directly discussed the matter with Bangladesh’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, during a phone conversation. In that exchange, Yunus pledged to safeguard all minority communities in Bangladesh, including Hindus, but he also characterized the reports circulating in the Indian media about post-ouster attacks as “exaggerated.”
