In February this year, the current Bangladesh President, Mirza FakhrulIslam Alamgir, then a minister heading the Ministry of LocalGovernance, Rural Development and Cooperatives in the newly formedTarique Rahman government, stated in the course of a media interview,“We believe Hasina (the deposed Prime Minister) has really committedserious human rights violations. There is a popular demand to punishher, and we believe that India should hand her over to us. But nothanding over Sheikh Hasina to Bangladesh will not be a deterrent tobuilding trade and commercial ties. We want to build even betterties.”
Now that Mr Aalamgir, very close to assassinated President ofBangladesh Gen Zia-ur-Rahman, father of the present Prime Minister,has been elected President of his country, it is believed that he maytry, even at the last stage, to impress upon Prime Minister Rahman tofind an honourable way out of the difficult straits in which hiscountry finds itself today vis-à-vis India. The situation has beencaused mainly by New Delhi’s unwillingness to accept Dhaka’s demand toextradite Sheikh Hasina to Bangladesh as she was sentenced to death onNovember 17, 2025, by her country’s International Crimes Tribunal inconnection with over 1400 killings during the July-August 2024student-led uprising, leading to her ouster from power and exile inIndia in August that year.
The Bangladesh government has taken the stand that Prime MinisterRahman, son of Sheikh Hasina’s archrival Khaleda Zia, will not be ableto honour the invitation from India, the current BRICS Chairman, to attend thegrouping’s September 12-13 summit in New Delhi so long as India doesnot hand over Sheikh Hasina to Bangladesh to face law. Indications arethat a Cabinet minister from Dhaka will be there at the BRICSconclave, but this will be an embarrassing situation for India.
The invitation from India is for the Prime Minister of Bangladesh asthis high-profile event will be attended by the heads of governmentbelonging to the BRICS member-countries.Matters got further complicated with Sheikh Hasina addressing avirtual press conference on August 5, 2026, from the building housingthe offices of the Foreign Correspondents Club of South Asia on theoccasion of the second anniversary of her voluntary exile to India.
The conference was organised by a private media agency, when sheannounced her possible return to Dhaka in December at a time of herown choosing. However, Bangladesh suspects the Government of India’shand in what happened on August 5, which New Delhi has vehementlydenied.
Bangladesh has already been nursing grievances against India owing tomany factors like blatantly anti-Bangladesh rhetoric by seniorgovernment functionaries, using ugly terms like ‘ghuspaithiyas’(undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh). Dhaka accuses New Delhi ofextra-judiciously pushing such people to the other side of the border,not bothering about diplomatic verification. Even the SheikhHasina-led government in Dhaka demanded proper verification ofcitizenship of people regarded as undocumented immigrants fromBangladesh. It insisted on repatriation of the so-called‘ghuspaithias’ on the basis of their proper identity verificationrather than generalised assumptions.
All this has led to a tricky situation threatening to jeopardise therelations between the two neighbours, though both appear to beinterested in maintaining the cordial ties they have had so far.India’s intention to safeguard its interests in Dhaka is clear fromthe fact that it’s newly appointed High Commissioner to Bangladesh, MrDinesh Trivedi, earlier a UnionMinister, showed optimism withregard to the relations between the two countries when he had acustomary meeting with Mr Rahman a few days back. Mr Trivedi’s stresson the hard reality that geography, shared history and neighbourlyties between Bangladesh and India cannot be altered was not without
meaning.
India will, however, have to assuage the hurt feelings of the BNPgovernment as it did not like theformal invitation to Mr Rahman having been addressed to him as thehead of the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-SectoralTechnical and Economic Cooperation) grouping, and not as the PrimeMinister of Bangladesh.
Referring to India-Bangladesh relations, India’s External AffairsMinister S. Jaishankar said at a session of The Economic Times WorldLeaders Forum on August 22 that the relations between the twocountries must be based on the mutuality of interests and reciprocityto be able to weather any kind of storm. Obviously, governments comeand go, but this should not weaken our strategy to protect ourinterests.
As a highly respected British statesman of the 19th century statedduring a famous speech in the British House of Commons on March 1,1848, “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies.Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is ourduty to follow.” That famous statement has now been shortened forgreater appeal, and it goes like this, “In international relations,there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.”
Of course, India and Bangladesh maintained very cordial relations andtook care of each other’s mutual interests when Sheikh Hasina of theAwami League headed the government in Dhaka as Prime Minister. But thereality in India’s eastern neighbourhood has changed altogether.
Sheikh Hasina was forced to abandon power in August 2024 mainly owingto her political blunders and dictatorial style of handling problems.India, of course, is unwilling to extradite her to Bangladesh owing tovarious factors, but the truth remains that today she is a bigliability for New Delhi. The sooner she leaves India, the better itwill be for New Delhi.
India has to recast its strategy to maintain good neighbourlyrelations with Bangladesh with a view to protecting its largernational interests. India’s foreign policy managers can learn fromtheir own successful strategy in the case of the Taliban regime inAfghanistan to ensure that the BNP government in Dhaka shows acooperative behaviour vis-à-vis New Delhi. After all, normalneighbourly relations with Bangladesh can help ensure that theinsurgency problem India earlier faced in its Northeast does not raiseits head again. Mishandling of our relations with Dhaka may also pushBangladesh into the ugly designs of China and Pakistan for the SouthAsian region.
There is a major economic aspect also to the India-Bangladesh ties.India’s exports to Bangladesh will be hit hard in the wake of tenserelations with Dhaka. India is the largest exporter to Bangladesh inSouth Asia, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database oninternational trade. The balance of trade remains in India’s favour.
Bangladesh too needs to increase its bilateral trade with India with aview to improving its status as one of the least developing countries(LDCs).There appear to be compulsions of domestic politics on both sideswhich must be coming in the way of formulating a new strategy forprotecting larger national interests. The challenge must be handleddeftly even if this requires a thorough review of domestic policies.
India should avoid making it an issue of prestige if Mr Rahman isunable to attend the BRICS summit himself. The same way, Bangladeshshould also try to understand India’s difficulties in handing overSheikh Hasina to Dhaka, that too when she has announced her return toBangladesh in December. This will be pragmatic politics, as stressedby President Alamgir of Bangladesh. And it may serve the interests ofboth sides.
[The writer, a former Dy Editor of The Tribune, is a New Delhi-basedpolitical commentator.]