New Delhi, India – Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s first journey to India has been placed on maintain, highlighting the strained ties between the 2 South Asian neighbours for the reason that July 2024 student-led rebellion that compelled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee the nation.
Since coming to energy in February, Rahman – the son of Hasina’s archrival, the late Khaleda Zia – has aimed to enhance ties with India. However a press convention performed by Hasina, who lives in India in exile, has riled Bangladesh.
Dhaka says that the August 5 press convention has “vitiated” the ambiance, including that “a propitious setting must be created for the go to” of Prime Minister Rahman.
For now, Rahman’s journey seems unsure, as Bangladesh’s Overseas Ministry stated officers from each nations have been engaged in talks for “a number of weeks” to work out a attainable answer.
Right here is all the pieces you must know concerning the newest diplomatic turbulence between the South Asian neighbours.
What’s up with Rahman’s India go to?
New Delhi had prolonged an invite to Rahman for a stand-alone go to to India this month, forward of subsequent month’s scheduled BRICS summit. BRICS is a grouping of main rising economies, at present chaired by India.
Since Rahman took workplace, there have been a number of exchanges between prime ministers and diplomats from either side. India appointed Dinesh Trivedi, a former minister and member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP), as its envoy to Dhaka in a uncommon political appointment to the important thing publish.
Final Tuesday, Trivedi appealed to Rahman’s authorities, arguing that the Indian mission isn’t asking Dhaka “to overlook the previous”, in an obvious reference to Hasina’s exile in India. “Hold the previous and type out the variations of the previous. However transfer on. Don’t get stagnant,” he added.
At a reception hosted by the Indian Excessive Fee in Dhaka, Trivedi stated that Modi needed Rahman’s go to to be “memorable”.
However these plans for a go to had been already derailed after Dhaka took offence to Hasina just about addressing a presser on the Overseas Correspondents’ Membership in New Delhi on August 5, marking two years of her ouster.
India clarified that it had nothing to do with the occasion, however to no avail.
What have each nations stated?
Each capitals have been tight-lipped about Rahman’s go to. “I’ve nothing to say proper now,” stated India’s Overseas Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, responding to a query about Rahman’s go to.
Talking at an occasion on Saturday, India’s Overseas Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar stated India and Bangladesh’s bilateral ties should meet the “take a look at of mutual curiosity”.
“It has to work for them, it has to work for us,” he stated.
“There needs to be an inexpensive diploma of my recognising and respecting what’s their curiosity, simply as I anticipate them additionally to take action,” Jaishankar stated.
Rahman’s international affairs adviser, Humayun Kabir, informed a Bangladeshi information company that there’s “no rush” in Dhaka to facilitate the prime minister’s go to to India.
Kabir added that Dhaka remains to be ascertaining what sort of relationship India needs with the newly elected authorities in Bangladesh.
“The neighbouring nation should correctly perceive the fact of Bangladesh’s July Mass Rebellion, which passed off by the sacrifices of greater than 1,500 folks,” he stated, referring to India sitting on the request for Hasina’s extradition.
Earlier this month, New Delhi had stated that it was contemplating Hasina’s extradition request based mostly on the established process. Each nations have an extradition treaty, however with an exception for political circumstances.
What are the factors of pressure?
Bangladesh has made Hasina’s extradition a serious situation. Hasina’s authorities was seen as particularly near India, and New Delhi’s backing of her authoritarian rule additionally angered Bangladeshis.
Dhaka has been in search of the extradition of Hasina, who was handed a death sentence in absentia in November 2025. Some analysts have accused New Delhi of utilizing it as a diplomatic bargaining chip.
Bangladesh has expressed its displeasure with India for internet hosting Hasina and sees Hasina’s political speeches as an interference in its inner affairs. In the course of the August 5 presser, Hasina stated she would return to Bangladesh.
“We’ve got requested Indian authorities to expeditiously act on our request to extradite Sheikh Hasina and different fugitive criminals,” the Bangladesh Overseas Ministry stated in an X publish on August 16.
“We reiterate that we’ll proceed to pursue our ‘Bangladesh First’ coverage to advertise pleasant bilateral relations with different nations, together with our neighbours, on the premise of sovereign equality, nationwide dignity, non-interference in one another’s inner affairs and mutual profit.”
For New Delhi, Dhaka inching nearer to Pakistan after a long time of strained ties is a serious diplomatic setback. India performed a serious function within the formation of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971.
Shakil Ahmed, an assistant professor of presidency and politics at Dhaka’s Jahangirnagar College, famous that home politics tends to affect international coverage at instances.
“Relations between India and Bangladesh are constrained by their home politics, particularly in Dhaka,” he stated.
“Individuals in Bangladesh need that any relation with India must be based mostly on self-respect and mutual pursuits,” he stated, including that Rahman’s authorities has been diversifying its friendships with international nations, together with the US, China, and Pakistan.
“New Delhi noticed Bangladesh as certainly one of India’s international coverage followers,” Ahmed stated, noting that that’s not the case anymore. “Hasina gave India a clean cheque in international relations, which isn’t occurring anymore.”
India’s Hindu nationalist authorities’s push to fence the 4,096km-long (2,545-mile) border with Bangladesh has additionally strained ties. Anti-Bangladesh rhetoric by ruling get together officers has additional antagonised Dhaka.
India has been deporting what it calls undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants throughout its borders. Dhaka has accused New Delhi of pushing folks extrajudicially into Bangladesh with out diplomatic verification.
What’s forward for India-Bangladesh ties?
Sanjay Bhardwaj, a professor of South Asian research on the Jawaharlal Nehru College in Delhi, informed Al Jazeera that Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Rahman is taking part in to the gallery by stalling his maiden India go to.
Hasina’s case is certainly one of political persecution, stated Bhardwaj, as her personal authorities chased Rahman – who lived for the final 17 years in London, the UK, together with all of Hasina’s years in energy – with a number of prison circumstances.
“India has been optimistic to domesticate and have a developmental partnership with Bangladesh, with no reluctance to develop the financial participation,” he added. “However Rahman is taken with politics and never fascinated about the event of Bangladesh.”
Hasina’s extradition is a contentious situation, he stated, including that each capitals should transfer past this to keep up a productive bilateral relationship.
Sreeradha Datta, a professor specialising in South Asian research at India’s OP Jindal International College, stated that each nations want to speak, since “there is no such thing as a different”.
As neighbours, “they don’t have a option to disengage”, she stated, including that merely the passage of time is not going to restore the relations.
India is worried concerning the Mecca defence pact, Datta informed Al Jazeera, “However how can one have any management when there is no such thing as a dialogue and engagement?”
“The preliminary heat diluted in nationalistic noise on either side,” Datta stated, referring to preliminary interactions, together with an Indian delegation led by Jaishankar visiting Dhaka final 12 months for the funeral of Rahman’s mom, Khaleda Zia.
Datta argued that New Delhi wants to come back to phrases with a brand new actuality that the federal government of Bangladesh might not share the identical heat because the one beneath Hasina did. “However that doesn’t matter,” she stated. “These are neighbours, and a relationship based mostly on targets or pursuits is what’s going to take it ahead.”
