Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with Bangladesh's Interim Adviser at the BIMSTEC summit in Bangkok on April 4 has caused some controversy, as could have been expected, given our experience of our previous meetings at the level of Foreign Ministers and Foreign Secretaries. Bangladeshi press briefings after these meetings have focused on listing contentious issues with India, addressing Bangladeshi demands and refuting India's concerns. The aim is to convey that Bangladesh is standing up to India to reflect the new mood in the country towards its neighbour.
The atmosphere in India-Bangladesh relations has deteriorated sharply after Sheikh Hasina's ouster. It is widely accepted that the Jamaat-e-Islami is now wielding real power in Bangladesh. These forces are behind the assault on Mujibur Rehman's legacy, drafting a new Bangladesh constitution, the push for an Islamic state, the overtures to Pakistan, the attacks on Hindus and other minorities, the hostility against India, and so on.
The 'Revolution'
Yunus's close advisers are Islamists and have a grip on him, as was dramatically evident when at the Clinton Foundation event in Washington DC in September 2024, he introduced Mahfouz Alam as the “brain” behind the student-led movement that ousted Sheikh Hasina with a “meticulously designed” “revolution” - an admission that the movement was not spontaneous.
In December 2014, Mahfouz Alam had shown Northeast India and a few areas of West Bengal as parts of Bangladesh. He claimed that the cultures of northeast India and Bangladesh have been suppressed by Hindu extremists and the ‘anti-Bengal' attitude of upper-caste Hindus. With these kinds of advisers and the Islamist environment in which he is operating, Yunus, who has been parachuted into his prime ministerial position - as is generally believed - by the Americans, with no political base of his own but a Nobel prize sponsored by the Clintons to give him some credibility, appears to be a puppet in hands of these new retrograde forces.
India has tried to keep the channels of communication open with Bangladesh despite provocations, and this in order to preserve the very tangible gains in bilateral ties, be it in trade, connectivity, regional development or security, achieved during Hasina's rule. While the attacks on the Hindu minority in Bangladesh are a sensitive issue for the Indian government, New Delhi has been relatively restrained in expressing its concerns, keeping them within acceptable diplomatic limits. This is despite the fact that the Yunus government has refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of India's concerns.
India Has Been Accommodative
India has avoided putting any undue pressure on Bangladesh on the economic front or exploiting its vulnerabilities, allowing food and cereal supplies and power transmission to go through. A long-term approach has been preferred, not a short-term one of an immediate squeeze. It would have been easy for India to flex its muscles, but the issue is always of proportionality. A fine political judgment is required. This does not mean that India should ignore the openings between Bangladesh and Pakistan, the engagement of the two countries at the military level, some bilateral ammunition purchases, as well as Dhaka's overtures to China.
India has to reach out to various political forces in Bangladesh, primarily the BNP, with which it has had a troubled relationship, not the least because of its Jamaat-e-Islami links, its sheltering of anti-Indian insurgents, encouragement to illegal migration into India, and opposition to any transit rights through Bangladesh to our Northeast. Times have changed with the ouster of Hasina and the Awami party under attack. The BNP would want early elections in the country, which Yunus is promising by the end of 2025 or early 2026 after a new constitution is drafted. This may or may not happen, as the student movement wants to form a political party of its own, while the Jamaat-e-Islami would have no stake in any democratic renewal.
The Interview To A German Magazine
Contrary to Yunus's deceptive, propagandist and reality-denying interview to Germany Der Spiegel on March 27, 2025, about how stable the situation is in Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Army Chief on February 25 had spoken about the deteriorating law and order situation and warned political groups that if they did not move beyond their differences and continued fighting among themselves, the independence and integrity of the country would be at risk. "The anarchy we have witnessed is manufactured by us," the General had said.
In his Der Spiegel interview, Yunus even excused the demolition by an excavator of Mujibur Rehman's house by calling it an angry reaction to Hasina's address to the people from exile. Yunus made the extraordinary claim in the interview that Bangladesh, bordering the sea in the south and the Himalayas to the north, allowed it to “generate potentially unlimited hydropower, so, energy is not a problem”. This was on par with his comment in China that India's Northeast - which he called a country and then corrected himself - was landlocked, had no access to the ocean, and that Bangladesh was the only guardian of the ocean in this region. He invited China to treat Bangladesh as an extension of the Chinese economy, using Dhaka as a maritime conduit to India's northeastern states, Nepal and Bhutan. This probably prompted the External Affairs Minister to state at the BIMSTEC meeting on April 3 that “our northeastern region in particular is emerging as a connectivity hub for the BIMSTEC, with a myriad network of roads, railways, waterways, grids and pipelines”.
Opportunity Lost?
One would have hoped that PM Modi's gesture of having a formal meeting with an Interim Adviser who has done virtually nothing to reach out to India, with a clear desire to mend the deteriorating ties, would have been used as an opportunity to initiate a fresh approach.
Unfortunately, the Indian press briefing on the Modi-Yunus meeting and that of the press note of Bangladesh's foreign office are of a different tenor, with the Bangladeshi side listing grievances and demands, such as expressing deep concern at the killing of Bangladeshi nationals at the border, the priority issues of extradition of Hasina, the long-pending Teesta water-sharing agreement, and the renewal of the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty. India's concerns about the “alleged” rise of “extremism” and “persecution of minority” have been haughtily dismissed with the advice that a reality check against social media propaganda was required.
According to Foreign Secretary Misri's press briefing, Modi reiterated India's support for a democratic, stable, peaceful, progressive, and inclusive Bangladesh, highlighting the cooperation between the two countries over a long period of time that has delivered tangible benefits to people in both countries, and reiterating India's desire to forge a positive and constructive relationship with Bangladesh based on a spirit of pragmatism. Modi also urged in this regard that any rhetoric that vitiates the environment was best avoided. Illegal border crossings needed to be addressed through existing bilateral mechanisms. Most importantly, Modi underlined India's concerns related to the safety and security of minorities in Bangladesh, including Hindus, and expressed his expectation that all cases of atrocities committed against them will be thoroughly investigated.
A Contentious Post
Yunus's press secretary, Shafiqul Alam, in a social media post, has generated more controversy by distorting the Modi-Yunus exchange to suit domestic needs. His loose talk also shows a lack of discipline in Yunus's entourage, even on very sensitive matters. Alam said that Yunus raised with Modi Bangladesh's request for the extradition of Hasina, and the "response was not negative”. Alam claimed that Modi had said, "We saw her [Hasina's] disrespectful behaviour towards you [Yunus]."
Indian sources have called the characterisation of Modi's remarks regarding the relationship with Yunus and the previous Bangladesh government “inaccurate”, and called his post “mischievous and politically motivated”. On the extradition request, they have said that such tactics call into question both the "seriousness and the good faith of the interim government”, adding that the Bangladeshi contention that attacks on minorities were a social media concoction was dismissed as being in contradiction of facts on the ground. Modi, they say, responded to various issues raised by Yunus by saying that these were best discussed by the foreign ministers of the two countries.
India's Message
These antics by Bangladesh have led to a reaction from New Delhi as a kind of warning across the bow. One hopes the message has been heeded. On April 8, India rescinded the arrangement of June 2020, allowing the trans-shipment of export cargo from Bangladesh to third countries via Indian airports and ports. Bangladesh used the arrangement to move cargo through Indian land customs stations to be shipped to destinations in Europe, West Asia and other regions.
Despite the provocative Bangladeshi behaviour, it made sense for Modi to meet Yunus in Bangkok. India has talked to Pakistani leaders even when Pakistan was inflicting terrorist mayhem on us. Similarly, Modi has met Xi Jinping even though the situation on the border has not been fully resolved and the troops of the two countries continue to face each other. India wants to infuse more life into BIMSTEC so that regional cooperation can be promoted without it being held hostage to India-Pakistan relations. The BIMSTEC's secretariat is located in Dhaka, and this has to be factored in by us in our decisions.
(Kanwal Sibal was Foreign Secretary and Ambassador to Turkey, Egypt, France and Russia, and Deputy Chief Of Mission in Washington.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
