Dhaka wants ‘conducive environment’ fro PM visit
By Ashok Nilakantan Ayers
The relationship between India and Bangladesh has arrived at its most delicate moment in decades. A friendship forged in the blood and sacrifice of the 1971 Liberation War is now being tested by the fate of one woman: Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Bangladesh’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who fled to India after a student-led uprising toppled her government in August 2024.
Dhaka wants her back. New Delhi is not saying no — but it is certainly not saying yes.
India has formally acknowledged receiving Bangladesh’s extradition request and says it is being examined by the competent authorities under Indian law and established judicial procedures. Hasina, meanwhile, has indicated that she intends to return to Bangladesh by December, despite having been sentenced to death in absentia by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal over her government’s crackdown during the 2024 uprising. She denies the charges and has described the proceedings as politically motivated.
The issue has become so politically explosive that Bangladesh’s new Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s proposed visit to India is now being discussed in the shadow of the extradition demand. Dhaka has spoken of the need for a “conducive environment” for the visit, while reports indicate that the Hasina question has become one of the conditions surrounding the proposed engagement.
That is a remarkable reversal in a relationship once described as uniquely close. India and Bangladesh did not begin their relationship as ordinary neighbours. Bangladesh was born from the violent dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971.
When the Pakistani army launched its crackdown against Bengali nationalists in East Pakistan, millions of refugees crossed into India. New Delhi provided political, humanitarian and military support to the Bengali independence movement. The Indo-Pakistan war of December 1971 ended with the surrender of Pakistani forces in Dhaka and the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent state.
For India, the creation of Bangladesh was simultaneously a humanitarian, strategic and geopolitical victory. It removed the enormous geographical problem of Pakistan’s two wings separated by more than 1,000 miles of Indian territory and created a friendly eastern neighbour.
For Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s founding leader, India was the indispensable friend of the new nation. The two countries formalised that relationship with the Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed by Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in March 1972. The treaty committed both sides to peaceful coexistence, sovereignty, non-interference and cooperation in trade, transport, communications, water resources and security.
But history did not produce a permanently comfortable relationship. Mujib was assassinated in 1975 in a military coup. Bangladesh subsequently moved through a succession of military and political regimes, and relations with India became more complicated.
The central political rivalry eventually came to be represented by two powerful families: the Mujib family, led for decades by Sheikh Hasina, and the Zia family, represented by Khaleda Zia, widow of President Ziaur Rahman and leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Their rivalry shaped Bangladesh for decades.
When Sheikh Hasina returned to power, particularly after 2009, India-Bangladesh relations entered perhaps their most productive phase. Dhaka acted against anti-India insurgent groups operating from Bangladeshi territory. Security cooperation expanded. Connectivity improved. India received greater access to Bangladeshi ports. Rail, road and inland-waterway links were developed. Electricity cooperation expanded and India extended billions of dollars in lines of credit for infrastructure projects.
The 2015 Land Boundary Agreement was another landmark. It resolved a complicated border problem involving enclaves and adverse possessions along a frontier of more than 4,000 kilometres. India described the settlement as creating a more stable and peaceful border and strengthening cooperation against smuggling and transnational crime.
The economic relationship also deepened. Bangladesh became an important trading partner and an increasingly important component of India’s connectivity strategy to the Northeast.
The Bay of Bengal became the geographic bridge between the two countries rather than a barrier. India’s inland-waterway arrangements with Bangladesh now provide alternative routes for cargo moving between India’s mainland and the Northeast, reducing dependence on the narrow Siliguri corridor. This was the strategic dividend of the Hasina years.
But the relationship also accumulated grievances. Water remains the most persistent one. The 1996 Ganges Water Sharing Treaty established a framework for sharing lean-season flows at Farakka, but the unresolved Teesta issue continues to irritate Dhaka. The Ganges treaty itself reaches the end of its original 30-year term in 2026, making water diplomacy particularly important now.
The student uprising of 2024 transformed everything. What began as protests eventually became a mass movement against Hasina’s government. Her administration’s response produced a deadly confrontation. As the crisis escalated, Hasina left Bangladesh and came to India.
The political order that followed was dramatically different. The interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus pursued legal action against the former prime minister and other members of her government. The International Crimes Tribunal eventually sentenced Hasina to death in absentia for crimes against humanity connected with the crackdown. Bangladesh has repeatedly sought her extradition.
Human-rights organisations and Hasina’s supporters have questioned the fairness and independence of the proceedings, while Bangladesh’s present government argues that the trials are necessary to establish accountability for the deaths and alleged abuses committed during the uprising.
For India, this creates a formidable dilemma. If New Delhi hands Hasina over, it risks being seen as abandoning a former leader who was one of India’s closest partners in the region. If it refuses, it risks antagonising the democratically elected government in Dhaka and allowing the extradition issue to poison the entire bilateral relationship.
Bangladesh’s political transition has now produced another historical irony. Tarique Rahman, son of Ziaur Rahman and Khaleda Zia, became prime minister in February 2026 after the BNP’s electoral victory. His mother had been Hasina’s principal political rival for decades. Khaleda Zia died before her son assumed office, leaving Tarique to inherit the political mantle of the Zia family.
Thus, the son of Hasina’s oldest political rival is now negotiating with the Indian government that sheltered Hasina. Yet Tarique cannot afford permanently hostile relations with India.
Bangladesh’s geography makes India indispensable. India surrounds Bangladesh on three sides. Bangladesh needs stable borders, energy cooperation, access to markets and transit opportunities. India, equally, needs Bangladesh for connectivity to the Northeast, security in the eastern theatre, maritime access and control of transnational crime. Neither country can simply walk away.
There is another reason India cannot afford a strategic rupture with Dhaka: China. Bangladesh has become an important component of Beijing’s economic and strategic footprint in South Asia. Chinese investment, infrastructure projects, defence supplies and commercial engagement have grown substantially.
India does not want Bangladesh to become another arena of strategic competition in which Chinese influence expands at India’s expense. Nor does Bangladesh want to become completely dependent on either India or China. That creates an opportunity for pragmatism.
The danger today is that Sheikh Hasina becomes a synonym for India-Bangladesh relations. That would be a mistake. Governments change. Geography does not.
India and Bangladesh share rivers, a long land border, common linguistic and cultural traditions, economic interests and an interconnected security environment. Their economies are tied together by trade, transport, power and supply chains.
The 1972 treaty spoke of transforming the border into a frontier of “peace and friendship”. The aspiration remains valid even if the political chemistry has changed.
India therefore has to separate the Hasina problem from the Bangladesh problem. New Delhi’s handling of the extradition request must be legally defensible, transparent and consistent with India’s treaty obligations. It should not appear to be a political favour to an old ally.
At the same time, Dhaka must understand that India’s relationship with Bangladesh cannot be reduced to the demand for one individual’s extradition. A successful Tarique Rahman visit to New Delhi could be the beginning of a reset — but only if both sides arrive prepared to discuss the larger relationship: trade, water, border management, connectivity, energy, security, minorities and China’s expanding regional footprint.
The greatest irony is that the two countries that once fought together to create Bangladesh are now struggling to prevent the politics of Bangladesh from damaging the relationship that emerged from that war.
India helped create the geopolitical circumstances in which Bangladesh became independent in 1971. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman built the first bridge with India. Sheikh Hasina later made that bridge strategically stronger. The Zia family spent decades challenging the politics of the Mujib family.
Now Tarique Rahman stands at the other end of that extraordinary historical cycle. His challenge is to decide whether Bangladesh’s relationship with India will be defined by the fate of Sheikh Hasina — or by the future interests of 180 million Bangladeshis. For India, the answer should be equally clear.
Friendships between nations cannot be hostage to friendships between governments. The Hasina extradition case will test the law. Tarique Rahman’s visit will test diplomacy. But the real test will be whether Delhi and Dhaka can preserve a relationship whose foundations are far deeper than the rise and fall of individual political dynasties. (IPA Service)
The post India-Bangladesh: From liberation war to Sheikh Hasina test appeared first on Northlines.