Two trains were travelling in opposite directions on the same track. Aboard one, Tarique Rahman, the new Prime Minister belonging to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was hoping to head to India to help stabilise his country\u2019s most important relationship. Travelling in the other direction from her exile in New Delhi, Sheikh Hasina, the former Prime Minister and Awami League leader, was feeling out her way back to Dhaka to rebuild her political future.<\/p>\n
But, as is often inevitable in politics, missed signals and cross-purposes have brought the two trains dangerously close to a collision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It began with the 5 August press conference held by Hasina, where she declared her intention to return to Dhaka as early as December, despite facing a death sentence there following a trial in absentia by Bangladesh\u2019s International Crimes Tribunal. Hasina dismissed the charges as politically motivated and demanded that the ban on her Awami League be lifted.<\/p>\n
Dhaka was outraged. It saw the New Delhi appearance as an attempt to undermine the tribunal and challenge the legitimacy of the government of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman. It has repeatedly demanded that India extradite the former leader.<\/p>\n
On 16 August, Bangladesh\u2019s Foreign Ministry said that the two countries had been in touch for several weeks regarding a possible bilateral visit by Rahman to India. But, it added, the process had been \u201cvitiated\u201d by Hasina\u2019s 5 August appearance in New Delhi. Dhaka said that \u201ca propitious environment needs to be created for the visit\u201d and requested India to \u201cexpeditiously act\u201d on its extradition request for Hasina, as well as hand over another accused wanted in Bangladesh.<\/p>\n
India, for its part, has distanced itself from Hasina\u2019s political statements and made clear that it had no role in organising her appearance. It has also acknowledged Bangladesh\u2019s extradition request but has not agreed to hand her over. The proposed Rahman visit is now caught in the middle.<\/p>\n
The UN estimated that as many as 1,400 people may have been killed between 1 July and 15 August, with the vast majority shot by security forces. It said there were reasonable grounds to believe that hundreds of extrajudicial killings and other abuses had been carried out as part of a coordinated strategy of repression.<\/p>\n
The uprising began with student protests against the restoration of quotas in public-sector employment, but rapidly developed into a broader revolt against Hasina\u2019s increasingly authoritarian rule. Unable to contain the uprising, she fled to India on 5 August, 2024.<\/p>\n
The problem goes beyond Hasina\u2019s recent press conference. Discussions between India and Bangladesh about Rahman\u2019s visit had been underway for weeks. The visit has reportedly been under consideration for some time, and the two sides had already been wrestling with a difficult bilateral relationship.<\/p>\n
To make the 5 August event the principal reason for postponing or conditioning the visit is therefore somewhat overdone, Dhaka is merely using it as an excuse for a pivot it had already decided to make.<\/p>\n
More importantly, Rahman himself has signalled that China will be an important component of his foreign policy. His first substantive overseas visit was to China in June, following a stopover in Malaysia. In Beijing, he held talks with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang, and China offered support for Bangladesh\u2019s long-pending Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project. The two sides also signed a number of agreements covering economic, political and other areas of cooperation.<\/p>\n
This matters to India because the Teesta is not merely a development project. It is a politically sensitive transboundary river whose waters are shared by India and Bangladesh.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s interest in helping Bangladesh manage the river, including through flood control, irrigation, erosion prevention and other infrastructure, gives Beijing an additional strategic foothold in Bangladesh and that, too, proximate to its sensitive Siliguri Corridor.<\/p>\n
There is a legitimate legal and political issue surrounding Sheikh Hasina\u2019s extradition. But at the same time, it cannot ignore the politics of the situation and the fact that in Sheikh Hasina it had a friend who had aligned herself with India\u2019s interests, in contrast to her rival and Tarique\u2019s mother Khaleda Zia.<\/p>\n
Given geopolitical compulsions, India cannot simply look at Bangladesh through sentimental\u00a0prism of Hasina. It needs to work out a new policy that can navigate through the tangle that has been created by the political developments in the country.<\/p>\n