The Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri will be in Dhaka for 12 hours on December 9 to meet his counterpart and also the Chief Advisor to the Interim Government Dr. Muhammad Yunus.
Though described as being part of a routine "structured dialogue" between the two countries, Vikram Misri's talks with the Interim Government in Dhaka will decide if India and Bangladesh will return to being friends or will continue to be antagonistic.
After Sheikh Hasina was ousted from the Premiership of Bangladesh and was forced to flee to India on August 5, India-Bangladesh relations went down the chute. It has been going further down consistently since then, with serious charges being bandied by both sides, not officially, but by loud mouths in political parties and YouTube channels. Demonstrations are held in various cities in both countries increasing the pitch and adding fuel to the fire.
Interested parties in India have, for their own political gain, interpreted the July-August student-led mass movement against Hasina's oppressive rule into a movement against the Hindu minority in Bangladesh and against India with whom the Hindus have been linked.
At the same time, some radical Islamic forces in Bangladesh like the Jamaat-e-Islami and Hefazat-i-Islam saw in the July-August political crisis and its uncertain aftermath, an ideal opportunity to attack the Hindus who they dub as infidels with only a subordinate place in Islamic Bangladesh.
Thus, a popular, though violent, movement, against a dictatorial ruler, turned out to be a Hindu-Muslim and an India-Bangladesh conflict.
The crisis has made the Hindus of Bangladesh (8% of the 170 million), fear attacks from the Muslims. And the Muslim majority are fearful of an Indian attempt to twist the arms of the weak Interim Government of Prof. Muhammad Yunus in order to restore Hasina's rule. The popular belief in Bangladesh has been that Hasina was powerful because she had India's full backing.
Hackles went up in New Delhi when Bangladeshi authorities said that Hasina would be extradited and tried in the International Criminal Court (ICC). As per Dhaka Tribune, a complaint had been lodged against Hasina and 24 others in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands for allegedly violating human rights.
Forces opposed to Hasina saw her relations with India during her 15-year tenure as having been patently asymmetrical and skewed in favour of powerful India. A blind eye was turned to the fact that Bangladesh too had gained a lot and that Bangladesh would not have been able to grow and even survive without a close economic and people to people ties with India. Bangladesh is surrounded on three sides by India and the Bay of Bengal in the fourth side.
Geopolitical Dimension
The crisis had acquired geopolitical dimensions as well. Among Indians, the attacks on the Hindus in Bangladesh rekindled fears of radical Islamism. They rekindled Islamophobia in the West. Some British MPs condemned the attacks on the Hindus in Bangladesh. US President-elect Donal Trump's sharp comment in favour of the Hindus in Bangladesh has created apprehensions about an US-India axis to thwart the August 5 regime change in Bangladesh.
Indians see the ouster of Hasina as a Pakistani-US plot aimed at ending India's monopoly over Bangladesh. Bangladesh's step of easing the granting of visas to Pakistanis and also improving trade with Pakistan are seen as the development of an anti-Indian axis.
The India-Bangladesh conflict is being exacerbated by unverified reports of India deploying troops on the order and Bangladesh using Turkish drones over the border region to check on any hostile activities. There have attacks on the Bangladesh mission in Tripura and demonstrations in Dhaka against the Indian mission. Bangladeshi and Indian flags were burnt.
For Indian Hindus, the latest provocation has been the arrest of a Hindu monk, Chinmoy Krishna Das, denial of bail to him, and the postponement of the hearing of the case to January 2025. He has no lawyer to defend him because volunteers had allegedly been beaten up. India charged the Interim Government of dereliction of duty in this matter..
It is amidst this volatile situation on both sides of the border that India's Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri would be in Dhaka on December 9 for talks with his counterpart and other leaders.
Though described as being part of a routine "structured dialogue" between the two countries, Misri's talks with the Interim Government in Dhaka will decide if India and Bangladesh will return to being friends or will continue to be antagonistic.
Monk and Minorities
Misri is expected to address India's concerns regarding rising violence against Hindus and other minorities, which is a political hot potato in India especially with the Hindu nationalist government ensconced in Delhi. "Our position is clear—the interim government must fulfil its responsibility to protect minorities," said Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal on November 29. Misri is expected to seek a fair trial forcefully in his meetings in Dhaka. Backed as it is by the US in this matter, India would expect a fair trial for the Hindu monk.
Business to the Rescue
Meanwhile, despite the tension, trade between the two countries has not been perceptibly affected though there were calls for the boycott of Indian goods from the Bangladeshi side and blockades from the Indian side.
Some Indian hospitals and hotels declared that they would not entrain Bangladeshis but later business sense prevailed and the notices were withdrawn.
Indian and Bangladeshi authorities restored trade by reopening the largest land port between the two countries, which connects Petrapole (India) and Benapole (Bangladesh). This was done after India closed the six major land ports between the two countries in response to August forced change of government in Bangladesh.
The speedy restoration of trade was a result of the economic interdependence. India and Bangladesh have a close economic relationship, with India being Bangladesh's second-largest trading partner. Bangladesh is almost entirely surrounded by India, sharing 94% of its 4,367 km-long border with it.
Bangladesh relies on India for many supplies, including rice, wheat, cotton, iron and steel, electronic equipment and textile for its garment industry.
Saner Voices
Meanwhile, saner voices in both India and Bangladesh have called for restraint while being firm on fundamentals. Ambassador Harsh Vardhan Shingla, a former Indian Foreign Secretary, told an Indian TV channel that India-Bangladesh relations had a win-win quality as both nations had gained. Bangladesh needs India for its economic growth and survival, surrounded as it is by India on three sides. And India needs Bangladesh for its security and defence against separatism in the North East India and expansionist radical Islam.
In Bangladesh, Zillur Rahman, executive director at the Centre for Governance Studies (CGS), wrote in The Daily Star: "The worst thing Dr Muhammad Yunus' interim government can do is appear sympathetic to any side of this ongoing culture war. What Bangladesh needs right now is justice and a path to healing. The problem lies herein that justice and revenge are often impossible to distinguish."
Rahman further said: "At present, no one can ignore the rise in vitriolic rhetoric targeting certain minority groups and Indigenous communities. This escalation has left these groups feeling frustrated and fearful, prompting some to resort to their own brand of vitriolic, populist, and anti-establishment sentiment. What is deeply concerning is that individuals carrying such radical views may now have the ear of some of the advisers."
"At the moment, long unresolved divisions in society are catalysing due to the machinations of subversive foreign and domestic factors. This kind of division only worsens due to rampant misinformation pushed on social media without any accountability."
Rahman appealed to the Interim Government to remain above the fray of the culture war and focus squarely on its mandate and stop the public humiliation of groups or institutions not directly linked to the previous regime.
"Such actions would alienate important segments of society and deepen existing divisions, creating unnecessary distractions when the focus should remain on healing and rebuilding."