India and Bangladesh need each other but politicians think otherwise

Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri’s one-day visit to Dhaka this week marked a turning point in bilateral relations with Bangladesh. The sudden collapse in August of the Awami League government and erstwhile Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's escape from Bangladesh on 5 August following popular unrest, caused bilateral ties to almost come to a standstill. India waited to see if the interim government put in place by students would last the course or whether it too would fall under the weight of expectations, lawlessness and possible intervention by the army.

Five months after the coup or the ‘August Revolution’, the relationship continues to be fraught. Bottlenecks have affected trade, and distrust has affected the movement of people. The number of Bangladeshi tourists, students, businessmen and patients seeking medical attention and surgery in India is down to a trickle.

Bangladesh is too small to make a difference to a country of India’s size, acknowledged a perceptive Bangladeshi journalist, but pockets in India, especially in the eastern states, can get seriously hurt if the situation does not normalise soon. In short, the two neighbours are both losers as bilateral ties nosedive.

The Indian foreign secretary’s visit, it was therefore hoped, would break the ice and help cool temperatures on both sides. It signalled India’s intent to do business with the interim government and marked a tacit recognition in New Delhi that the interim government in Bangladesh is possibly here to stay and continues to enjoy popular support.

There is also the recognition that India needs Bangladesh almost as badly as Bangladesh does India. CPI(M) leader Fuad Halim put this in context. “India’s export to Bangladesh stood at $13.8 billion in 2022. But it is not one-way trade. The cotton grown in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh is processed in the mills in Maharashtra and Gujarat. It is converted into cloth and goes to Bangladesh from Kolkata…that cloth is used in the stitching industry in Bangladesh and the finished product is sold globally. The money that flows into Bangladesh is also spent in India,” he said while addressing a meeting in Kolkata.

“Tens of thousands of people are staring at loss of livelihood because of the Bangladesh crisis”, read a report this week in The Telegraph as hotels to hospitals continue to feel the absence of custom from Bangladeshis. Kolkata's iconic New Market wore a deserted look, unusual for this time of the year. “Bangladeshis had the money to spend,” rued a shopkeeper. The occupancy in hotels in central Kolkata is down by as much as 90-95 per cent and apartments rented out to visitors from Bangladesh in the city for prolonged treatment and surgery are empty.

A transport operator laments his inability to pay his staff while Anil Punjabi, national committee member of the Travel Agents Federation of India, proposes that traders come forward to find a solution. A signature campaign, he suggests in desperation, to appeal to the two governments to resolve the visa issue.

The neighbours have no alternative to working together, says Tanim Ahmed, digital editor of The Daily Star in Dhaka. Nor just security and stability in India’s northeast but also water sharing, collaborations in health and education and business opportunities would be beneficial for both countries, he feels. Consular services need to be restored soon to facilitate tourism and also business, he says, pointing out that there is substantial Indian investment in Bangladesh and a significant number of Indian workers and students.

The foreign secretary’s visit was also significant because it was the first time the foreign secretaries of the two countries, who had a one-to-one meeting before delegation-level talks, were meeting after August. Bangladesh has shown many of the diplomats assigned roles by the previous government the door and recalled several of its envoys from world capitals. There are also former diplomats who dare not return to Bangladesh and fear persecution, desperately seeking political asylum in different countries.

India has always maintained that Sheikh Hasina was a ‘great friend’ of India. The supporters of the current interim government in Bangladesh, on the other hand, accuse India of ignoring other political parties, people-to-people contacts and civil society there. Indian diplomats and intelligence agencies failed to anticipate the developments in Bangladesh or even warn their ‘great friend’. The disconnect was clearly real.

Muhammad Yunus, who has had a fraught relationship with Sheikh Hasina and was himself forced into exile following criminal charges, has no reason to be charitable. He has also stated publicly that political activities of Sheikh Hasina while in exile in India are problematic.

The former prime minister has made statements accusing the interim government of committing genocide and persecuting the Hindu minority. The more than generous coverage of her statements in the Indian media has added to the suspicion in Dhaka that Indian media had access to her while Bangladeshi media did not.

Sentiments against Hasina continue to run high in Bangladesh. She is being publicly accused of having acted like a ‘salaried employee’ of India, of giving limited but significant transit rights to India through Bangladesh to the states in the Northeast and for allowing the Adani Group to sell power at exorbitant rates.

She is also accused of ruling the country ruthlessly and being responsible for torturing, maiming and killing of dissidents and rivals besides ‘forced disappearances’ of thousands. She allowed India to treat Bangladesh as a colony is yet another charge that is openly being aired.

Opinion-makers in Bangladesh have said on record that they feel safer and ‘freer’ than at any time in the last 15 years. Several Bangladeshi editors in Dhaka have spoken to prominent Indian journalist and interviewer Karan Thapar on camera and declared that they would never have spoken as freely if Sheikh Hasina was in power. Typically, she has been accused of allowing Awami League loyalists and cronies to corner contracts, subsidies and bank loans and defaulting on repayments.

The distrust on both sides is deep. The interim government resents lectures from India on the persecution of minorities, especially Hindus in Bangladesh, and what they feel is deliberate disinformation by the Indian media.

In a sarcastic piece in The Daily Star, the author took a potshot and wrote, “Indian media’s approach to Bangladesh is akin to a drama serial writer on a sugar high. The narrative? Bangladesh has descended into chaos since Sheikh Hasina’s departure. Communal violence, militant resurgence, and anti-India rhetoric — all served up with a slice of hysteria…one Bengali news anchor even went on a tirade, claiming, 'Bangladesh is becoming Pakistan!' Never mind that the so-called evidence was as flimsy as a paper umbrella in a monsoon.”

Zafar Sobhan, editor of another prominent English newspaper Dhaka Tribune, exclaimed on social media, “Oh dear; Sometimes they say the quiet part out loud” to a tweet by BJP leader and former Tripura governor Tathagata Roy, which read: “I can understand our anguish at India’s silence in the face of inhuman persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh. I am anguished myself. But what is the alternative to Modiji?... We just wish to get the Modi of Gujarat-2002 back."

Dhaka does not deny stray attacks on Hindus and temples. However, it has pointed out that the motivation was mostly political and not religious — for being seen as Awami League supporters. For the same reason, a large number of Muslims too were targeted, Dhaka has pointed out. Former cricket captain Mashrafe Mortaza’s house was set on fire and allrounder Shakib Al Hassan was charged in a murder case, forcing him to decide against returning to the country.

On the controversial arrest of the ‘former’ ISKCON associate Chandan Das, it says the provocation was a police complaint of sedition and disrespecting the national flag. On reasons why no lawyer is allowed to defend him, Dhaka claims that supporters of Das had resorted to violence, clashed with the police and hacked an assistant public prosecutor to death. Both deeds were caught on camera and enraged people. Barrister Rashna Imam said she is confident that justice would prevail.

Besides disinformation, the interim government also blames India for a restrictive visa policy for Bangladeshis. Yunus, while addressing envoys from the European Union, urged them to consider moving a part of their visa offices from New Delhi to Dhaka. "Due to India's restrictions on visas for Bangladeshis, many students are unable to travel to Delhi to obtain European visas, creating uncertainty, and European universities are missing out on Bangladeshi students,” he said.

Foreign affairs adviser Towhid Hossain noted that Bulgaria has already relocated its visa centre for Bangladeshi applicants to Indonesia and Vietnam. He urged other countries to follow suit.

Nahid Islam, one of the student leaders who spearheaded the movement against Sheikh Hasina and is now an advisor in the interim government, asserted in a long post that ‘it was during the Awami League’s tenure that minorities faced the highest level of persecution, yet Delhi unconditionally supported the Awami League’.

He went on to allege, “The BJP is attempting to turn Bangladesh into an internal political issue for India. If this happens, it will be detrimental to India’s domestic politics…anti-Bangladesh and anti-Muslim politics will not serve India’s national interest or contribute to its unity."

As members and supporters of the Awami League, which had an uninterrupted, 15-year stint in power, are hounded and demands for the Hasina's extradition to undergo trials for her alleged crimes grow, India is yet to clarify whether it has granted or considered granting her political asylum, and what her current status is.

Rebuilding relationships and trust will take time, especially since politicians and the media on both sides show little interest in defusing the tension and normalising trade and movement of people as quickly as possible.