India’s knotty Sheikh Hasina problem

For months, Bangladesh and India had been inching toward what diplomats like to call a reset: the careful reopening of a relationship that had been badly damaged by the fall of Sheikh Hasina on 5 August 2024, her flight to India and New Delhi’s awkward inheritance of a former ally who had become politically toxic across much of Bangladesh.

Then, on 5 August 2026, Hasina spoke from New Delhi.

Her live (audio only) appearance at a media event in the Indian capital disrupted preparations for Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s first state visit (21-22 August) to India since his landslide election victory in February. The trip has not been formally cancelled. But neither is it proceeding as planned.

India has also invited Rahman to attend the BRICS summit in New Delhi next month in his capacity as chairman of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). Bangladesh has made it clear that it prefers a distinct bilateral visit, with the protocol and political substance appropriate to a prime minister arriving in his own right.

Now even that discussion has become entangled with Hasina.

The significance lies less in the postponement than in what caused it. Bangladesh had warned India that allowing Hasina to conduct political activities from Indian soil could damage a relationship both governments had spent months trying to repair. When New Delhi did not prevent Hasina’s media event, Dhaka concluded that the environment it had sought for Rahman’s visit did not exist.

India says it neither organised the event nor endorsed Hasina’s comments. Its foreign ministry has reiterated that New Delhi wants “positive, constructive and forward-looking relations” with Bangladesh based on reciprocity, and that Dhaka’s extradition requests are being examined under established procedures.

The distinction is diplomatically defensible. Politically, it has proved less persuasive.

To Bangladesh, the issue is not whether the Indian government ‘arranged’ Hasina’s appearance. It is whether India, after being explicitly warned of the consequences, was providing a political platform to a former prime minister who has been convicted of crimes against humanity in Bangladesh and sentenced to death over the suppression of the 2024 uprising.

Dhaka’s response has been calculated. By linking the atmosphere surrounding his visit to India’s handling of Hasina, the Tarique Rahman government has taken a relatively low-cost diplomatic risk. It has not suspended trade, security cooperation, energy exchanges or other practical areas of engagement.

Nor has it abandoned negotiations over the visit. It has instead withheld something India plainly wants: the political symbolism of an early summit between Narendra Modi and the newly elected Bangladeshi prime minister.

The strategy has an obvious domestic advantage for Rahman. Few issues in Bangladesh carry more political baggage than relations with India, and few accusations have historically been more damaging than appearing deferential toward New Delhi. By refusing to travel immediately after Hasina was given a public platform in the Indian capital, Rahman can demonstrate that engagement with India will not come at the expense of political dignity at home.

It also allows him to remain open to India without appearing eager for its approval.

That distinction matters. The Rahman government has not adopted an anti-India policy. It has instead tried to define what officials describe as a ‘Bangladesh First’ policy: cooperation based on sovereign equality, reciprocity and non-interference. The government continues to seek Indian cooperation on energy, trade, security and water sharing. The Ganga water-sharing treaty expires this year, making continued engagement unavoidable.

The danger is that Dhaka’s approach remains essentially reactive.

The immediate leverage belongs largely to India because the triggering issue of political space afforded to Hasina while living in India is controlled by New Delhi, not Dhaka. Every new speech, interview or political intervention by Hasina could force Bangladesh to decide whether to respond, escalate or ignore.

A policy designed around India’s decisions about Hasina therefore risks allowing New Delhi, and indirectly Hasina herself, to dictate the rhythm of bilateral relations. That may be manageable in the short term. Over a longer period, it would prove costly.

India can choose to maintain strategic ambiguity around Hasina: neither extraditing her nor formally embracing her, while preserving a former ally as a source of potential leverage over Dhaka. Or, it can quietly restrict her political activities without changing her legal status or publicly yielding to Bangladeshi pressure. The second course may look increasingly attractive.

Hasina’s value to India has always rested partly on the stability she once offered. During her 15 years in power, her government addressed Indian security concerns, acted against insurgent groups using Bangladeshi territory and developed extensive economic, transit and energy ties with New Delhi.

But the strategic usefulness of an ally changes when that ally loses power. Supporting Hasina politically is one thing. Allowing her presence to obstruct India’s relationship with an elected Bangladeshi government is another.

The 5 August appearance illustrates India’s ‘Hasina problem’. By temporarily disrupting the emerging recalibration between Dhaka and New Delhi, Hasina has demonstrated that she remains capable of affecting Bangladeshi politics from exile.

The two countries share a border of roughly 4,100 km. Bangladesh is critical to connectivity with India’s northeast and sits at the centre of New Delhi’s ambitions for greater economic integration around the Bay of Bengal. Border security, power trade, counterterrorism, transit and river management all require functioning relations with whoever governs in Dhaka.

The long-term restoration of Hasina to power, even if it were politically conceivable, would almost certainly entail severe instability in Bangladesh. For India, backing such an outcome aggressively would carry substantial political and regional costs.

That does not mean New Delhi will abandon Hasina. India has longstanding relationships with her and the Awami League, and extradition is legally and politically complicated.

There are already signs that both governments understand the cost of allowing the dispute to consume the relationship.

On Tuesday night (18 August), Indian high commissioner Dinesh Trivedi delivered an unusually expansive appeal in Dhaka for the two countries to “move on”.

“We need to get ourselves together. I’m not telling you to forget the past,” he said. “But … sort out the differences … Don’t get stagnant.”

Trivedi said Modi wished to meet Rahman and promised that the Bangladeshi prime minister would receive an “honourable reception” in India. He described the relationship as a “partnership of equals” and said differences could be resolved once the two prime ministers met.

The language was striking because it addressed, almost point by point, the anxieties that have accumulated in Dhaka: equality, respect, political recognition and the need for a bilateral meeting substantial enough to deal with difficult questions.

It was also an acknowledgment that protocol alone will not repair the relationship.

Faisal Mahmud is a Dhaka-based journalist. More of his writing here