Perceptions are important; Relations between Bangladesh and India have changed from decidedly friendly in the four months since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the apparently friendly leader of the Awami League, fled and was given refuge by the Narendra Modi government. The cold is mutual.
Dhaka’s formal demand for Hasina’s extradition, which New Delhi is unlikely to accept, will only intensify friction.
This problem is embedded in the ideology and political practices of the BJP and its parent RSS. Its activists and devotees seem to have been programmed for decades to respond to certain signals. Congress is a red rag and if this is the BJP-RSS’s way of associating an object of dislike with the ideological obsession of Muslims, the reaction is the automatic release of a tide of verbal vitriol as even the Supreme Court has described it. Hate speech.” Reflecting this, specific political parties and exceptionally Islamist, i.e., “radical” organizations in Bangladesh see India as a source of threat to the identity of the Muslim-majority nation. In and out of power, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Jamaat-e-Islami and the New Hefazat- A-Islam is therefore deeply suspicious of India, Hindus and other minorities and sees them as packaged sources of instability.
India’s neighborhood has changed a lot. The constraints of domestic politics in the neighborhood require countries to continue to search for symbols and individuals that can be targeted as a cause of destabilization. India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has made it difficult to negotiate to maintain cordial relations with its equally touchy neighbours. India has long been a part of Bangladesh’s internal politics. Muhammad Yunus Under pressure from the BNP to hold elections by the end of 2025, the Modi government will have to find ways to deal with the inevitable rise in anti-India rhetoric that is part of the political campaign. .
During Sheikh Hasina’s tenure, radical Islamist factions like Hefazat-e-Islam or Jamaat-e-Islami regularly spewed venom that mirrored BJP slogans like “Ek Hain Toh Sikher Hain” or “Batange To Katenge”. The difference was that she downplayed it and kept India-Bangladesh relations on par. Yunus cannot run the regime in the way Hasina did.
India must be prepared to face the rhetoric and attacks of a resurgent BNP and radical Islamist elements to mobilize the masses. To put it mildly, the Modi government is seriously ill-prepared to do so, as the tote bag incident has revealed. By using illegal Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh whose sole objective, targeting women, land and property, to bring about demographic change, was interpreted as a pitch for the Jharkhand elections, the Modi government has made it difficult for India to manage itself. relations with Bangladesh with any semblance of maturity.
A change in the neighborhood requires that the conduct of politics within India, especially the ruling BJP MPs, calibrate their knee-jerk reaction in a way that does not embarrass the Modi government. This was evident from the vicious reaction of the highly influential media machine to newlywed MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s tote bag calling for solidarity with BJP MPs and Bangladeshi Hindus. This demand was entirely in line with the Modi government’s efforts to build bridges with the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government and the military-political establishment that supported it. Not only did the Indian Prime Minister raise the issue in his first conversation with Mr. Yunus, but it was part of the agenda during Foreign Secretary Vikram Mishri’s recent visit to Dhaka. He spoke to the interim government about violence and attacks against Hindus, particularly Chinmoy Krishna Das, former ISKCON, in Chittagong, where ultra-conservative and militant Hefazat-e-Islam activists and lawyers have denied legal services.
In its mindless competition to score points against the Congress and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s celebrity status, the BJP made a serious mistake. Coincidentally or otherwise, the Bangladesh High Court has sentenced United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) chief Paresh Barua and listed terrorists of both countries to life imprisonment. The reduction in the severity of his sentence in the arms smuggling case from 2004 and the acquittal of former Bangladesh Nationalist Party minister Lutfozzaman Babar and five others is a message that India cannot misread: the current Bangladesh regime is very different. Which was led by Sheikh Hasina. The timing of the executions and acquittals indicate that the Yunus regime has sent a clear message to India. And that message is certainly not favorable.
The ‘symbiotic relationship’ between India and Sheikh Hasina’s Bangladesh, and before that during the lifetime of her father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is now over. As the Modi government has worked tirelessly to identify Bangladeshis as illegal immigrants and cast them as hostile Muslim infiltrators who, upon arriving in India, have become terrorists or potential troublemakers with an agenda to swamp the Hindu majority in terms of population, the narrow link between the order in current political Bangladesh Said things like “choke the chicken’s neck” referring to the corridor. The rest of India’s northeastern country is seriously hostile.
Regal room has shrunk to reduce current levels of mistrust. As head of the interim government, Yunus was pushed to defend his rule by describing the attacks on temples, the facts of Hindus being attacked and killed, and the general feeling of insecurity as “propaganda”. For its own reasons, Bangladesh could not have it any other way, because it is an admission of human rights abuses that weakens the Yunus regime in the eyes of the world.
When signals are open to different readings and certainly capture mis-readings, the conduct of complex foreign policy becomes extremely difficult to deal with complex issues. A Bangladesh court commuted Paresh Barua’s sentence, sending a live bomb to India that will test Mr. Modi’s ability to handle foreign policy issues that affect volatile domestic issues, particularly in the northeast, not only in Manipur but also in Nagaland. A major improvement in relations between Bangladesh and Pakistan is another major problem for the Narendra Modi government, which is accustomed to attacking Pakistan as a source of forces, including terrorists, intent on destabilizing India.