Bangladesh Signals Shift to Transactional Ties With India
Bangladesh's junior foreign minister says India is 'just another country', signalling a push for a more equal, transactional relationship.
Bangladesh is signalling a recalibration of its long-standing relationship with India, with a junior minister describing New Delhi as "just another country" and calling for ties built on mutual respect between sovereign equals.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs Humaiun Kobir told journalists that Bangladesh wanted a good working relationship with India, but urged his compatriots to look beyond their preoccupation with the neighbour. "Your daily discussion at breakfast is India, at lunch it is India and at dinner also it is India... Think of your own country," he said, adding that India is "just another country that we want a good working relationship with".
The remarks are being read as an attempt to move the relationship away from the language of a special, time-tested friendship towards a more transactional framework. Parliament Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmad echoed the sentiment, recalling that a previous foreign minister had likened India-Bangladesh ties to a husband-and-wife relationship. "We don't want a husband-wife relationship. We want a relationship based on mutual respect as it should be between two sovereign nations," he said.
Ahmad said Dhaka has reservations over India's decision to shelter former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and allow her to conduct politics from its soil, which he said was not how a friendly neighbour should behave. "We want good relations with India but till now, we don't see indications that they want good relations," he added.
Bangladesh has yet to respond to India's invitation to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman for a bilateral visit. Rahman skipped an invitation to the BRICS summit, which he had been invited to attend in his capacity as chair of BIMSTEC. Dhaka indicated it wants his first visit to India to be framed around the bilateral relationship rather than a multilateral gathering.
Plans for a bilateral visit discussed in August did not materialise after Bangladesh objected to Sheikh Hasina addressing an event in New Delhi. India clarified that the government had no role in organising the event and did not endorse the views expressed there.
Meanwhile, Dhaka has been expanding its diplomatic options, signing multiple agreements with China, including plans to buy fighter planes, and indicating an interest in joining the Mecca Pact.
India has kept the door open for normalisation. High Commissioner to Bangladesh Dinesh Trivedi has pitched for ties centred on issues affecting ordinary people rather than high-voltage politics, saying after a meeting with Bangladesh's commerce minister that business and people-to-people links should be strengthened. Trivedi has been meeting senior officials in the current administration.