Bangladesh’s Junior Foreign Minister Humaiun Kobir’s comments on the ties between India and Bangladesh is bound to create ripples in foreign policy circles as the comments are seen as an attempt to recalibrate a time-tested friendship to a more transactional relationship, where Dhaka views New Delhi as equals. This is being seen as Dhaka’s attempt to rewrite the decades-old construct of the India-Bangladesh relationship amid the existing niggles over the presence of Sheikh Hasina and the hurdles that are stopping Tarique Rahman from visiting New Delhi even as India continues to push for normalisation of ties with steps like restarting tourist visas for Bangladeshis.
But Bangladesh, it seems, is in no hurry to respond to India’s invite and the comments of Kabir, a close aide of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, are seen as an attempt to redefine the future of the relationship.
But even as India and Bangladesh were discussing a bilateral visit in August in the backdrop of the invite from PM Modi, those plans fell through as Bangladesh fumed over former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina addressing an event in New Delhi. Let us have business to business ties together. Politics will continue in its own way.
But business and what is due to the common man – giving that is our responsibility”.
Bangladesh said Tarique Rahman was not invited to the BRICS summit as PM of Bangladesh but as chair of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). Speaking on the state of India-Bangladesh ties, Bangladesh’s National Parliament’s Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmad said, “Bangladesh has some reservations about India especially the decision to give shelter to former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and allowed her the opportunity to conduct politics from there which we don’t believe is how a friendly neighbour should behave”. After meeting Bangladesh’s Commerce Minister last month, Trivedi said, “Let us have people-to-people ties.
Foreign policy watchers have been asking about when the Bangladesh PM will visit India – given that it shares almost its entire land-boundary and New Delhi has stepped in with help especially earlier this year when the country faced a grave shortage of fuel.
