NEW DELHI, India – India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, dressed in black for the occasion, met Tariq Rahman, the son of late former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, with a somber expression on his face.
Khaleda had died the previous day, December 30, and Jaishankar was among a large number of community leaders who had gathered in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka for her funeral.
Jaishankar handed over a letter from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Rahman, who took over as leader of Khaleda’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Jaishankar then wrote in a post on X along with photos of the meeting, marking a dramatic break with New Delhi’s past relationship with the BNP: “On behalf of the Government of India and the people of India, I express my deepest condolences. I expressed confidence that Begum Khaleda Zia’s vision and values will guide the development of our partnership.”
For decades, India has opposed Mr. Khaleda’s “vision and values,” sometimes openly and sometimes privately.
To her millions of supporters in Bangladesh, she was a symbol of the heroic struggle against the 1980s military regime that first came to power in 1991, but India viewed her with suspicion and mistrust. For decades, the BNP has been allied with Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist group, which advocates closer ties with India’s arch-enemy Pakistan. India, on the other hand, treated Khaleda’s rival Sheikh Hasina and the avowedly secular Awami League as natural partners.
But as Bangladesh prepares for national elections in February, Jaishankar’s comments underline that India and the BNP appear to be pivoting away from hostility toward closer cooperation.
Humayun Kabir, Mr. Rahman’s foreign affairs adviser, told Al Jazeera that Mr. Jaishankar’s “very cordial” meeting in Dhaka with Mr. Rahman and his team of close allies signaled “the possibility of a new phase in bilateral relations.”
Analysts say this is a change that the situation has forced on both India and Rahman’s BNP.
A new start?
New Delhi’s decades-long support for the ousted leader has sparked strong anti-India sentiment on the streets of Bangladesh since student-led riots in July 2024 toppled Emirate Hasina’s 15-year rule.
Hasina currently lives in exile in New Delhi, but India has so far refused to extradite her to Bangladesh to face the death penalty after she was found guilty in absentia by a court on charges related to last year’s brutal crackdown on protesters by security forces. The United Nations estimates that about 1,400 people were killed in the crackdown.
Bilateral relations continue to deteriorate further. Protests against India have reignited in Bangladesh after the killing of a vocal anti-India protest leader in 2024. A Hindu Bangladeshi man was lynched. Both countries had to temporarily suspend visa operations at their respective high commissions.
However, Hasina’s Awami League has been banned from participating in February’s elections. Some analysts also believe that the BNP is trying to occupy the liberal and centrist political space vacated by the Awami League. He also parted ways with Jamaat. The Islamist group then formed a formidable alliance with a political party formed by the leaders of the 2024 student protests.
The BNP-Jamaat-led coalition is seen as the front-runner to form the next government after elections in February. And while India has been unable to come to terms with Jamaat’s politics and pro-Pakistan leanings, Mr. Rahman has sounded far more favorable to New Delhi in recent days.
Since returning to Dhaka in late December after 17 years in exile, Rahman has told supporters that he wants an inclusive Bangladesh where minorities are safe.
Harsh Vardhan Shringla, a former Indian foreign minister and high commissioner in Dhaka, told Al Jazeera that Rahman’s words suggested he had “grown up during his time in exile.”
“Mutual distrust and hostility”
Like Mr. Rahman, the BNP itself has been largely in political exile since it last came to power in 2006, with the party and its leaders targeted first by the military-backed caretaker government and then by the Awami League government led by Mr. Hasina, with multiple incidents and arrests.
His last term roughly coincided with the last time Prime Minister Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was in power, from 1998 to 2004. The Prime Minister of India at that time was Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Areas of conflict between BJP-ruled India and BNP-ruled Bangladesh spanned trade disputes, border disputes, river sharing, migration, armed rebellion, and violence against minorities. New Delhi accused Bangladesh of sheltering several anti-India militants within its premises, and the issue became a major irritant in bilateral relations.
India also accused the BNP of pandering to Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. Dhaka denied these charges.
“Essentially, there is a historical mutual distrust and animosity behind it,” said Shringla, who is now a member of the upper echelon of India’s parliament and nominated by Prime Minister Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
“In the BNP era, [2001-2006]Bangladesh supported an anti-India line and moved very close to Pakistan,” Shringla told Al Jazeera. [Tarique] Rahman was a leading figure in that government and had disproportionate influence. ”
“Mr. Rahman is the safest.”
However, the calculation method has changed.
When Khaleda was rushed to hospital in critical condition in late November, Prime Minister Modi immediately wished her a speedy recovery. BNP responded and thanked him for his wishes.
“Rahman seems to understand that he needs India’s support to succeed as prime minister. At least he doesn’t want to antagonize India,” Shringla said. “Now we have to see if his actions match his rhetoric.”
Sreerada Dutta, a professor of South Asian studies at India’s OP Jindal Global University, said that from India’s perspective, Mr. Rahman is now “saying all the right things.”
Mr. Dutta told Al Jazeera that Mr. Rahman’s apparent popularity – hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the streets of Dhaka to welcome him upon his arrival from London – suggested he could bring a sense of stability to the neighborhood.
Analysts also said that compared to the Jamaat-led alliance and other political actors in Bangladesh, Rahman represents New Delhi’s “safest bet” going forward.
“India views student revolutionaries and the Bangladeshi Jamaat-e-Islami as the greatest threat to India’s national interests,” said John Danilowicz, a former U.S. diplomat who spent eight years in Bangladesh.
Mr. Rahman’s public statements about his return to Dhaka “show a great deal of maturity,” Mr. Danilowicz said.
Michael Kugelman, a South Asian political analyst, said the Jamaat-BNP pre-poll suspension gave New Delhi more confidence in its response to Rahman.
“Besides the long-standing partnership between BNP and Jamaat, there is a lot of baggage from the past,” Kugelman told Al Jazeera. “For India, the memory of that alliance will be hard to erase.
“[Reaching out to Rahman is] “It’s not something that India is willing to do, it’s just something that it feels it has to do out of necessity,” he said.
“The bond between people is reborn”
But photos, handshakes, letters and warm feelings may not be enough to repair bilateral relations.
Kabir, Rahman’s adviser, warned that a new start “requires a complete break with the past.”
India maintains that its ties are with Bangladesh and not with any political party or leader in Dhaka, but the closest have been with Hasina and her Awami League party.
Unlike during Hasina’s tenure, Dhaka has become New Delhi’s “pet dog”, Kabir said. If Rahman comes to power, he will keep Bangladesh equidistant from regional powers such as India and China and maintain a “Bangladesh First” policy, Kabir added.
“People have a very strong hatred against India because Hasina used India in a bad way to justify her crimes in Bangladesh,” Kabir said. He added that the “new Bangladesh” after the July 2024 revolution views Hasina as a “terrorist”.
Kabir said Dhaka would continue to demand India’s extradition of Hasina if Rahman is elected to power in February. “The responsibility to maintain this [bilateral] The relationship is in New Delhi because we kept Hasina in New Delhi,” he said.
Hasina has publicly criticized the direction of Bangladesh under the Yunus government, infuriating Dhaka. “India needs to move on from the Hasina era and should not be seen as complicit in her corrupt activities to destabilize Bangladesh while she is in India,” Kabir said. Failure to do so will “spread anti-India hatred among the population and make it difficult for the next elected government to engage,” he warned. [with New Delhi] Contrary to popular sentiment. ”
In recent days, persistent tensions have extended beyond the worlds of politics and diplomacy.
On Saturday, the Indian cricket body that governs the popular Indian Premier League asked the Kolkata Knight Riders franchise to withdraw Bangladeshi pacer Mustafizur Rahman after the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership protested against his participation.
So what’s next?
Anil Trignayat, a former Indian diplomat who served in Bangladesh for five years, told Al Jazeera that if Rahman returns to power in Dhaka, “India’s biggest challenge will be to keep in check Pakistan and other anti-India militant groups embedded in Bangladesh.”
Danilowicz said he agreed that India would have such concerns, given the past pro-Pakistan leanings of the BNP, of which Jamaat was an ally.
But Rahman’s adviser Kabir said the BNP leader was focused on “improving and promoting cooperation” with India and other neighboring countries.
“There was no relationship between India and Bangladesh during the Hasina Emirate. It was only limited to Hasina,” Kabir said. “Right now, we need confidence that India is putting forth policies that mean a change of direction and actually rekindle the relationship between the peoples of Bangladesh and India.”
