Participants in the 6th BIMSTEC Summit at Bangkok, in Thailand on April 04, 2025. Photo Credit: India Prime Minister Office
Ties between India and Bangladesh which had virtually snapped following the violent overthrow of India’s protégé Sheikh Hasina in August last year, showed faint signs of a revival last week, but only to disappoint quickly.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bangladeshi Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus met in Bangkok on the side lines of the Sixth BIMSTEC summit on April 4, the first time since August 2024.
Modi’s body language lacked the trademark bonhomie, but by all accounts, the discussion was not acrimonious.
In an encouraging departure from his practice of not greeting Muslims on Eid, Modi sent Eid greetings to Yunus. On its part, Dhaka promptly filled the vacant post of High Commissioner in New Delhi with the seasoned and affable diplomat, Riaz Hamidullah, who reached New Delhi post haste.
At that point it did appear as if the India-Bangladesh relationship was on the mend. But actually the ice did not thaw. Indian leaders, TV commentators and the news media, poured scorn on Yunus for telling the Chinese official TV channel CGTN that the “landlocked” Indian North Eastern States, plus Bhutan and Nepal, could use Bangladesh as a corridor to reach the Bay of Bengal because Bangladesh was the “guardian” of the Bay of Bengal.
Yunus also suggested that China could use the area for its investments. India saw these as preposterous suggestions meant to split the North Eastern States from India and place Bangladesh rather than India as the key player in the region.
This coupled with Yunus’ efforts to secure Chinese investments in Chittagong and a reported bid to build an airbase at Rangpur in the North with Chinese help, rang alarm bells in Delhi.
There were calls by some North Eastern Indian leaders to invade Bangladesh and set up an Indian-administered corridor to the North Eastern States.
At his meeting with Modi in Bangkok, Yunus did not help matters when he asked his Indian counterpart to extradite fugitive former Prime Minister Hasina to face trial for human rights violations. Modi countered by asking Bangladesh not to make provocative statements, protect the minority Hindus and Buddhists, and hold elections. India, he added, had a civilizational approach to international relations, hinting that he will not let down a long standing friend like Sheikh Hasina.
India then sprang a surprise by barring transhipment facilities to Bangladeshi products at Indian ports and airports. Only transhipment for Bhutan and Nepal were allowed.
This left Bangladesh reeling as the US had by then slapped a 37% Reciprocal Tariff and a 10% Baseline Tariff on imports from Bangladesh. A 90 days’ pause that followed was small comfort for Bangladesh which depends hugely on exports to the US. India’s transhipment barrier would only raise exports costs
On its part, Bangladesh kept up its anti-Hasina line. A Dhaka court issued an arrest warrant against Shaikh Hasina and her daughter Saima Wazed, who is a WHO official on some corruption charges.
However, all is not lost. BIMSTEC, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, could be the forum for building bridges. Founded in 1997, India and Bangladesh are key members of BIMSTEC. While India is the most consequential member, Bangladesh took over the chairmanship from Thailand on April 6. Bangladesh will be chair for 2025 and 2026.
So far, India has not played the kind of role it should have played in BIMSTEC partly because it was cultivating the West, especially the US. It needed technological and security support from the US to face China’s challenge. But come Donald Trump, the face of the US changed unrecognizably. New Delhi could no longer count on the US for unconditional help given Trump’s transactional approach.
In the changed situation, India is making efforts to mend fences with China. New Delhi is also making p with estranged neighbours like Nepal and Bangladesh and keep ties with Sri Lanka from breaking.
It needs to increase its exports to South Asian and South East Asian countries to compensate for losses arising from high US tariffs.
India has not been able to use the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) because it has, as a member, arch enemy Pakistan. Other organisations like BRICS and SCO have rival China in a dominant position. BIMSTEC is the only organization in the region which is free from irritants like China and Pakistan. The field is open to India in BIMSTEC.
It was to strengthen India’s position in BIMSTEC that Prime Minister Modi announced India’s interest in sponsoring several projects for the benefit of BIMSTEC member countries. He also had talks with Bangladeshi leader Muhammad Yunus, the Nepalese Prime Minister K.P.Oli and the Myanmar Junta leader Gen.Min.Aung Hlaing.
Ambitious Indian Projects
And at the BIMSTEC summit, Modi proposed a plethora of India-funded projects for BIMSTEC members. These were as follows – establishment of the BIMSTEC Chamber of Commerce; organization of a BIMSTEC Business Summit every year; conducting a feasibility study on the possibilities of trade in local currencies in the BIMSTEC region; doing a pilot study to understand the needs of BIMSTEC countries for sharing India’s experience in Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI); establishing connectivity between payment systems in the BIMSTEC region;
Establishing a BIMSTEC Centre of Excellence for Disaster Management in India, and holding joint exercises between BIMSTEC Disaster Management Authorities in India this year.
Modi proposed the setting up ground stations for manpower training for BIMSTEC countries in manufacturing and launching Nano Satellites, and using remote sensing data; establishing a BIMSTEC centre for human resource infrastructure initiative to train 300 youth from BIMSTEC countries in India every year; granting scholarships to BIMSTEC students in the Forestry Research Institute of India and expanding the scholarship scheme at Nalanda University; and holding a training programme every year for young diplomats from BIMSTEC countries.
Modi also said that the Tata Memorial Centre should support training and capacity building in cancer care in BIMSTEC countries. He proposed to establish a Centre of Excellence for research and dissemination in traditional medicine, setting up a Centre of Excellence in India for the exchange of knowledge and best practices, research and capacity building for the benefit of farmers;
He also proposed the speeding up of work on electric grid interconnection and establishing a Sustainable Maritime Transport Centre in India to enhance coordination in capacity building, research, innovation and maritime policies.
All these indicate India’s intense and wide-ranging interest in BIMSTEC. For these projects to reach fruition and make a meaningful contribution to the organization, the cooperation of Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka are necessary, especially Bangladesh, because Bangladesh has taken over from Thailand as the chair of BIMSTEC.
Thus BIMSTEC could well be the much needed catalyst to speed up the normalization of India-Bangladesh relations. But this presupposes that both sides will play ball and avoid precipitate actions and inflammatory statement.
K. Balachandran is a senior Indian journalist working in Sri Lanka for local and international media and has been writing on South Asian issues for the past 21 years.
Courtesy: Eurasia Review
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Coverpage’s editorial stance.
