Bangladesh nudges India to acknowledge 'qualitative change' in ties after Sheikh Hasina's fall

New Delhi: Ahead of a proposed meeting between the top diplomats of the two nations, Dhaka on Sunday nudged New Delhi to accept the reality that the collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government in Bangladesh on August 5 had brought about a qualitative change in its relations with India.

Dhaka also underlined that it would like to take its bilateral relations with New Delhi to newer heights based on equity and dignity. New Delhi, on the other hand, pointed out that both India and Bangladesh had “deep stakes” in the prosperity of each other.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri is likely to fly to Dhaka on Monday for the first visit from New Delhi after mass protests on the streets against the crackdown on the students and youths demanding the end of the reservation in jobs led to the fall of the Awami League government in Bangladesh on August 5. Apart from a meeting with his counterpart Mohammed Jashim Uddin, Misri is expected to call on Mohammed Touhid Hossain, the advisor on foreign affairs (equivalent to foreign minister) in the economist Muhammad Yunus’s interim government which succeeded Sheikh Hasina’s regime on August 8.

Misri may also call on Yunus, even as the relations between New Delhi and the interim government in Dhaka came under stress in the wake of protests in India against the atrocities on Hindus in Bangladesh, particularly after the arrest of a monk Chinmay Krishna Das Brahmachari, who had emerged as a front-line leader of the protest against the atrocities on the minority community in the neighbouring country.

After New Delhi conveyed its concerns to Dhaka, Yunus’s government played down the allegations of atrocities on Hindus in Bangladesh alleging exaggeration by the media in India.

“The first step towards solving a problem is to acknowledge the existence of the problem. We have to accept the fact that a qualitative change has come in India-Bangladesh relations after August 5 (the day Sheikh Hasina’s government collapsed),” Hossain said at an event in Dhaka on Sunday. “We have to accept this fact and take the relationship forward.”

Hasina’s political opponents accused her of running the government in Dhaka according to the diktat from New Delhi and of giving India’s interests primacy over the interests of Bangladesh while managing the bilateral relations with India.

The Awami League’s arch-rivals Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami as well as other radical organisations of late raised the pitch of rhetoric against India.

The BNP’s frontal organisations on Sunday held a march near the High Commission of India in Dhaka, protesting against the alleged desecration of the national flag of Bangladesh in India, the alleged disinformation campaign about Bangladesh by the media in India, and the alleged vandalisation of the Assistant High Commission of Bangladesh at Agartala in India. The police blocked the protesters and later allowed some of them to submit a memorandum to the High Commission of India.

“Today we are working together as two fast-growing economies creating new opportunities for each other's people. Despite changes and occasional challenges and ups and downs, we have deep stakes in each other's prosperity and development,” Pranay Verma, New Delhi’s envoy to Dhaka, said while speaking at an event on the occasion of Maitri Diwas.

The Maitri Diwas commemorates India’s recognition of the government of Bangladesh on December 6, 1971, ten days before the defeat of the Pakistan Army led to the liberation of East Pakistan into Bangladesh.

Bangladesh seeks a partnership with India based on equity and dignity, said Shafiqul Alam, the press secretary to Muhammad Yunus, the chief advisor of the interim government in Dhaka. “We are hopeful about further strengthening our relationship with India. We aim to take our bilateral ties to newer heights.”

He also said that after the completion of legal proceedings against Sheikh Hasina, Dhaka would ask New Delhi to send her from India to stand trial in Bangladesh. Hasina had flown to an Indian Air Force base near New Delhi after leaving Dhaka on August 5.