New Delhi, India – Dressed in black for the occasion, India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar met Tarique Rahman, son of the deceased former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, with sombre expressions on their faces.
Khaleda had passed away the previous day, on December 30, and Jaishankar was among a large group of regional leaders who had gathered in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, for her funeral.
Jaishankar handed Rahman, who has taken over the leadership of Khaleda’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), a letter from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Then, in a post on X alongside photos of their meeting, Jaishankar wrote words that demonstrate a dramatic break with New Delhi’s past relationship with the BNP: “Conveyed deepest condolences on behalf of the Government and people of India. Expressed confidence that Begum Khaleda Zia’s vision and values will guide the development of our partnership.”
For decades, India had been – at times, publicly, on other occasions, privately – opposed to Khaleda’s “vision and values”.
Where for millions of her supporters in Bangladesh, she represented a heroic struggle against military rule in the 1980s that first brought her to power in 1991, India viewed her with suspicion and distrust. For decades, the BNP had an alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist group that advocates for stronger ties with Pakistan, India’s arch-enemy. Meanwhile, India treated Khaleda’s rival, Sheikh Hasina, and her avowedly secular Awami League party as its natural partners.
But as Bangladesh prepares for national elections in February, Jaishankar’s comments underscore how India and the BNP appear to be pivoting from their animus towards a closer working relationship.
Jaishankar’s “very cordial” meeting with Rahman and his team of confidantes in Dhaka presented the “potential of a new phase in the bilateral relationship”, Humayun Kabir, foreign affairs adviser to Rahman, told Al Jazeera.
It’s a shift that circumstances have forced on both India and the Rahman-led BNP, say analysts.
A new start?
Since the student-led July 2024 uprising toppled Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, New Delhi’s decades-long support for the ousted leader has prompted strong anti-India sentiments on Bangladeshi streets.
Hasina now lives in exile in New Delhi, and India has so far refused to return her to Bangladesh to face the death penalty, after being convicted in absentia by a tribunal on charges related to the brutal crackdown by her security forces on protesters last year. The United Nations estimates that about 1,400 people died in the crackdown.
Bilateral relations have continued to slide further: After a 2024 protest leader who was vocally anti-India was murdered, protests against India picked up again in Bangladesh. A Hindu Bangladeshi man was lynched. Both countries had to temporarily suspend visa services at their respective high commissions.
But Hasina’s Awami League is banned from participating in the February elections. And some analysts believe that the BNP is trying to occupy the liberal and centrist political space vacated by the Awami League. It has also broken up with the Jamaat – the Islamist group has since partnered with a party formed by leaders of the 2024 student protest movement, in a formidable alliance.
The BNP and the Jamaat-led coalition are seen as the frontrunners competing to form the next government after the February elections. And while India can’t reconcile with the Jamaat’s politics – and its pro-Pakistan tilt – Rahman has in recent days made statements that are far more palatable to New Delhi.
Since returning to Dhaka in late December after 17 years in exile, Rahman told supporters that he wanted an inclusive Bangladesh, where minorities are safe.
His words suggest that Rahman has “matured during his years in exile”, Harsh Vardhan Shringla, a former Indian foreign secretary who has also served as high commissioner in Dhaka, told Al Jazeera.
‘Mutual mistrust and animosity’
Like Rahman, the BNP itself has largely been in political exile since it was last in power in 2006 – the party and its leaders were first targeted by an interim military-backed government and then by Hasina’s Awami League government with multiple cases and arrests.
Its last stint in office coincided in large part with the last time that Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was in power, between 1998 and 2004. At the time, India’s prime minister was Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Areas of contention between the BJP-ruled India and BNP-ruled Bangladesh ranged from trade disputes, border disputes, river water sharing, migration, armed rebellion, and violence against minorities. New Delhi accused Bangladesh of allowing several anti-India armed fighters shelter on its terrain, and the issue became a major irritant in bilateral relations.
India also accused the BNP of pandering to Pakistani intelligence agencies. Dhaka denied these accusations.
“Essentially, the background has been one of mutual mistrust and animosity that is historic,” said Shringla, who is now a member of the Indian parliament’s upper house, nominated by Modi’s BJP.
“Under the BNP years [2001-2006], Bangladesh supported an anti-India line and became very close to Pakistan,” Shringla told Al Jazeera. “And [Tarique] Rahman was a prime mover in that government and had disproportionate influence.”
‘Rahman is safest bet’
Yet calculations have changed.
When Khaleda was moved to a hospital in critical condition in late November, Modi was quick to wish her a speedy recovery. The BNP responded, thanking him for the wishes.
“Rahman seems to understand that for him to be a successful prime minister, he needs India’s support – or, at the least, he doesn’t want India’s antagonism,” said Shringla. “Now, we have to see whether his actions match rhetoric.”
From India’s perspective, Rahman is now “saying all the correct things”, said Sreeradha Datta, a professor specialising in South Asian studies at India’s OP Jindal Global University.
Rahman’s apparent popularity – hundreds of thousands gathered on the streets of Dhaka to greet him when he arrived from London – suggests that he could bring a sense of stability in the neighbourhood, Datta told Al Jazeera.
Analysts say Rahman also represents the “safest bet” for New Delhi going forward, compared with the Jamaat-led alliance and other political actors in Bangladesh.
“India sees the student revolutionaries and the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami as the biggest threats to Indian interests,” said Jon Danilowicz, a former US diplomat who spent eight years working in Bangladesh.
Rahman’s public statements on returning to Dhaka “have shown great maturity”, Danilowicz said.
The pre-poll break between the Jamaat and the BNP also gives New Delhi more confidence in dealing with Rahman, said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia political analyst.
“There is a lot of baggage from the past, in addition to the BNP’s longstanding alliance with Jamaat,” Kugelman told Al Jazeera. “For India, memories of that alliance die hard.
“[Reaching out to Rahman is] not something that India will do happily, but something that it feels that it will need to do simply by necessity,” he said.
‘Rekindling people-to-people ties’
But photo-ops, handshakes, letters and sentiments of warmth alone may not be enough to repair bilateral ties.
Rahman’s adviser Kabir cautioned that for a new start, “there must be a clean break from the past.”
While India has insisted that its relationship is with Bangladesh and not with any party or leader in Dhaka, it was closest with Hasina and her Awami League party.
Unlike Hasina’s time in office, Dhaka was reduced to a “pet dog” of New Delhi, Kabir said. Rahman, if he comes to power, would keep Bangladesh equidistant from regional powers, like India and China, and keep “Bangladesh first”, Kabir added.
“Hasina used India in a bad way to legitimise her own crimes in Bangladesh, so people have a very bitter distaste for India,” Kabir said. He added that the “new Bangladesh” after the July 2024 revolution sees Hasina as a “terrorist”.
Kabir said Dhaka would continue to press India for Hasina’s extradition if Rahman is elected to power in February. “The onus to maintain this [bilateral] relationship lies on New Delhi, for keeping Hasina there,” he said.
Hasina has publicly criticised Bangladesh’s direction under the Yunus government, angering Dhaka. “India needs to move on from Hasina’s era and should not be seen complicit with her rogue activities to destabilise Bangladesh, while she sits in India,” Kabir said. Otherwise, he cautioned, “widespread anti-India distaste among people makes it difficult for the next elected government to engage [with New Delhi] against the popular sentiment.”
Persistent tensions have also played out beyond the worlds of politics and diplomacy in recent days.
On Saturday, India’s cricketing body, which governs the popular Indian Premier League, asked the Kolkata Knight Riders franchise to drop Bangladeshi pacer Mustafizur Rahman after BJP leaders protested the player’s participation.
So what’s next?
Anil Trigunayat, 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 would be to keep a check on Pakistan and other anti-India militant groups being embedded in Bangladesh.”
Danilowicz said he agreed that India would harbour those concerns – given the BNP’s past leanings towards Pakistan, when the Jamaat was its ally.
But Kabir, Rahman’s adviser, said the BNP leader was focused on “improving and pushing cooperation” with India and other neighbours.
“The relationship never existed between India and Bangladesh under Sheikh Hasina; it was just limited to Hasina,” said Kabir. “Now, we need confidence that India means a change of direction and is setting its policy to actually rekindle the relationship between the people of Bangladesh and India.”
