India-Bangladesh ties should not be ‘regime-specific’, says Bangladesh Foreign Affairs Adviser; pitches for Modi-Yunus meet

Tell us about your meeting with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar amidst the tensions in ties..

To be frank, ties were very tense [when the interim government took over]. It started very tense, as I see it, because India had been used to a pattern of relations for more than 15 years, and suddenly there was a very quick break. Maybe adjusting to the new realities took some time, so there was a lot of adverse attention on ties, and uneasiness was definitely there. But I think six months on, that should actually be over, and we need an environment where we can do business with each other. Compared to six months ago, definitely, we can interact with each other much better.

PM Modi was just in Washington. He met with U.S. President Trump, and, according to the Foreign Secretary, discussed some of India’s concerns about the situation in Bangladesh. Did you ask Mr. Jaishankar about these concerns?

Not really. I didn’t ask because it is India’s affair [what it discusses with another country]. 

I don’t think there should be much concern. Our bilateral relations should be normalised, which is already happening in some areas. For example, in trade. Trade had a short period of a hiccup, but it has picked up again. So these are indications that the two countries, at least the private sector, people want to interact with each other, and that manifests that we have interests. Both countries have interests in each other and we need to take care of that. 

One of the concerns India has repeatedly made public is over the violence against minorities, particularly the Hindu community in Bangladesh. Do you think that your government has been able to control this? And does India agree? Because this seems to have become a bilateral issue between India and Bangladesh.

Well, let me make it very clear, the Hindu or other minority communities that live in Bangladesh are exactly equal citizens with the Muslim or the majority community. They are equal citizens with equal rights, and equal rights to protection. And it is Bangladesh government’s job, that it is doing, to protect them, like protecting any other citizen of the country. Unfortunately, just after 5th of August [in 2024, when Sheikh Hasina resigned], there has been a really, almost unexplainable frenzy in the Indian media about this issue, mostly based on falsehood. I would invite you to go through the findings of the UN, which has been published two days ago, and says that [the interim government was not involved in the violence]. They came at our request as we wanted an absolutely neutral survey of the situation. 

I have read the committee report, the UN report which talks about some of the excesses of the previous Hasina government as well, but it does talk about the impact on minorities in Bangladesh. Are there any kind of measures that your government can take on the basis of this report?

Of course, even before the UN report, we have taken actions. It is Bangladesh government’s responsibility and it is taking action. I do not think it is proper for the Indian authorities to speak on this issue. This is an absolutely internal issue, and Bangladesh government is taking adequate action. We must remember that we have at least four members in the Council of Advisers who are human rights workers, who have been working on these issues for many, many years. They have themselves taken up minority rights issues.

On the subject of former PM Sheikh Hasina, what exactly are you hoping India will do? 

There are cases against [Ms. Hasina], and we have asked for India to send [Ms. Hasina] back to us to face trial. As long as the Indian government doesn’t do that, we would expect they can at least put some restrictions on her so that she does not make incendiary and false statements which instigate reactions among the people, because the issues are still very, very raw. For 15 years, she was in power, and people feel very, very strongly angry about her actions, so they would like to see that she doesn’t try to destabilise the situation inside Bangladesh.

Even so, how do you justify that a mob was allowed to ransack Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s house, allegedly over Ms. Hasina’s speech?

A mob may do something, but that doesn’t have the support of the government. 

Your government has thus far sent only a note verbale, a diplomatic note asking for Ms. Hasina’s return. Will there be a formal extradition request? 

We have an extradition treaty, and we have given back many of the accused to India to face trial, and I think India can give her back to face trial in Bangladesh.

But for that extradition treaty, you would have to go through the trial process. You would have to have sufficient warrants for the MLAT (mutual legal assistance). When does Bangladesh hope to begin that process?

Well, the process is already on, because the cases are now in court. We cannot compel them to do it [in a hurry]. And we are also aware that she might also have recourse to the Indian judicial system. It might take time, but what we want is that she does not make incendiary statements while she’s in India. 

On border security, there have been a number of rounds of talks between the Bangladeshi Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and the Indian Border Security Force (BSF). On the arrest of fishermen, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she spoke to some of the fishermen who had been released from Bangladeshi jails, who had been beaten up, who were limping, had been injured badly. Do you think that this is an outcome of bad bilateral relations? 

I don’t think so. The first issue is the border. In 2024, half of which was under the previous government, 24 people have been shot at the border. This is not done anywhere in the world. I think you would agree with me on this because from the Indian side, it’s often said that since there is crime, so this is happening. There is crime in every border in the world. Nowhere are people shot dead like this. If crime has been committed, you arrest him or her and take them to court, jail or anything the court decides, but you can’t just execute them. But that’s what has been happening in the border for years, through different types of governments. This is not done. This is one thing which I think India, if you wish, it can stop, and it should stop. The other issue was on the maritime issue.

Bangladesh and India signed a maritime agreement years ago. The idea that you’re still arresting each other’s fishermen…

I haven’t been on the ground, but as far as having spoken to different people, is that the, you know, fishermen follow the fish. Now, so often, on the land, you have the definitive border, you know it that this is the limit. But on the sea, it’s not that easy. Often, from both sides, they often just cross into the maritime areas of the other country. You have some in your custody. We have some in ours, and we both periodically release them. About the mistreatment…we have already asked for an inquiry, and if we find that there was actually some of our security people involved, or if they have broken the law, of course we’ll take it into consideration. But this is not normally done. I was a diplomat in Kolkata for more than four years… and have conducted these exchanges, and they are not mistreated. If there has been an exception, we will of course look into this. 

On the Adani power agreement, recent reports suggest the Bangladesh government is negotiating for a restoration of power supply from the group. Could you confirm that the Bangladesh government intends to continue with the agreement with the Adani Group for power supply?

I think that we negotiate in two stages, one before the agreement is signed, [and second] we negotiate after the agreement is signed. We have to go by the agreement, but if we feel that it has not been done properly, we can always mutually agree to look at it again. And in my opinion, we will look at it with the Adani Group and try to make it more rational. I am not a technician, technical person, so I cannot go into exact details, but then there has been comparative comparison with other deals, and it was seen that the power tariffs have been unusually high, the agreed power tariff has been unusually high. So we believe that should be renegotiated again, particularly on the question of purchase of coal. Any rational person would say that the coal should be purchased for this project at the best possible price available in the world market. That has not been done. So these are areas where we can perhaps negotiate with Adani in good faith, and we would like to do that. For the moment, we have asked for the power to be restored because we need power, and our planning has been done on the basis of them supplying that power. So we want them to supply this power, and then we are going to pay for that. 

You have met our External Affairs Minister twice now, but Prime Minister Modi and Chief Adviser Professor Yunus have not yet met. Do you expect a meeting between them at the BIMSTEC Summit in April in Thailand?

So far, the two leaders have not been at any venue on the same day, so there was no opportunity for them to meet. But I personally believe that there is willingness from both sides to meet and discuss things freely and frankly. That helps. In our culture in the region, when the ‘top bosses’ sit together, they can resolve an issue just in one word, rather than leaving it to people like us to negotiate for years. I think a meeting between the two would be a good thing to happen in that sense. They have spoken on the telephone once at the beginning of this government. They will be in the same venue for the BIMSTEC, as I understand that all the Heads of government will be there. If they are there, the normal, natural thing would be that they talk to each other, because it’s a small group. At SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) summits for example, every Head of state or government used to speak with the other seven counterparts. So I think something like that is likely to happen.

Did you discuss it with Mr. Jaishankar?

I just mentioned this. There’s no agreement on a meeting…it’s too early. We fix these things only a few days earlier, once the programme is finalised and complete. Let’s see what happens.

As a veteran of foreign policy, and the India-Bangladesh relationship, particularly the good ties between them since 2009, do you think India and Bangladesh can return to that state in the relationship?

Well, why only look at the past 15 years? Even during the BNP’s (Bangladesh Nationalist Party) time (1996-2001), the trade within the two countries increased exponentially. I don’t think the relationship has to be regime-specific. In 1996-1997, we had the Ganga water agreement. So I think whichever government, whichever party, is in power in our two capitals, that should not affect our relations, because elections are based on mutual interests and mutual respect. And I believe that both our sides realise what is in their interest, and we can have very good relations with India.