South Asia JLF panelists unpack why Bangladesh is so suspicious of India when both ‘destined to work together’

[Bilal9]

Date of Event: Feb 2, 2025 Source : https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/India/jlf-panelists-unpack-why-bangladesh-is-so-suspicious-of-india-when-both-destined-to-work-together/ar-AA1yhY0p?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=77727eca6d804c84a7a18dbe2d17dd07&ei=23

Story by Madhurita Goswami​

• 20h •

JLF panelists unpack why Bangladesh is so suspicious of India when both ‘destined to work together’
New Delhi: Bangladesh’s hostility towards India is due to the historical dominance of India in bilateral relations as a larger nation, which creates an asymmetry that all smaller countries regard with suspicion, said former high commissioner of India to Bangladesh Pinak Ranjan Chakraborty at the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF). The solution, he added, is nuanced diplomacy.

At a panel discussion, called ‘Bangladesh: Ei Dike Oie Dike: This Side, That Side’, Chakraborty and authors Sreeradha Datta and Sudeep Chakravarti discussed the political and social dynamics in Bangladesh after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government last year, and the country’s relations with India.

Sreeradha Datta, a professor at OP Jindal Global University, said Bangladesh’s suspicion of India stems from the latter’s proximity to the Awami League and Hasina, who fled popular protests in Bangladesh against her administration to seek refuge in Delhi. However, “Bangladesh and India are destined to work together, so the quicker we can start that, the better”, Datta added.

Since Bangladesh’s ‘August revolution’ last year, there has been some disillusionment with the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government, which is currently in charge in the country. While Bangladeshis are feeling the pinch of price rise in an unstable political environment, the big parties are demanding elections, and once banned Jamaat-e-Islami has become functional in Bangladesh again.

Related video: India-Bangladesh border tension: Delhi accused of breaching fencing agreement (Al Jazeera)

However, Datta pointed out that the moderate element in Bangladesh is the women and their huge presence in the workforce and government. Giving the example of the large garment industry in Bangladesh, she said women will resist extremist forces. Historically, even Islamist parties have, by and large, been paying attention to the demands of women and their health, she added.

“It’s a kind of complexity there. I think the women in Bangladesh are invested in their care, how many times they pray, how many times they go to the mosque. They will do that on their own volition. I hear that once you tell them to do something, they don’t do that,” she said.

While acknowledging that Jamaat has an organisational set-up in 64 districts of Bangladesh, she said, “At the same time, I don’t think ever in the history of Bangladesh, it has received more than 12% popular vote.”

Sudeep Chakravarti said that he had seen a growth of conservatism in Bangladesh over the last few years, but there has been a parallel growth of conservatism in India and the rest of the world.

“Conservatism is growing. So, we need to see from that point in the beginning and then come to judgments about whether we need to be paranoid about it (conservatism in Bangladesh) from a social, political, or diplomatic perspective,” he said.

On the protests against the Hasina government, which also saw the participation of Jamaat, he said there is a need to distinguish the Jamaat elements and “the political collapse in Bangladesh, which I think incensed many students”. To make his point, Chakravarti talked about the wide-scale election rigging during the last polls under the Hasina regime and the corruption in the administration.

India, he emphasised, shouldn’t be seeing Bangladesh only from the lens of the 1971 war since the latter has already left it behind. He also pointed out “India’s missteps”, such as not proposing the Teesta River project till China extended a proposal to Bangladesh.

Pinak Ranjan Chakraborty, however, attributed the political situation in Bangladesh to a fractured political landscape, where democratic institutions are fragile and do not have deep roots. Noting that Bangladesh had emerged as a prosperous nation under Hasina, he said that her government fell because “when you stay too long in power, you are detached from ground reality”. He also pointed out that the political instability in Bangladesh has hit its economy and trade with India.

On India’s diplomatic relations with Bangladesh, he said, “India has generally done the right thing by not overreacting” to what has unfolded in the neighbouring country. Saying that “gratitude has a short shelf life in international politics” to explain Dhaka’s distrust of New Delhi despite India’s role in the Bangladesh liberation war, he advocated for “nuanced diplomacy”.

“We have to work together. Look at the geography, we are joined at the hips. They need us, and we need them,” he said, adding that India has mostly allowed business to go on as usual to give a message that it does not want the people of Bangladesh to suffer. The normalisation process is ongoing, and “huge consignments of rice and wheat have been sent recently”, he added.

ThePrint is a digital media partner for Jaipur Literature Festival 2025.

 

[Krishna with Flute]

Story by Madhurita Goswami​

• 20h •

JLF panelists unpack why Bangladesh is so suspicious of India when both ‘destined to work together’
New Delhi: Bangladesh’s hostility towards India is due to the historical dominance of India in bilateral relations as a larger nation, which creates an asymmetry that all smaller countries regard with suspicion, said former high commissioner of India to Bangladesh Pinak Ranjan Chakraborty at the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF). The solution, he added, is nuanced diplomacy.

At a panel discussion, called ‘Bangladesh: Ei Dike Oie Dike: This Side, That Side’, Chakraborty and authors Sreeradha Datta and Sudeep Chakravarti discussed the political and social dynamics in Bangladesh after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government last year, and the country’s relations with India.

Sreeradha Datta, a professor at OP Jindal Global University, said Bangladesh’s suspicion of India stems from the latter’s proximity to the Awami League and Hasina, who fled popular protests in Bangladesh against her administration to seek refuge in Delhi. However, “Bangladesh and India are destined to work together, so the quicker we can start that, the better”, Datta added.

Since Bangladesh’s ‘August revolution’ last year, there has been some disillusionment with the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government, which is currently in charge in the country. While Bangladeshis are feeling the pinch of price rise in an unstable political environment, the big parties are demanding elections, and once banned Jamaat-e-Islami has become functional in Bangladesh again.

Related video: India-Bangladesh border tension: Delhi accused of breaching fencing agreement (Al Jazeera)

However, Datta pointed out that the moderate element in Bangladesh is the women and their huge presence in the workforce and government. Giving the example of the large garment industry in Bangladesh, she said women will resist extremist forces. Historically, even Islamist parties have, by and large, been paying attention to the demands of women and their health, she added.

“It’s a kind of complexity there. I think the women in Bangladesh are invested in their care, how many times they pray, how many times they go to the mosque. They will do that on their own volition. I hear that once you tell them to do something, they don’t do that,” she said.

While acknowledging that Jamaat has an organisational set-up in 64 districts of Bangladesh, she said, “At the same time, I don’t think ever in the history of Bangladesh, it has received more than 12% popular vote.”

Sudeep Chakravarti said that he had seen a growth of conservatism in Bangladesh over the last few years, but there has been a parallel growth of conservatism in India and the rest of the world.

“Conservatism is growing. So, we need to see from that point in the beginning and then come to judgments about whether we need to be paranoid about it (conservatism in Bangladesh) from a social, political, or diplomatic perspective,” he said.

On the protests against the Hasina government, which also saw the participation of Jamaat, he said there is a need to distinguish the Jamaat elements and “the political collapse in Bangladesh, which I think incensed many students”. To make his point, Chakravarti talked about the wide-scale election rigging during the last polls under the Hasina regime and the corruption in the administration.

India, he emphasised, shouldn’t be seeing Bangladesh only from the lens of the 1971 war since the latter has already left it behind. He also pointed out “India’s missteps”, such as not proposing the Teesta River project till China extended a proposal to Bangladesh.

Pinak Ranjan Chakraborty, however, attributed the political situation in Bangladesh to a fractured political landscape, where democratic institutions are fragile and do not have deep roots. Noting that Bangladesh had emerged as a prosperous nation under Hasina, he said that her government fell because “when you stay too long in power, you are detached from ground reality”. He also pointed out that the political instability in Bangladesh has hit its economy and trade with India.

On India’s diplomatic relations with Bangladesh, he said, “India has generally done the right thing by not overreacting” to what has unfolded in the neighbouring country. Saying that “gratitude has a short shelf life in international politics” to explain Dhaka’s distrust of New Delhi despite India’s role in the Bangladesh liberation war, he advocated for “nuanced diplomacy”.

“We have to work together. Look at the geography, we are joined at the hips. They need us, and we need them,” he said, adding that India has mostly allowed business to go on as usual to give a message that it does not want the people of Bangladesh to suffer. The normalisation process is ongoing, and “huge consignments of rice and wheat have been sent recently”, he added.

ThePrint is a digital media partner for Jaipur Literature Festival 2025.

Large nation will always dominate. BD should be thankful that it doesn't share a border with China otherwise China would have claimed whole BD as its own. India has remained relatively very fair towards all its neighbours. However, the biggest concern for India was the BD soil used for anti India activities. However , Subcontinent Muslim has a special hater towards Hindus. To harm Hindus, they can go to any extent. We saw this mentally predominantly in Pakistan. Now BD has replaced Pakistan from first position.

 

[Bilal9]

Large nation will always dominate. BD should be thankful that it doesn't share a border with China otherwise China would have claimed whole BD as its own. India has remained relatively very fair towards all its neighbours. However, the biggest concern for India was the BD soil used for anti India activities. However , Subcontinent Muslim has a special hater towards Hindus. To harm Hindus, they can go to any extent. We saw this mentally predominantly in Pakistan. Now BD has replaced Pakistan from first position.

T J S George

Why do neighbours dislike india?​

Major political shifts are taking place in India’s immediate neighbourhood—all of them inauspicious to India.

Major political shifts are taking place in India’s immediate neighbourhood—all of them inauspicious to India. In Maldives, Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, local sentiments have found expression in ways unseen before. There’s a new geopolitical game being played out there, and India is not a player. Is Delhi uninterested or unable to have a say—uninterested because its priorities are issues like new definitions of patriotism, and unable because prevailing political preferences have reduced the foreign policy establishment to an also-ran with neither vision nor weight.

Of the various reasons for this setback, three are important. First, even in Jawaharlal Nehru’s days—when India had a competent and effective foreign policy—Delhi and its ambassadors had a condescending attitude towards the small countries on its periphery.

This made neighbours dislike India from the start. Second, the BJP’s rise to power brought about fundamental attitudinal changes in India that filled neighbouring countries with suspicion laced with derision. Third, China plays Big Brother.

Maldives found it easy to publicly discredit India when an internal crisis forced it to declare emergency in February. China added to the embarrassment by saying that it would oppose any direct action by India. Delhi quietly swallowed the pills. To current President Abdullah Yameen, China is one of Maldives’ “most dependable partners”.

India’s handling of Nepal is a story of one disaster after another. At least after monarchy was displaced by democracy in Nepal, Delhi should have realised that this neighbour deserved more attention and more respect than it was accorded in the past. Instead, even desperately needed earthquake relief was provided with a superiority complex that stirred public protests in Kathmandu. The way Indian media covered the news of relief supplies showed that the superiority complex was by no means confined to political and bureaucratic circles.

Then came the induction of a Hindutva element into India’s Nepal policy. Under monarchy, Nepal was a declared Hindu state, 80 per cent of its population being Hindu. But more than two-thirds of the legislature decided in 2015 to declare Nepal a secular state. Instead of respecting this position, the BJP government objected to it and used the Madhesis, Indian-origin Nepalese, to create a crisis. Against the background of the Madhesi demand for changes in the constitution, an economic blockade caused widespread suffering in landlocked Nepal, where everything from food to petrol was held up at the borders. It was the most dim-witted action in a series of dim-witted actions. China gained enormously at India’s expense.

A pro-China communist alliance has since come to power in Nepal. China, always shrewder, gives small countries the feeling that it respects them. Their aid programmes and economic projects may eventually make the small countries dependent on Beijing, but the absence of condescension makes a difference.

If the Hindutva profile of today’s India has put off a Hindu-majority country like Nepal, we can imagine its effect on non-Hindu neighbours. India’s plan to deport 40,000 Rohingyas to Myanmar ran into rough weather in that country. Border trade is also a bone of contention. Aung San Suu Kyi visits China and China offers her meaningful proposals centred round the Belt and Road economic corridor. Suu Kyi has emotional bonds with India, where she studied. But those bonds have no relevance now.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is personally beholden to India but is unable to prevent Muslim antagonism against local Hindus. The intractable border problems between India and Bangladesh are kept intractable by business lobbies interested in the smuggling of food items, livestock, medicines and drugs. To put it simply, India has more foes in Bangladesh than friends.Sri Lanka leaning towards China is perhaps the most significant shift that concerns India. China’s virtual “purchase” of Hambantota port in Sri Lanka’s southern coast gives it a strategic advantage that is unparalleled. There is additionally the “new Colombo” it is building on reclaimed sea in Colombo harbour.

Across Sri Lanka today, what one sees is China and more China.

China looks a hundred years ahead. India looks to the next general election. Our policymakers should pay heed to the views Bangladeshi writer Tahmima Anam expressed in 2007. Saying that India was “aggressively self-interested”, she analysed “the peculiar paranoia of the strong towards the weak” and said: “We cannot love India. The relationship is too unequal for romance.”

The wonder is China is stronger than India and more “aggressively self-interested” in its current international activities. Yet no weak country says ‘We cannot love China’. Strange? Perhaps not.

 

[Krishna with Flute]

A pro-China communist alliance has since come to power in Nepal. China, always shrewder, gives small countries the feeling that it respects them. Their aid programmes and economic projects may eventually make the small countries dependent on Beijing, but the absence of condescension makes a difference.

Above paragraph from your quoted article.

 

[Bilal9]

Above paragraph from your quoted article.

I quoted an Indian article from MINT magazine. It presents Indian writer's viewpoint which I may or may not agree with.

Respect begets respect in foreign relations. The Chinese with a 5000 year old culture know and understand this. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

One thing also a constant with any Chinese relationship with any country - they will not meddle in that country's internal affairs.

Which cannot be said about immature Indian MEA policy (fact). In case of Bangladesh, Indian MEA policy and also plan to protect Hasina both failed miserably. All the hoarse screaming in Indian media cannot reverse that situation unfortunately.