The diplomatic choice of words is a masterclass in plausible deniability, designed to convey everything while officially committing to nothing.
Consider the carefully calibrated words of Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal on the scheduled virtual press meet of ousted dictator Sheikh Hasina.
“The interaction you refer to is being organised by a private media entity. The government has no involvement whatsoever in it, nor does it endorse any views that may be expressed at the forum.”
To the untrained eye, this reads as standard bureaucratic hand-washing. In reality, it amounts to a green light. By declaring that South Block has “no involvement” in Sheikh Hasina’s virtual press conference today, New Delhi is actively choosing non-intervention.
It disavows the remarks of a fallen autocrat while declining to use its considerable sovereign power to restrict her political activities.
Make no mistake. India possesses all the leverage required to restrict Hasina’s public footprint. She did not arrive in New Delhi as an ordinary refugee; she fled to Indian soil in August 2024 after presiding over the brutal suppression of Bangladesh’s July Uprising.
Hundreds of young protesters were gunned down on the streets by her security forces and party loyalists—a carnage meticulously documented by an independent United Nations fact-finding mission. A tribunal in Dhaka subsequently sentenced her to death in absentia for her role in the massacres.
Yet, in New Delhi, Hasina has enjoyed the quiet privileges of a state guest. For months, she has used social media platforms and friendly outlets to project her voice back into Bangladesh, stoking political unrest from afar.
Much of the mainstream Indian media—increasingly subservient to ruling-party interests—has obliged her, treating her less like an ousted dictator facing crimes-against-humanity charges and more like a heroic leader-in-exile—a secular champion.
Conveniently scrubbed from this narrative is her decade-and-a-half record of authoritarian rule: the rigged elections, the thousands of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, and the systemic plunder of Bangladesh’s financial sector.
It began as leaked audio clips and emailed statements but now escalated last month when she was permitted to speak directly to Reuters by telephone. Now she is set to hold her first press conference in New Delhi.
There is no denying the fact that this arrangement has severely damaged regional diplomacy. During bilateral talks in Bangkok last year, Bangladesh’s interim leadership explicitly raised the issue of Hasina using Indian soil as a launchpad for political agitation.
Former Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus directly urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to curb her access to the press and social media.
Those appeals fell on deaf ears. Instead, as bilateral relations chilled, Delhi weaponised trade and mobility. Transshipment arrangements facilitating Bangladeshi garment exports were squeezed, while medical visas for roughly a million Bangladeshis were brought to an abrupt halt, turning human health and economic survival into diplomatic bargaining chips.
Now, as both capitals attempt to navigate a tenuous thaw, India’s refusal to muzzle Hasina remains the single greatest obstacle to genuine reconciliation. A virtual press conference from Indian soil will only inflame an already raw wound.
The post-July generation in Bangladesh—having paid for their freedom in blood—will not accept the former autocrat using an Indian megaphone to destabilise their fragile democracy. Nor will they tolerate New Delhi attempting to recast her as a geopolitical refugee in the mould of a secular Dalai Lama.
History offers stark precedents for how harbouring fallen tyrants can be handled. When Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow, the Kremlin kept him firmly out of the public eye; he was given sanctuary, not a microphone. When Idi Amin escaped to Saudi Arabia, he spent his remaining decades in silent, enforced ignominy.
Mass murderers do not inherit a right to a press circuit. By continuing to grant Sheikh Hasina a platform, India is not defending free speech—it is actively undermining the stability of its most crucial neighbour.
If New Delhi genuinely seeks a fresh chapter in its ties with Dhaka, it must begin by taking away the megaphone.
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