India needs to repair the damage done to its relations with Bangladesh, but New Delhi is not on sweet-talking terms with Dhaka. Indian policymakers should have recognised the irritants that limited the scope of "friendship" with Bangladeshi political actors.
Sitting in Dhaka, it is difficult to confirm whether the way India as a state entity looks at Bangladesh is reflected in the narratives of major Indian media or whether the latter show how their government should treat the country and its people in its immediate vicinity.
Both the South Block and the Godi media witnessed a paradise lost in Bangladesh with the fall of a "loyal friend" named Sheikh Hasina from power on 5 August 2024. Since then, they have felt estranged from the Bangladesh Republic. Their bonhomie with a tyrant was far from friendship with the people they neglected.
Bangladesh managed to discontinue a one-sided affair following the 2024 political tsunami that overthrew Hasina's dictatorial regime India had backed and benefited from over the previous one and a half decades.
However, to fix the foreign policy setbacks of any country, it is essential to review, with an open mind, its own right and wrong steps that shape the counterpart's perception — threat, mistrust, friendship, big-brotherly attitude and so on.
In this case, if the two sides want to reset the relationship, a key problem lies in Hasina, whom Delhi continues to regard as the remedy, judging by her record of giving priority to Indian interests over Bangladesh's.
When her Awami League regime snatched away public rights, including the franchise, India's pro-establishment media praised her for economic growth achieved by the people but appropriated by her regime.
Delhiwalas romanticised Hasina for taking Bangladesh-India "cooperation" to a different height when she, in fact, sacrificed Bangladesh's interests to appease them.
India's top office-bearers pressured even pro-Indian politicians to support her "one-party, one-leader" system of governance while Bangladeshis were fighting for democracy, particularly free and fair elections.
Once millions marched towards Ganabhaban and forced Hasina to relinquish power, she fled to the country that became her haven. India evacuated her in collaboration with local operatives and gave her shelter in Delhi.
A major section of the media there has called the Bangladesh revolution an act of a militant mob. What a dishonest label for a people's uprising against fascism that merely echoes the Awami League's conspiracy claim without remorse.
New Delhi could still have corrected its historic mistake of patronising a leader responsible for mass killings and her regime by extending a gesture of friendship towards Bangladeshis through meaningful engagement with leaders holding a genuine public mandate, not a manufactured one like Hasina's.
Both India's biased media and the defeated Awami League campaigned against the interim administration of Muhammad Yunus, which led the transition towards democracy, unlike the Delhi-backed autocracy that prevailed between 2007 and 2024.
India's approach to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's BNP government barely shows any sign of improving relations. The case in point is the external affairs ministry spokesperson's statement that Delhi has been examining Dhaka's request for the extradition of convicted murderer Hasina. No concrete step has been evident months after she was sentenced to death in November 2025.
Instead, Delhi has allowed the deposed premier to issue statements through social media and, more recently, to give an interview to an Indian journalist with Reuters. Hasina said she would return to Bangladesh next December to begin a legal battle challenging the death sentence for mass murder.
Imagine how Indian media would have reacted had a political convict from their country taken shelter in Dhaka. Have they pointed out that Delhi has failed to honour its obligations under the Extradition Treaty by not handing over Hasina?
Legally, she cannot be treated as a free person, yet she enjoys the luxury of choosing when to return home—or, more accurately, enter prison. The tactic mirrors Delhi's approach of buying time in responding to Dhaka's formal extradition request.
So Sheikh Hasina, who returned to Bangladesh from exile in India in 1981, appears to be India's strategic asset, more valuable than its relations with all other Bangladeshi stakeholders. Her extradition would not have arisen had she not fled the country in the first place.
Delhi's delay in resolving the extradition request and Hasina's delay in attempting to re-enter Bangladesh may serve the same objective: renewing political divisions and creating space for India to exploit Bangladesh once again.
The Indian leadership has also used Hasina's sojourn in New Delhi as an excuse to avoid settling disputes over water-sharing, border killings and push-in attempts, smuggling, drug and human trafficking, and non-tariff barriers to trade.
There is no viable solution to India's diplomatic debacle in Bangladesh unless Delhi sheds its obsession with Hasina. As long as India hosts her as a royal guest, at least 80 per cent of Bangladeshis of the current generation will continue to resent her.
—
Khawaza Main Uddin is a journalist. He can be contacted at khawaza@gmail.com.