There existed a strong desire in Bangladesh to have good relations with Pakistan, but Bangladesh's former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's focus on India meant the people's feelings had to remain muted. Hasina and her Awami League cohorts invested heavily in developing common interests with Indian political and business elites. This prevented Bangladesh from achieving its true potential as a nation of 170 million with a fast-growing economy.
Now that Hasina is gone, Bangladesh is responding to the national desire to explore avenues of friendship with Pakistan. We are talking here about the diplomatic, cultural, economic, trade and tourism exchanges that happen routinely between countries.
Sheikh Hasina first served as prime minister between 1996 and 2001, but her rule, secured through controversial elections, has been unbroken since 2009. Though not openly hostile toward Pakistan, she was so India-centric that it left little room for Bangladesh to attempt deeper partnerships with other countries. Her indifference to Islamabad's friendly gestures and overtures endeared her to New Delhi. Her main opponents, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, accused India of helping her.
Hasina was indeed lionized in India for being sensitive to the larger neighbor's geopolitical and economic interests. When she became prime minister for the fifth term in January last year, Hasina, standing against public sentiment, faced a serious legitimacy question. Last year, following weeks of mass protests against her regime, she was ousted and fled Dhaka on Aug. 5, making India her new home.
Relations between India and Bangladesh have been strained since Hasina's ouster, yet her legacy still impacts Bangladesh. Angry over a speech she made online from India, protesters in Dhaka in early February demolished an old residence associated with her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and his family.
The Bangladesh government found the speech provocative and lodged a protest with India over "the false and fabricated comments and statements continuously being made in different platforms, including social media, by the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, instigating instability in Bangladesh.”
It was also requested that the Indian government should "immediately take appropriate measures, in the spirit of mutual respect and understanding, to stop her from making such false, fabricated and incendiary statements using social media and other communications while she is in India."
India, on its part, said demolishing the house was an "act of vandalism" that should be "strongly condemned." A few other properties, including Mujib's murals, were vandalized in several places in Bangladesh. Students vandalized the nameplates of four residential halls of Rajshahi University, calling them "symbols of fascism," renaming them.
The interim government chief advisor, Muhammad Yunus, is on a course-correction mission and has established senior-level direct contacts with Pakistan. It has asked India to extradite Hasina to face trial in connection with serious corruption cases, human rights abuses and hundreds of protester deaths. A committee has found that an average of $16 billion may have been illegally taken out of Bangladesh annually during Hasina's 15-year rule.
India finds itself in a quandary over the ousted leader's presence. It cannot simply hand over someone who served its interests for so long. Furthermore, due to many vital national and regional interests, it cannot afford to upset the post-Hasina administration. The two countries share more than 4,000 kilometers (2485 miles) of land border. How Bangladesh conducts itself in diplomacy, trade and military affairs can affect India's interests in the immediate neighborhood, within the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and in the Southeast Asian region.
Under Hasina, India was not used to Bangladesh pursuing a robust independent foreign policy. That prospect now means India must pay attention to Bangladesh's interests within the region and beyond and negotiate hard for every benefit it wants.
For a vast majority of Bangladeshis, Hasina's downfall is a revolution and a historic opportunity in nation-building. It is being celebrated as a new liberation war, something as momentous as the war for independence in 1971 when East Pakistan broke away to be proclaimed Bangladesh. India backed the Bangladesh liberation war in which Hasina's father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, played a key role. Of course, Bangladesh's history did not start in 1971 or in 1947, when East and West Pakistan split from India at the end of British colonial rule.
There is no direct Pakistan connection to the deterioration of India-Bangladesh relations, even though Islamabad quietly relishes the post-Hasina developments. As Bangladesh looks toward a new future, its relationship with Pakistan will be crucial. A new warmth is unmistakable in their interactions these days. However, their emerging relationship is causing headaches in New Delhi – the Indian commentariat with existential dread views direct air services and shipping links between the two countries.
The new climate in Dhaka is conducive for several countries, not just Pakistan, to develop closer relations with Bangladesh. Some diversification in Bangladesh's foreign relations is forced by urgent practical requirements rather than long-term strategic imperatives. Bangladeshis used to be the top source of foreign tourists and medical visitors to India, but getting Indian visas has suddenly become more difficult for them. Earlier, an Indian visa was difficult for those Bangladeshis who had pro-Pakistan sympathies or had visited Pakistan; now, it seems India exercises a general caution about Bangladeshi nationals. This tourism traffic will shift to countries like China, Malaysia and Southeast Asian destinations.
Another issue is that Bangladesh runs a massive trade deficit with India (as well as with China), and even during Hasina's rule, she was not successful in getting India to buy more from it. It is searching for new markets, and Pakistan, with its sizable population, will be easy to tap. Bangladesh's investment landscape will also likely undergo reform as many Hasina-era priorities and decisions would change. The country, in its economic diplomacy, is likely to leverage its demographic advantage, skilled workforce, manufacturing potential, investment friendliness and strategic location better than the Hasina regime.
Mutual investment promotion is something Bangladesh and Pakistan may be keen to explore with an eye on a long-term partnership. Defense is a prime area in which Pakistan will be happy to collaborate with Bangladesh in various areas, from supplying weapons to undertaking joint production. Lieutenant General SM Kamrul Hassan, the principal staff officer (PSO) of Bangladesh's Armed Forces Division, recently toured Pakistan and talked with top Pakistani military commanders, including Army Chief General Asim Munir.
Begum Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh's first female prime minister who served two terms – 1991-1996 and 2001-2006 – was friendlier toward Pakistan. Khaleda, who is the widow of General Ziaur Rahman, a top liberation war hero and the BNP founder, resisted Hasina's rule and remained defiant in the face of a crackdown against her family and the party despite her poor health. Khaleda's efforts to build relations with Pakistan raised India's hackles. Her first visit to Pakistan as prime minister was in 1992, and she received a grand welcome when she visited Islamabad in 2006.
The SAARC regional summits held in Bangladesh and Pakistan have been attended by top leaders of the two countries. However, SAARC has been dysfunctional for years due to the India-Pakistan rivalry. Pakistan has not been able to hold the regional summit that was supposed to have taken place in 2016 due to disagreements with India. The organization will remain ineffective as it does not suit India's political objectives.
In the meantime, Bangladesh and Pakistan may consider using other forums to strengthen cooperation. The D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) can be excellent platforms for them to engage on various issues. In the past, Hasina essentially played along with India's regional posture against Pakistan, making it impossible for Bangladesh to use the opportunities the OIC and D-8 offered. In 2012, she canceled her planned visit to attend the D-8 summit in Pakistan. The potential of these two organizations in improving Pakistani-Bangladeshi relations may be revealed in the future.
It is well understood in both countries that their history and heritage are centuries old, and a brief spell of bitter power struggle and bloodshed cannot undo their fraternal bonds. Bangladesh's Muhammad Yunus and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met on the sidelines of the 79th United Nations General Assembly session in September and during the D-8 Summit in Egypt in December. Perhaps it is time for them to host each other in their own countries to set the stage for a new era of relations.
