Four weeks after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh by helicopter amid a student-led revolution, she has become a diplomatic challenge for India, her current hosts. The uprising’s student leaders are demanding her return to Bangladesh to face trial for the deaths of protesters during the revolt. However, India faces a dilemma: sending the 76-year-old back could damage its influence in South Asia, where it is competing with China for regional dominance.
According to Thomas Kean from the International Crisis Group, India is unlikely to extradite Hasina, as doing so would send a negative message to other regional leaders allied with New Delhi, signaling that India might not protect them if they fall out of power.
Hasina’s ousting cost India its closest ally in the region, following a similar loss in the Maldives, where India’s preferred presidential candidate was defeated by a pro-Beijing rival. The current sentiment in Bangladesh is hostile toward India due to abuses during Hasina’s regime, a sentiment amplified by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist rhetoric aimed at Bangladesh’s caretaker government.
Modi has pledged support for Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who leads the new administration, and has urged the protection of Bangladesh’s Hindu minority. However, Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, a senior leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), criticized India for putting “all its fruit in one basket” by supporting Hasina, and now struggling to adjust its strategy. He emphasized that while Bangladeshis desire a positive relationship with India, they are not willing to sacrifice their national interests.
The distrust between the two countries is so deep that when devastating floods hit both nations in August, some Bangladeshis blamed India for the resulting deaths.
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