Last update on: Thu Feb 27, 2025 08:00 AM
India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar recently made some strong remarks about Bangladesh at the Delhi University Literature Festival. Here are some key excerpts from his speech, “Things happened there last year, all of you are aware of it… for us what is very troubling, there are two aspects of it… the spate of attacks on the minorities… it is something which impacts our thinking and… we have to speak up about… they have to make up their mind what kind of relationship they want with us. Because every day, somebody in Bangladesh, who is in the interim government… if they stand up and blame India for everything, and some of the things in the reports are ridiculous… I think this is a decision also that they have to make. About what kind of relationship they want.
“We have sent a very clear signal, okay we are a neighbour, we would like for things to calm down… But we would obviously not like to see the messaging and… signalling which is continuously hostile in a way to India.”
Let’s start from the very beginning—about what happened in Bangladesh last year. In July-August, a mass uprising erupted against Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government. During the protests, approximately 1,500 students, workers, and citizens lost their lives, while around 20,000 others were injured. A United Nations Fact-Finding Mission reported, “The prime minister herself told security force officials to kill protesters to quell the protests and specifically demanded ‘arrest the ringleaders of the protests, the troublemakers, kill them and hide their bodies.'”
Despite these serious allegations, Indian officials and some segments of its media have barely mentioned these facts. They have hardly acknowledged that Sheikh Hasina and numerous other Awami League leaders—whom India has sheltered—stand accused of mass murder. If Mr Jaishankar and other Indian officials are truly aware of what happened in Bangladesh, why this omission?
On the issue of minority attacks, this newspaper, along with other media outlets as well as the interim government itself, have acknowledged and reported on incidents of attacks on minorities after the Awami League’s unceremonious ouster. Many of these attacks occurred on August 5-8, when the country totally lacked law enforcement services. A number of minority community members—including Hindu Bangladeshis—were attacked, but some of them were attacked because of their political affiliation with the Awami League and the resentment among people towards the former ruling party.
While this context helps explain the attacks, it does not excuse them. The interim government has repeatedly stated that even a single attack on a member of a minority community is unacceptable.
However, segments of the Indian media have been caught exaggerating reports. And the extent of falsification even extended to presenting events in India as occurring in Bangladesh.
In fact, if we consider how some segments of the Indian media, social media, and commentators on other platforms have covered Bangladesh over the past six months, it has been nothing short of an information war against Bangladesh.
Indian government officials, too, have harped on this matter, with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banarjee even suggesting that India should seek the deployment of UN peacekeeping forces in Bangladesh—raising concerns about Bangladesh’s sovereignty.
What about the rights of minorities in India, though? Since 2014, leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have made many openly hostile remarks against Muslims. Some examples include:
i) On May 14, 2014, BJP leader Giriraj Singh said, “Is it not true that people involved in terror activities belong to a particular religion?”
ii) On September 14, 2014, MP Sakshi Maharaj claimed, “Terrorism is being taught in madrassas.”
iii) In March 2016, BJP leader and Union Minister Anantkumar Hegde stated, “As long as Islam exists, there will be terrorism. Until we uproot Islam, we cannot eliminate terrorism.”
iv) On February 6, 2018, MP Vinay Katiyar declared, “Muslims should not stay in this country. They have partitioned the country based on population. So why are they still here? They should go to Bangladesh or Pakistan… They have no business being in India.”
And these are only a few examples.
On August 14, 2024, Human Rights Watch reported that since March 2024, of the 173 speeches delivered by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, 110 contained Islamophobic remarks.
Yet, Bangladesh has rarely issued statements of concern about minorities in India, treating these issues as the latter country’s internal affairs. Notably, India rarely expressed similar concerns about minority rights during Hasina’s tenure, despite similar incidents occurring, leading to some deaths and many injuries. Since Hasina’s fall, however, India appears to have taken a different approach towards Bangladesh. This raises questions about the sincerity of these recent concerns from India.
Mr Jaishankar has said India has sent a very clear signal that it wants things to “calm down,” but it does not want to see hostile messaging from members of the Bangladesh government. Such restraints, however, should be mutual.
In light of that, it is important to mention that BJP leaders have repeatedly accused Bangladeshis of trying to take over the “rightful land” of Indians, referring to them as “Jihadis,” “infiltrators,” and “termites,” who should be identified and drowned in the Bay of Bengal. Do these remarks not come off as hostile?
And what about BJP leader Dilip Ghosh’s comment in December 2024—months after the interim government took office—that Bangladesh’s forces are no match for India and that Bangladesh’s political leaders should “think carefully” about the ongoing turmoil? Was that a friendly message?
Moreover, the continued killings of Bangladeshis by Indian border forces, despite repeated promises of zero border killings, sends more contradictory signals. So does India’s failure to share the water of Teesta River with Bangladesh, despite previous assurances.
India should understand that Bangladesh has a legitimate right to feel aggrieved by these and other unresolved matters. And the Indian government should be willing to listen to these grievances instead of ignoring them.
The Bangladesh government, similarly, should listen carefully to the legitimate concerns raised by India. In this case, for example, Mr Jaishankar’s point of not sending hostile signals should be taken seriously by the Bangladesh government.
There are two other important lessons that Bangladesh should draw from this situation. First, for years, India engaged only with one political party in Bangladesh—Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League—and treated it as the sole representative of the country. Bangladesh must not make the same mistake. India is a vast, diverse nation. The majority of its people, if they truly understood the oppressive nature of Hasina’s regime, would likely sympathise with the Bangladeshi people.
Even if there are groups in India we disagree with, we must continue to engage with the broader Indian population. This will benefit both nations.
Second, we must realise that there is no place for ego in foreign policy. Some Bangladeshi commentators have suggested that India’s reaction to Hasina’s ouster is driven by bruised egos—because India lost a pliant ally and failed to predict the changing political landscape. But foreign policy must not be driven by ego or emotion—and this also applies to us. It should be rooted in pragmatism, common sense, and mutual benefit.
And so, if Bangladesh and India truly want a stable relationship, and we believe they do, both sides must acknowledge their shortcomings and address each other’s concerns with sincerity.
Eresh Omar Jamal is head of the editorial department at The Daily Star. His X handle is @EreshOmarJamal.
Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
