Bimstec Summit 2025: Will PM Modi meet Bangladesh's Yunus in Bangkok?

After the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) confirmed days ago that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the BIMSTEC Summit in Thailand, there was speculation over the prime minister’s possible meeting with Bangladesh interim government’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus.

Dhaka has been trying hard to arrange a standalone meeting between PM Modi and Yunus in Bangkok this week. However, there has been no word yet from New Delhi on the possible engagement, Times of India reported on Monday.

The signals emerging from Dhaka indicate that the interim regime is extremely keen for the meeting which it claims can put ties back on track.

According to a News 18 report, citing highly placed sources, no bilateral meeting has been scheduled between the two leaders.

Yunus recently visited China where he sent a message to India by announcing a series of agreements. He went so far as to claim that Bangladesh alone could provide access to the sea for India’s northeastern states.

Yunus encouraged Beijing to expand its economic influence in Bangladesh, controversially suggesting that the landlocked status of India’s northeastern states could present an opportunity.

His remarks, reportedly made during a four-day visit to China, began circulating on social media on Monday.

Yunus, who met President Xi Jinping and signed nine agreements during the trip, said, “The seven states of India, the eastern part of India, are called the seven sisters. They are a landlocked region of India. They have no way to reach out to the ocean."

Calling Bangladesh as the “only guardian of the ocean” in the region, he said this could be a huge opportunity and could be an extension of the Chinese economy.

Amid all this, PM Modi greeted Yunus and the country’s people on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr on Monday, seeking stronger friendship between the two countries.

“May the bonds of friendship among our countries grow stronger,” PM Modi said in his message, which was shared by the chief adviser’s press wing.

PM Modi said as the blessed month of Ramzan comes to a close, “I take this moment to extend warm greetings and felicitations to you and the people of Bangladesh on the joyous occasion of the festival of Eid al-Fitr”.

According to News 18, the Bangladeshi leader has been seeking a meeting with PM Modi for the past few months but at the eye of the storm has been the issue of violence against Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, which the Indian establishment has tried to raise at multiple platforms.

Formally, India has not been able to communicate with Bangladesh since the neighbour has a caretaker government and not an elected one.

India shares deep historical, cultural, and linguistic ties with Bangladesh, rooted in their collaborative efforts during Bangladesh’s liberation. These connections persist even after the caretaker government took office in August last year.

Recently, the Indian government informed a parliamentary committee about its engagement with the interim government on state concerns, regional security, rising extremism, attacks on minorities, and economic growth.

As recent as March 1, 2025, the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council released a press statement that violence against religious and ethnic minorities and indigenous communities has continued. Between August 4 and December 31, 2024, there were 2,184 reported attacks targeting minorities.

On December 10, 2024, the Bangladeshi government announced the arrest of 70 people in connection with 88 cases of such attacks.

India has repeatedly urged Bangladesh to take concrete steps to protect minority rights and promote inclusion and tolerance. However, the Bangladeshi government has not only failed to acknowledge the systematic persecution of minorities but has also downplayed the extent of violence against Hindus since August 2024.

“Chief Adviser Md. Yunus, along with other advisers, terms the reports of atrocities against minorities in Bangladesh as media exaggeration and have tried to justify them as not communal but as ‘political killings’ of the Awami Leaguers. On January 12, 2025, the Office of Chief Adviser released a press statement that police investigation has found that over 98 per cent attacks on minorities from a total of 1,415 incidents that were verified between August 4-20, 2024, were “politically motivated” and “did not have any communal colour as being reported in Bangladesh”, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a presentation made to the standing committee for external affairs on March 26.

Relations between India and Bangladesh have deteriorated since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government on August 5. Following weeks of anti-government protests, Hasina resigned as the prime minister of Bangladesh and fled to India and has been staying here under tight security since.

With inputs from agencies