China, or this? What's behind Sheikh Hasina's second India visit in 12 days

It is not a routine affair that a head of state visits a country on official tours twice in a space of 12 days. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina did. On her second visit this month, Hasina landed in New Delhi on Friday (June 21). She was here on June 9 for the third consecutive swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  

Hasina lands in Delhi on Friday evening but her main diplomatic activities will take place on Saturday, when she would be ceremonially welcomed at the Rashtrapati Bhavan and also hold summit talks with Modi at New Delhi’s Hyderabad House. She would leave for Dhaka Saturday evening.

Hasina’s India visit also comes ahead of her much-awaited China visit next month. China has become the elephant in the room in which India and Bangladesh had been comfortably living for a long time.

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China factor in India-Bangladesh relations

For Bangladesh and Hasina’s Awami League, India is a natural partner for having helped the country attain independence in 1971 from Pakistan in the face of ethnic harassment and suppression by the Pakistan Army and political leadership.  

At the same time, for record, both Awami League and its rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) have favoured friendly relations with China, which has had an adversarial relation with India for decades. Guided by their domestic political compulsions, the BNP has tilted Bangladesh towards China and Awami League has tried to bring it back to a balance.  

China became a formidable player in Bangladesh after BNP’s Khaleda Zia government signed a defence pact with China. Under Hasina’s long tenure as the head of the government — uninterrupted since 2009 — Bangladesh joined Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ambitious infrastructure plan, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), while maintaining close ties with India, particularly during the Modi government’s three unbroken tenures.

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Xi visited Bangladesh in 2016 in a major show of China’s intent of expanding its sphere of influence in India’s neighbourhood. In 2017, China supplied two Ming category submarines to Bangladesh as it aimed to wean the country away from India.

China has also offered to widen the Teesta river, which has been an unresolved dispute between India and Bangladesh. Recently, China has been pumping in money to various infrastructure projects in Bangladesh. However, the sudden economic collapse of Sri Lanka in 2022-23 saw Bangladesh treading cautiously with Chinese money. India’s prompt help to Sri Lanka to rescue it from the economic chaos also dawned upon Bangladesh that a structured and open economic exchange is in its interest.

The China factor is bound to weigh in Hasina-Modi talks on Saturday.

Anti-India forces in Bangladesh

The visuals of celebrations in Bangladesh when Australia defeated India in the Cricket World Cup last year jolted many in India. After all, Bangladesh has been a friendly country, sharing the almost the same Bangla culture that has influenced the rest of India in a positive way for a long time.  

The shock turned into surprise in the run up to the January 7 Bangladesh parliamentary election. Bangladesh was witnessing an “India Out” (Boycott India) campaign, similar to one seen in the Maldives, which went on to elect the campaign leader Mohamed Muizzu as its president.

Hasina was dubbed by “India Out” campaign supporters as a puppet of India. The cadres of Islamist party, Jamaat-i-Islami, though barred from contesting election, ran a sustained campaign to magnify anti-India sentiment among Bangladeshi people.  

Anti-India is not a new thing in Bangladesh but it had earlier always stayed in the margins of its politics. Soon after the Liberation of Bangladesh by the Indian forces in 1971, Major MA Jalil formed the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, which attempted a coup against the pro-India government in 1975. This time around, attempts were made to set the election narrative on this campaign.  

Some of the groups involved in the campaign also took on the Hasina government by proposing to prefer Urdu (which originated in India and is the official language of Pakistan) over Bengali, the official language of Bangladesh. The anti-India campaigners cited the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) legislated by India among other things to raise public opinion against Bangladesh’s neighbour.

Hasina, however, won the election for a record fourth straight term this year amid unusual interest shown by the US in the Bangladesh election. India, though accused of trying to influence the outcome, stayed away from commenting on the Bangladesh parliamentary election. Months later, in a first, Hasina attended Prime Minister Modi’s oath-taking ceremony earlier this month. On previous occasions, Hasina had sent a representative to such ceremonies.

Illegal immigration and human trafficking

Illegal immigration from Bangladesh has always been a politically sensitive and ethnically emotive issue in India, particularly in West Bengal and Assam. India’s intervention in Bangladesh’s Liberation War happened as about 10 million people fled to Indian states. A large number of them stayed back.

Due to porous, not-demarcated and unfenced borders, influx of people from Bangladesh continued to India for decades as they looked for a better economic avenue in India. Every election in eastern and Northeastern Indian states is filled with the noise of illegal immigrants.

A large number of the illegal immigrants from Bangladesh have landed in India through human trafficking — a network that works across the 4,100-km-long border. With the border demarcation agreed and fencing work underway, there have been some curbs and legal action against human traffickers but the issue remains a thorn in the flesh of India-Bangladesh diplomacy.

Rohingya issue, another illegal immigration headache 

Bangladesh has the largest chunk of Rohingya people, who crossed over from the neighbouring Rakhine province of Myanmar after 2017, when the military turned against the community following a rebel group known as ARSA attacked military posts in the province. The military action was considered disproportionately strong.  

As Bangladesh kept getting Rohingya people, who took shelter in Cox’s Bazar, thousands of them crossed over to India through land and water routes. India has repeatedly said that it would work out ways to send back Rohingya. But there has not been any taker.  

India shares porous borders with Myanmar also but reports suggest that the immigration of Rohingya into India has mainly happened or continues to happen through Bangladesh and Bay of Bengal routes. Other routes through Nepal and Bhutan have reportedly seen fewer Rohingya getting into India, which considers them as a security risk.

In March this year, the Indian government told the Supreme Court of India, “It is submitted that continuance of Rohingyas’ illegal migration into India and their continued stay in India, apart from being absolutely illegal, is found to be having serious national security ramifications and has serious security threats.”

Teesta river dispute

Teesta river dispute has been a lingering issue between India and Bangladesh though the two countries came closer to signing the agreement in 2011 but the opposition from the West Bengal government denied the opportunity. The Teesta agreement has been hanging fire since then.

An interim deal, for 15 years, gave India 42.5 per cent and Bangladesh 37.5 per cent of waters of Teesta that flows through Sikkim and Bengal before entering Bangladesh.  

In recent years, China has offered Bangladesh to expand the Teesta river on its side by carrying out dredging work. Earlier, Bangladesh’s Economic Relations Division sought a $983 million loan from China for the Teesta river.  

In May this year, India made a counter offer. India said it is interested in financing Teesta river projects. On her return from Modi’s inauguration ceremony, Hasina told Bangladesh’s Parliament on June 13 that her government would study the feasibility of the two offers. Interestingly, she also said that China’s proposal lacked clarity on issues such as land development and water navigation.

Besides the Teesta, focus may also be on the Ganga. Signed in 1996, the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty is set to expire in 2026.