Indian Foreign Minister Vikram Misri and his Bangladeshi counterpart, Mohammad Jashim Uddin, during a meeting in Dhaka, December 9, 2024. BANGLADESH’S MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS / AFP Since the fall, on August 5, of former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, whom her Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, had defended to the end, nothing is going well between India and Bangladesh. Five months after the student movement which forced the “iron begum” to flee to India, the Indo-Bangladeshi situation is now so degraded that New Delhi sent its Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to Dhaka on Monday, December 9, Vikram Misri. After meeting the top Indian diplomat, the head of the interim government Muhammad Yunus warned that “dark clouds” were darkening the sky of bilateral relations and asked his big neighbor not to interfere in its internal affairs. On the Bangladesh side, many reasons have aroused the ire of the new leaders, starting with the asylum offered by New Delhi to the former iron lady. The Indian government has provided her with a comfortable house in an upscale neighborhood in the south of the capital, while Dhaka wants her extradition, to present her to justice. Since October, Sheikh Hasina has been prosecuted for crimes against humanity before the courts of Bangladesh. Dozens of his followers have also been arrested and some are also the subject of an investigation by the court for the repression of the protest movement which led to the fall of the regime. More than 1,000 people had been killed. Sheikh Hasina adds fuel to the fire From his golden asylum, the autocrat continues to harangue his troops and vilify his successor. On Sunday, December 8, she further added fuel to the fire in a thirty-seven minute telephone speech, broadcast during a gathering of her supporters in London. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers In Bangladesh, the fall of a dynasty Read later The former prime minister, in power for fifteen years (between 2009 and 2024), accused Muhammad Yunus of being the “mastermind” of the unrest which earned his fall and led a “fascist regime”. “Bangladesh is now under the influence of a fascist regime where the democratic rights of the population have been destroyed,” she said. A regime which would, according to her, be incapable of protecting Hindus and other minorities. “Since August 5, attacks against minorities and places of worship of Hindus, Christians and Buddhists have been commonplace. We condemn them. The Jamaat [parti islamiste] and terrorists have free rein under the new regime,” she said. Her speech was posted on the Facebook page of the Bangladesh Students’ League and the Bangladesh Awami League (Ms. Hasina’s party). You have 53.62% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
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