C T Online Desk: India, alongside a few other stakeholders, was aware of an anti-Sheikh Hasina wave building up in Bangladesh ahead of the dictator’s overthrow on 5 August last year, India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar informed an Indian parliamentary committee on Saturday.
However, India was not in a position to do much as it lacked the necessary leverage over Hasina who could only be “advised”, he told Indian lawmakers, who were also members of Consultative Committee on External Affairs.
The Hindu has learnt that Jaishankar indicated that India — like a few other leading stakeholders — had been aware of the tumultuous situation inside Bangladesh. In this regard, he mentioned the UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk’s recent remarks about the UN warning the Bangladesh army against a confrontation with unarmed protesters during the anti-Hasina protests, that such a move would prompt the UN to ban the army from peacekeeping operations.
The Consultative Committee on External Affairs members met Jaishankar for a discussion on India’s foreign policy regarding its neighbours.
While the interim government in Bangladesh has initiated dialogue with India, the Delhi-Dhaka relationship has been fraught with tension in view of India providing asylum to Hasina.
India has engaged with the interim government by sending Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri in December 2024, but the Indian Ministry of External Affairs is still non-committal on a possible meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus in Bangkok on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC summit on 2-4 April.
Professor Yunus, who has hosted a series of international dignitaries, is on track to visit China soon.
Jaishankar told lawmakers that China was “not an adversary but a competitor” for India in Bangladesh.
