Will PM Modi, Md Yunus Meet On Sidelines Of BIMSTEC? Status Check On India-Bangladesh Bond Since Hasina Fled

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Edited By:

Apoorva Misra

Last Updated:April 01, 2025, 10:50 IST

At the eye of the storm between the neighbours has been the issue of violence against Hindu minorities in neighbouring Bangladesh, which the Indian establishment has tried to raise at multiple platforms

Md Yunus has been seeking a meeting with PM Modi for the past few months but it could not be scheduled. (Reuters)

A few days ago, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) confirmed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the BIMSTEC Summit in Thailand. While there was curiosity over the prime minister’s possible pull-aside meeting with Bangladesh interim government’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, it has been learnt through highly placed sources that no bilateral meeting is scheduled between the two leaders. It has also been learnt that the Bangladeshi leader has been seeking a meeting with PM Modi for the past few months but it could not be scheduled.

At the eye of the storm has been the issue of violence against Hindu minorities in neighbouring 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 has historical, cultural and linguistic ties with Bangladesh, apart from shared efforts and sacrifices that were made during the latter’s liberation. These ties have continued, even after the caretaker government came into place in the neighbouring nation in August last year. “We have engaged with the interim government on issues of state concern and regional security, as well as addressing rising extremism, attacks against minorities and economic growth," the government told a parliamentary committee recently.

The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council released a press statement on March 1, 2025, that violence against religious and ethnic minorities and indigenous communities has continued. From August 4 to December 31, 2024, a total of 2,184 attacks targeting minorities were reported, MPs were told.

“On December 10, 2024, the government of Bangladesh announced that 70 people had been arrested in 88 cases related to attacks against minorities. The government of India has consistently reiterated that the government of Bangladesh take concrete steps to protect the rights of minorities, ensure their political and social inclusion, and promote a culture of tolerance and coexistence. The government of Bangladesh has not only not acknowledged the systematic persecution of minorities but has also sought to downplay the scale and nature of violence against the 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", Misri said in a presentation made to the standing committee for external affairs on March 26.

In its detailed presentation, the government of India spoke about the timeline of the relationship between the two nations since the formation of the interim government.

PM Modi had congratulated Md Yunus upon assuming office on August 8, 2024. In September 2024, Jaishankar met Yunus on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York. The period between April 2024 and December saw a marginal increase in trade ties between the two countries in comparison to the period in 2023. Again, on the sidelines of the Indian Ocean conference in Muscat, the Indian foreign affairs minister met Yunus.

In December 2024, Misri visited the neighbouring nation where he not only met the chief adviser but also the foreign secretary of Bangladesh. The message conveyed through the meetings was that India was always in favour of peaceful constructive solutions to any crisis. He was able to elaborate effectively that eventually, people are the biggest stakeholders between the two nations and the bettering of relations matters the most to them.

The government also gave a series of steps and projects that have been undertaken to continue building on its relationship with Bangladesh.

“The Bangladesh Naval Exercise Bongosagar 2025 and Coordinated Patrol was conducted in Bay of Bengal from 10-12 March, 2025. Director General level Border Coordination Conference between BSF

(Border Security Force) and BGB (Border Guard Bangladesh) was held at BSF headquarters in New Delhi from 17-20 Feb 2025," MEA has stated officially.

As per the provisions of the Ganga Water Treaty, the joint committee meeting to observe the implementation of the treaty was held on March 6 this year. A technical level meeting under the Joint Rivers Commission to discuss cooperation in water resources was also held on March 7. A review meeting for projects undertaken by India in Bangladesh under the facility of Line of Credit (LoC) was held in Dhaka on March 5. A Tripartite Power Sale Agreement has been signed between India, Bangladesh and Nepal which has facilitated cross-border transmission of 40 MW electricity from hydro-power plant of Nepal to Bangladesh through the Indian grid for the first time ever," the government has said.

The Indian government maintains that Bangladesh continued to be India’s biggest trade partner in South Asia and India is the biggest trade partner for Bangladesh in Asia.