Dhaka’s formal note to New Delhi seeking the extradition of its former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wazed, is the latest but not the last of the challenges that confront India-Bangladesh ties. A Bangladesh high court’s decision last week to commute the death penalty of United Liberation Front of Asom’s leader, Paresh Baruah, to a life sentence in a major 2004 arms haul case was an example of other kinds of strain that afflict New Delhi’s ties with Dhaka at the moment. Baruah, who is in self-imposed exile and is believed to be operating from the China-Myanmar border region, had been convicted and sentenced by Bangladeshi authorities in the case, which involved the illegal shipment of thousands of weapons to India to support separatism in the country’s Northeast. But if the punishment given to Baruah was reflective of the strong security cooperation that New Delhi and Dhaka boasted of under Ms Wazed, the commutation of his sentence now underscores how that bilateral relationship has collapsed since she was ousted from power in August. The court also acquitted Lutfozzaman Babar, a minister in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-Jamaat-e-Islami government at the time in 2004, who Bangladeshi and Indian security agencies had accused of involvement in the arms smuggling case. Many others who were
previously convicted have also received a reprieve from the court, either in the form of acquittals or reduced sentences.
The interim Bangladesh government of the Nobel laureate, Muhammad Yunus, could argue that the country’s courts operate independent of the executive and the legislature and that they had no role in influencing the ruling. But just as controversial court verdicts in India that align with the interests of the ruling party of the day are seen through a political lens domestically and internationally, this ruling will be viewed through the prism of the anti-India climate that dominates Bangladesh at the moment. The BNP and the Jamaat, whose activities were severely restricted under Ms Wazed, have now re-emerged as major political players. Mr Yunus’s government appears to be struggling to contain the deterioration in the ties with India amid mounting insecurities among Hindus in Bangladesh and the near daily news leaks that blame New Delhi for some of the worst excesses of Ms Wazed’s administration. Against that backdrop, the court judgment on Baruah will only fuel concerns in New Delhi over Bangladesh’s sincerity in ensuring that India’s national security interests are not compromised, especially in the country’s Northeast. How Dhaka responds to the verdict will shape India’s perceptions of whether Bangladesh genuinely wants to rebuild trust. The ball is in Mr Yunus’s court.