As India navigates a difficult relationship with Bangladesh in the aftermath of the ouster of the former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wazed, from Dhaka, ties between the neighbours are also suffering from the politicisation of foreign policy. Recent decisions by some hospitals in Bengal and Tripura to stop treating patients from Bangladesh, the move by a traders’ body in an Assam district to stop cross-border commerce, and the security breach at the Bangladesh high commission in Agartala are symptoms of this malaise. Since Ms Wazed was forced to leave office in early August, the warmth that had marked New Delhi-Dhaka ties for the past 15 years has increasingly been replaced by acrimony. Many in Bangladesh accuse India of propping up Ms Wazed’s government even as she grew more unpopular; and the strategic community in New Delhi views the new leadership in Dhaka with suspicion. That Ms Wazed is still in exile in India and New Delhi has been silent on calls from Bangladesh to extradite her have further complicated the relations. Diplomats are trained to deal with all of these challenges. But what makes their work harder is the presence of religion-infused politics.

India has registered its concerns over the mounting sense of insecurity among religious minorities in Bangladesh following several attacks on them and the recent arrest of a Hindu monk advocating for the community’s rights. But those genuine worries have been disturbingly turned into a political weapon by sections of India’s political elite. In Bengal, leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party have led protests at the Bangladesh border, adding to bilateral tensions. The Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, aware of the potential political consequences of the BJP’s strategy, urged the Centre to seek a peacekeeping force from the United Nations to be sent to Bangladesh to protect religious minorities — a demand that Dhaka has rejected. While it is increasingly evi­d­ent that the interim government of the Nobel lau­reate, Muhammad Yunus, is struggling to maintain law and order in Bangladesh, New Delhi must do better than to let its relationship be defin­ed by electoral considerations and short-sighted po­litics. India needs to regain its credibility in Bangladesh. It cannot do so if it comes across as an in­terfering Big Brother. Diplomats in South Block likely understand this. It is time the politicians did too.