Pulls of domestic politics in Dhaka

Dhaka has made a formal request to Delhi for the extradition of former prime minister Sheikha Hasina, who has been living in India since her government was ousted in August in a student-led uprising that had the support of the military. Given the extradition treaty between the two countries, this request will further test India-Bangladesh relations, which have changed for the worse since the regime change. The new dispensation in Dhaka has limited the demand for political reforms to the elimination of Hasina’s Awami League party from electoral politics and the erasure of its role in the creation of Bangladesh. This revisionist project has Hasina in its crosshairs: A slew of cases, the most recent one alleging corruption in the Rooppur nuclear plant built by Russia and India, have been filed against her and the extradition demand is ostensibly to prosecute her in these cases.

Clearly, India has been drawn into the political quagmire in Bangladesh. Hasina has been pilloried by her rivals for forging close ties with India, and a section of the new regime in Dhaka wants to recalibrate its relations with Delhi. The attacks on minorities, the attempt to erase Delhi’s role in the liberation of Bangladesh, the demonising of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, attempts to revive relations with Pakistan, and back-pedalling on the 1971 war crimes, have a clear anti-India thrust. Against this backdrop, the “political offence exception” in the treaty is likely to come into play if Dhaka continues with its insistence on Hasina’s extradition. Article 6 of the treaty states that “extradition may be refused if the offence of which it is requested is an offence of a political character”. Article 8 further adds that a person may not be extradited from India if the accusation is not made in good faith, in the interests of justice. Dhaka’s friendship with Delhi helped stabilise the region and facilitated economic growth. Improvement in regional connectivity and investment in energy greatly enabled Bangladesh’s journey from being a least developed country to a developing one, while bolstering growth and connectivity in India’s Northeast. Any slide into unrest and decline in relations with neighbours will hurt Bangladesh even as questions are being raised about the state of its economy — Dhaka has been accused of data manipulation.

The civic unrest that led to Hasina’s ouster in August was the result of the rising cost of living and her crackdown on civic freedoms. Bangladesh needs political reforms, surely, but Dhaka’s excessive focus on Hasina, and the targeting of her friends, at home and abroad, India included, is unlikely to help the country stay on course for a democratic overhaul.