It is hard to be optimistic about the future of India-Bangladesh relations. Since the student-led transition to an interim government in Dhaka on August 5th, bilateral ties have been in freefall. New Delhi had been friendly with the previous Awami League government despite its authoritarian trampling of human rights and democracy. India now harbours former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who the new leader of Bangladesh, Nobel Prize laureate Mohammad Yunus, says must be extradited to Dhaka.
New Delhi has growing concerns about the interim government's release of Islamic extremists and terrorists from its jails, raising fears of renewed terrorist attacks. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also highlighted the need to protect the ethnic Hindu minority living in this Muslim-majority country as they have reportedly been the victims of communal attacks. While acknowledging some attacks, Bangladesh rejects that this is happening on a large scale; rather, Dhaka believes India is actively sowing disinformation and misinformation to inflate threat perceptions amongst its people.
In the most recent and worrisome flare-up, last month Bangladeshi police arrested Chinmoy Krishna Das, a Hindu monk and supporter of Hindu minority rights in Bangladesh, on charges of sedition. Das' arrest sparked a communal riot. In response, Hindu protesters breached the Bangladeshi High Commission office in Agartala, capital of the northeastern Indian state of Tripura, and Dhaka seeks their prosecution. Thousands of main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) supporters rallied in Dhaka in response to this action as well as alleged desecration of Bangladeshi flags in India.
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