The Pulse | Diplomacy | South Asia

Is the Ice Finally Breaking in Bangladesh-India Relations?

Security officials from the two countries met in Delhi days after the BNP government took charge in Dhaka.

India’s Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar hands over a letter of condolence from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Tarique Rahman, then the acting chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, following the death of his mother and former Bangladesh Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, on his arrival at Dhaka for Zia’s funeral, Dec. 31, 2025.

Relations between Bangladesh and India were under severe strain for 18 months in the aftermath of the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government in August 2024. Mutual suspicions increased by the day and political; diplomatic and intelligence relations soured.

Recent developments, however, indicate that the frosty relations are beginning to thaw.

Less than a week after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led government took charge on February 17, Bangladesh’s newly appointed Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) Maj. Gen. Mohammad Kaiser Rashid Chowdhury made an unannounced trip to New Delhi.

The Indian media reported subsequently that Chowdhury had held talks with key personnel of India’s security establishment, including National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Research and Intelligence Wing Chief Parag Jain, and Director General of Military Intelligence Lt. Gen. R.S. Raman.

Although neither side issued an official statement, the visit indicates that intelligence contacts between the two neighbors could be reopening after more than a year of uncertainty.

The political upheaval of August 2024, when Hasina resigned and fled to India after weeks of protests and a harsh government crackdown, ushered in a new period in Dhaka’s foreign policy. Three days after Hasina’s exit, an interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was formed. Under the interim government, ties between Bangladesh and India deteriorated rapidly, even as those with Pakistan strengthened after remaining in a poor state during Hasina’s rule.

For New Delhi, the transition introduced strategic uncertainty. Bangladesh and India had forged one of South Asia’s closest security partnerships under Hasina, especially on counterterrorism and cross-border intelligence-sharing. With a new political order taking hold in Dhaka, those traditional channels of engagement began to slow dramatically.

However, by late 2025, the first tentative steps toward renewal began to take shape.

In November last year, Bangladesh’s then national security adviser and now the minister of foreign affairs, Khalilur Rahman, visited New Delhi to attend the Colombo Security Conclave and met Doval. It was the first known high-level security dialogue between the two countries since Hasina’s ouster. Although the meeting did not lead to an immediate broader change in bilateral relations, it reopened a channel that had been dormant for more than a year.

Another diplomatic outreach took place around this time. signaling a possible reset in bilateral relations. India’s external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar, met Tarique Rahman in Dhaka in December 2025 and extended his condolences over the death of his mother, Begum Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister of Bangladesh. Rahman, who was at that time acting chairman of the BNP, is now the BNP’s chief and Bangladesh’s prime minister.

In February, the BNP swept the general elections. Soon after the swearing in of the new government, India moved quickly to recognize the new political reality. New Delhi sent a high-level delegation, including Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, to participate in the swearing-in ceremony.

Visa policy had emerged as one of the main signs of the rupture in bilateral relations under the interim government. In August 2024, India suspended visa services to Bangladesh. In November–December 2025, a second, more sweeping closure followed, tied to anti-India protests and vandalism of some establishments relating to the killing of activist and student leader Sharif Osman Hadi. As a result, by late December, India had closed its visa application centers in Bangladesh. In retaliation, Bangladesh suspended its visa services to Indian citizens.

Both sides have started restoring visa services since the BNP took office in Dhaka. While Bangladesh recommenced full-scale visa services at its missions in India on February 24, India indicated that it would soon resume various categories of visas for Bangladeshis in phases, including medical, tourist, and student visas.

Beyond diplomacy and intelligence contacts, economic links between the two countries are also showing signs of revival.

Despite strong anti-India sentiment, Bangladesh’s exports to India grew 12.4 percent to $1.76 billion in fiscal year 2024–25, up from $1.57 billion the previous year, according to the Export Promotion Bureau. Growth was particularly strong in footwear (43 percent), fish (42 percent), and ready-made garments (17.38 percent). Bangladesh continues to import roughly $9 billion worth of goods annually from India, underscoring the scale of cross-border supply chains despite the broader political tensions.

Moreover, recent energy cooperation signals another pragmatic engagement. In March 2026, India supplied around 5,000 tons of diesel to Bangladesh via the Bangladesh–India Friendship Pipeline as part of an agreement under which New Delhi supplies approximately 180,000 tons each year from the Numaligarh refinery in its Northeast.

Dhaka has also sought additional tons of diesel, which the Indian government is considering. The request attracted attention as Bangladesh sought to stabilize fuel supplies amid broader energy ruptures tied to tensions involving Iran and West Asia, underscoring the interdependence that continues to shape relations between the countries.

In addition to the change in government in Dhaka, regional dynamics have also played an important role in shaping New Delhi’s approach toward Bangladesh.

In January 2025, a delegation from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence visited Bangladesh, which was a rare instance of high-level contacts between the two countries’ intelligence establishments. At about the same time, Bangladesh’s economic engagement with China was intensifying. A long-planned project associated with the Teesta River basin, projected to cost as much as $1 billion according to Bangladeshi media, and financed by the Chinese, was discussed. The modernization of Mongla Port was also discussed with China. The projects are in various stages of negotiation.

On the regional front, Bangladesh also engaged with China and Pakistan in a trilateral meeting at the vice-ministerial level in Kunming in June 2025. Though Islamabad portrayed the mechanism as a forum for regulated cooperation, the development also carried broader geopolitical implications.

In this light, the reopening of security contacts between India and Bangladesh last month was more than symbolic. It indicates that the two countries are considering concrete cooperation, especially with regard to intelligence sharing and border security, even as they diverge politically in other ways.

Indeed, there are signs that the tentative cooperation is yielding practical results. On March 5, Indian authorities arrested two Bangladeshi suspects for Hadi’s murder. This should serve to cool anti-India sentiment among right-leaning Bangladeshis. Bangladesh has since sought their return under existing extradition arrangements.

However, these tentative signs of the beginning of a thaw have been overshadowed by more structural challenges to the relationship.

The most politically complex issue is still Hasina herself. In November 2025, Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal sentenced the former prime minister to death in absentia over the 2024 crackdowns. Hasina remains in India, and Dhaka has consistently put forward the demand for her extradition.

Water disputes also remain a major concern. A 1996 treaty on the sharing of the waters of the River Ganga between the two countries will expire in December 2026, making negotiations that could redefine dry-season allocations inevitable. The long-stalled Teesta agreement, blocked from being signed in 2011 by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s opposition, remains unresolved.

Another worry is border security. Indian government data submitted to Parliament recorded over 1,000 detected infiltration attempts along the Bangladesh frontier from January through November 2025.

For both countries, these challenges spotlight a wider reality.

So, the reopening of diplomatic and intelligence contacts indicates that both Dhaka and New Delhi recognize that prolonged tension in their relationship is simply not an option. Despite some disagreements, the two countries remain closely linked through security concerns, trade, and geography, making some level of cooperation unavoidable.

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Relations between Bangladesh and India were under severe strain for 18 months in the aftermath of the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government in August 2024. Mutual suspicions increased by the day and political; diplomatic and intelligence relations soured.

Recent developments, however, indicate that the frosty relations are beginning to thaw.

Less than a week after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led government took charge on February 17, Bangladesh’s newly appointed Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) Maj. Gen. Mohammad Kaiser Rashid Chowdhury made an unannounced trip to New Delhi.

The Indian media reported subsequently that Chowdhury had held talks with key personnel of India’s security establishment, including National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Research and Intelligence Wing Chief Parag Jain, and Director General of Military Intelligence Lt. Gen. R.S. Raman.

Although neither side issued an official statement, the visit indicates that intelligence contacts between the two neighbors could be reopening after more than a year of uncertainty.

The political upheaval of August 2024, when Hasina resigned and fled to India after weeks of protests and a harsh government crackdown, ushered in a new period in Dhaka’s foreign policy. Three days after Hasina’s exit, an interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was formed. Under the interim government, ties between Bangladesh and India deteriorated rapidly, even as those with Pakistan strengthened after remaining in a poor state during Hasina’s rule.

For New Delhi, the transition introduced strategic uncertainty. Bangladesh and India had forged one of South Asia’s closest security partnerships under Hasina, especially on counterterrorism and cross-border intelligence-sharing. With a new political order taking hold in Dhaka, those traditional channels of engagement began to slow dramatically.

However, by late 2025, the first tentative steps toward renewal began to take shape.

In November last year, Bangladesh’s then national security adviser and now the minister of foreign affairs, Khalilur Rahman, visited New Delhi to attend the Colombo Security Conclave and met Doval. It was the first known high-level security dialogue between the two countries since Hasina’s ouster. Although the meeting did not lead to an immediate broader change in bilateral relations, it reopened a channel that had been dormant for more than a year.

Another diplomatic outreach took place around this time. signaling a possible reset in bilateral relations. India’s external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar, met Tarique Rahman in Dhaka in December 2025 and extended his condolences over the death of his mother, Begum Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister of Bangladesh. Rahman, who was at that time acting chairman of the BNP, is now the BNP’s chief and Bangladesh’s prime minister.

In February, the BNP swept the general elections. Soon after the swearing in of the new government, India moved quickly to recognize the new political reality. New Delhi sent a high-level delegation, including Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, to participate in the swearing-in ceremony.

Visa policy had emerged as one of the main signs of the rupture in bilateral relations under the interim government. In August 2024, India suspended visa services to Bangladesh. In November–December 2025, a second, more sweeping closure followed, tied to anti-India protests and vandalism of some establishments relating to the killing of activist and student leader Sharif Osman Hadi. As a result, by late December, India had closed its visa application centers in Bangladesh. In retaliation, Bangladesh suspended its visa services to Indian citizens.

Both sides have started restoring visa services since the BNP took office in Dhaka. While Bangladesh recommenced full-scale visa services at its missions in India on February 24, India indicated that it would soon resume various categories of visas for Bangladeshis in phases, including medical, tourist, and student visas.

Beyond diplomacy and intelligence contacts, economic links between the two countries are also showing signs of revival.

Despite strong anti-India sentiment, Bangladesh’s exports to India grew 12.4 percent to $1.76 billion in fiscal year 2024–25, up from $1.57 billion the previous year, according to the Export Promotion Bureau. Growth was particularly strong in footwear (43 percent), fish (42 percent), and ready-made garments (17.38 percent). Bangladesh continues to import roughly $9 billion worth of goods annually from India, underscoring the scale of cross-border supply chains despite the broader political tensions.

Moreover, recent energy cooperation signals another pragmatic engagement. In March 2026, India supplied around 5,000 tons of diesel to Bangladesh via the Bangladesh–India Friendship Pipeline as part of an agreement under which New Delhi supplies approximately 180,000 tons each year from the Numaligarh refinery in its Northeast.

Dhaka has also sought additional tons of diesel, which the Indian government is considering. The request attracted attention as Bangladesh sought to stabilize fuel supplies amid broader energy ruptures tied to tensions involving Iran and West Asia, underscoring the interdependence that continues to shape relations between the countries.

In addition to the change in government in Dhaka, regional dynamics have also played an important role in shaping New Delhi’s approach toward Bangladesh.

In January 2025, a delegation from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence visited Bangladesh, which was a rare instance of high-level contacts between the two countries’ intelligence establishments. At about the same time, Bangladesh’s economic engagement with China was intensifying. A long-planned project associated with the Teesta River basin, projected to cost as much as $1 billion according to Bangladeshi media, and financed by the Chinese, was discussed. The modernization of Mongla Port was also discussed with China. The projects are in various stages of negotiation.

On the regional front, Bangladesh also engaged with China and Pakistan in a trilateral meeting at the vice-ministerial level in Kunming in June 2025. Though Islamabad portrayed the mechanism as a forum for regulated cooperation, the development also carried broader geopolitical implications.

In this light, the reopening of security contacts between India and Bangladesh last month was more than symbolic. It indicates that the two countries are considering concrete cooperation, especially with regard to intelligence sharing and border security, even as they diverge politically in other ways.

Indeed, there are signs that the tentative cooperation is yielding practical results. On March 5, Indian authorities arrested two Bangladeshi suspects for Hadi’s murder. This should serve to cool anti-India sentiment among right-leaning Bangladeshis. Bangladesh has since sought their return under existing extradition arrangements.

However, these tentative signs of the beginning of a thaw have been overshadowed by more structural challenges to the relationship.

The most politically complex issue is still Hasina herself. In November 2025, Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal sentenced the former prime minister to death in absentia over the 2024 crackdowns. Hasina remains in India, and Dhaka has consistently put forward the demand for her extradition.

Water disputes also remain a major concern. A 1996 treaty on the sharing of the waters of the River Ganga between the two countries will expire in December 2026, making negotiations that could redefine dry-season allocations inevitable. The long-stalled Teesta agreement, blocked from being signed in 2011 by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s opposition, remains unresolved.

Another worry is border security. Indian government data submitted to Parliament recorded over 1,000 detected infiltration attempts along the Bangladesh frontier from January through November 2025.

For both countries, these challenges spotlight a wider reality.

So, the reopening of diplomatic and intelligence contacts indicates that both Dhaka and New Delhi recognize that prolonged tension in their relationship is simply not an option. Despite some disagreements, the two countries remain closely linked through security concerns, trade, and geography, making some level of cooperation unavoidable.

Saqlain Rizve is a Bangladeshi journalist and photographer who covers politics and society from Dhaka for The Diplomat.

1996 India-Bangladesh Ganga waters

Bangladesh foreign policy

Bangladesh-India relations

BNP government foreign policy

India-Bangladesh interim government

India-Bangladesh ties

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman

Sheikh Hasina extradition

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