India Has no info on PM Tarique’s visit: Randhir Jaiswal

Diplomatic Stalemate Deepens as New Delhi Offers No Update on Dhaka’s BRICS-Linked Visit

Thebangladaily.com – The question of whether Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Tarique Rahman will travel to India for the upcoming BRICS summit has entered yet another phase of ambiguity. On Friday, September 4, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs confirmed — or rather, confirmed the absence of — any fresh development on the matter. Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, addressing the ministry’s weekly press briefing, offered a terse answer when pressed on the possibility of the Dhaka leader stepping onto Indian soil:

“We have no new information on this.”

The remark, delivered without elaboration, effectively froze the diplomatic clock on a visit that Bangladesh has long signaled it intends to pursue. For months, officials in Dhaka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and senior members of the government have maintained that the trip will materialize once what they describe as a “suitable environment” is in place. That phrase, repeated across multiple official statements, has become a diplomatic shorthand for the unresolved irritants that continue to strain relations between the two South Asian neighbors.

The Hasina Factor: An Unresolved Wound in Bilateral Ties

At the same briefing, Jaiswal was asked about the situation of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity by a tribunal in Bangladesh. Hasina, now residing in India, has been conducting a series of media interviews from Indian territory. The spokesperson’s response was equally curt:

“No comments.”

The brevity of both answers — one on the visit, one on Hasina — is itself telling. It signals that New Delhi is neither advancing nor formally blocking the Dhaka initiative, but is instead holding the file open while domestic and bilateral politics continue to play out. For Bangladesh, that silence is difficult to interpret charitably, particularly given the sequence of events over the past several months.

From the July Uprising to Exile

Sheikh Hasina left Bangladesh following the mass uprising of July 2024, which ended her decades-long grip on power. She crossed into India and has remained there since. The interim government that assumed authority after the uprising, led by Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, made clear early on that it expected New Delhi to respect Bangladesh’s sovereignty and not permit its former leader to use Indian territory as a platform for political activity. That expectation was carried forward, and reinforced, by the current government of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which took office after elections held in the wake of the transition.

Both administrations — the Yunus interim council and the present BNP-led government — have explicitly and publicly urged India to ensure that Hasina does not leverage her presence on Indian soil to conduct political operations aimed at Bangladesh’s domestic audience. The request has been made in formal diplomatic channels and reiterated in public statements.

The August 5 Incident and Its Aftermath

On August 5, which marked the second anniversary of the July 2024 uprising, Sheikh Hasina appeared virtually at a press conference held in New Delhi. Before that date, the Bangladesh government had formally requested that the Indian government take all necessary steps to prevent her participation in such an event. India did not act on that request. Hasina’s virtual appearance, broadcast from Indian territory, was interpreted in Dhaka as a signal that New Delhi was willing to let her maintain a visible political profile while she remains a guest of the Indian state.

The episode reignited a debate in Bangladesh about the limits of hospitality and the obligations of neighboring states under international norms. It also complicated the atmosphere in which any high-level visit between the two capitals would need to occur. For Dhaka, a prime ministerial trip to India while its ousted leader is being given a platform on Indian soil would carry an unmistakable message about priorities and respect.

BRICS Context and What Stakes Remain

The BRICS grouping — comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and a growing cohort of newer member states — has been expanding its institutional footprint in recent years. Bangladesh, as a participant in BRICS-related forums, has expressed interest in deeper engagement with the bloc. A visit by PM Rahman tied to the summit would have served both a multilateral purpose and a bilateral one, offering a reset mechanism for the strained Dhaka–New Delhi relationship.

That reset, however, appears stalled. India’s “no new information” response neither cancels the visit nor schedules it. Bangladesh’s insistence on a “suitable environment” neither threatens nor guarantees one. The two positions are, in practical terms, a mutual hold: each side is waiting for the other to move first, while the calendar of multilateral summits continues to advance.

For ordinary citizens on both sides of the Bengal River, the diplomatic impasse translates into slower flows of trade facilitation, student mobility, and cultural exchange that normally accompany warm bilateral ties. The July 2024 upheaval and its aftermath have introduced a layer of political sensitivity that did not previously exist in the India–Bangladesh relationship, and until that layer is addressed — whether through a formal agreement on the status of Hasina, a quiet diplomatic understanding, or simply the passage of time — high-level engagement will remain suspended in a state of cautious, public silence.