Will India's Modi meet Bangladesh's Yunus in New York?
Some academicians said it would be another diplomatic blunder of Delhi’s South Block if a dialogue is not held at the soonest between Prime Minister Modi and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus
[PM Modi leaving India for a 3-day US visit.]
Indian English daily Hindustan Times reported that PM Modi is not expected to meet Yunus on the UNGA sidelines, which both leaders are set to attend.
But, Bangladesh diplomatic channels have sought from India for a side-line meeting between Dr Muhammad Yunus, Chief Adviser of Bangladesh Interim Government, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the upcoming United National General Assembly (UNGA) next week in New York.
Political observers state that Yunus should find an opportunity to meet Modi on the margins of the UN General Assembly to update on the bilateral relationship between the two neighbouring countries.
The two leaders had a telephone dialogue on 16 August, a week after the Nobel laureate took oath as head of the Interim Government. Modi reiterated India’s support for a democratic, stable, peaceful and progressive Bangladesh.
Modi also urged Yunus for the safety and security of the “Hindus and all other minority communities” in Bangladesh.
The two leaders spoke for the first time in the backdrop of the fast-moving developments in the neighbouring country, which earlier this month witnessed the dramatic removal of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the subsequent internal political turbulence.
Several journalists based in Delhi quoting insiders in South Block said that Modi will have a packed schedule for his three-day visit to the United States, as he is set to attend the Quad Leaders’ Summit in Wilmington, Delaware, on 21 September and address the Summit of the Future at the UN General Assembly on 23 September.
However, sources in the South Block said a meeting with Yunus is not part of the Indian side’s agenda. “A meeting with the head of Bangladesh’s interim government isn’t in the schedule,” one source told Hindustan Times.
Political analysists are of the view that Yunus’ comments on Bangladesh-India relations in a recent interview have not gone down well in New Delhi, observing this could be one of the many reasons why Modi is not too much inclined for a meeting with the Nobel Laureate.
In the press interview, Yunus, the inventor of micro-credit and women’s empowerment, which helped several million women to escape from the cycle of poverty in rural Bangladesh, criticized former premier Sheikh Hasina for commenting on developments in Bangladesh while in exile in India.
He did not hesitate to suggest that Bangladesh could seek her extradition and said India should move beyond the “narrative” that every political party other than Hasina’s Awami League is “Islamist”.
Meanwhile, Touhid Hossain, the de facto foreign minister and other advisers of the Interim Government, have repeatedly raked up the possibility of seeking the extradition of Hasina, who fled to India after her autocratic regime collapsed on 5 August.
Hossain went a step forward and said that if Delhi is stubborn on the issue of deportation, it would create an “embarrassing situation for the Indian government”.
The External Affairs Ministry has refused to be drawn out on any possible Bangladeshi request for her extradition, describing it as a hypothetical matter.
Sheikh Hasina landed at an air force base in Delhi and is living in a safe house, literally in seclusion. She was unable to meet her daughter Saima Wazed, Regional Director of the World Health Organisation South-East Asia Region based in New Delhi. Her brother Sajeeb Wazed failed to get clearance from the Delhi administration to fly from Washington DC to meet her mother living incommunicado with her sister Sheikh Rehana.
India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told the Indian parliament that “At very short notice, Sheikh Hasina requested approval to come, for a short term to India, following an unprecedented political upheaval in Bangladesh.”
Modi does not know the immediate plan of Hasina’s stay for a number of days in India. Most importantly he does not know what to tell Yunus, who will press him for the extradition of Hasina to face the music of justice for the deaths of hundreds of students and protesters and their bloods spilt in the streets.
She is also blamed for enforced disappearances, extra-judicial deaths and confinement of her opposition and critics in secret prisons.
There is no doubt that she knew very well of the horizontal and vertical corruption, bank loot, money laundering, and second home of most lawmakers, Awami League senior leaders, bureaucrats, and law enforcement officers. She deliberately did not crack down on rogue elements.
It is feared that if Bangladesh officially demands her extradition, she may be moved to Russia, an anti-west country where she can live happily ever after.
Some academicians however said it would be another diplomatic blunder of Delhi’s South Block if a dialogue is not held at the soonest between the two leaders.
[The writer, Saleem Samad, is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad. The above article is first published in the Northeast News portal, Guwahati, India on 21 September 2024]
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