{"id":5222,"date":"2023-07-15T10:22:47","date_gmt":"2023-07-15T10:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/?p=5222"},"modified":"2023-07-15T16:17:37","modified_gmt":"2023-07-15T16:17:37","slug":"reading-the-tea-leaves-from-modis-washington-visit-is-indian-support-for-sheikh-hasina-waning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/reading-the-tea-leaves-from-modis-washington-visit-is-indian-support-for-sheikh-hasina-waning\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading the Tea Leaves from Modi\u2019s Washington Visit- Is Indian Support for Sheikh Hasina Waning?"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]\n
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Even before the red carpet was rolled out at the White House for visiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indian pundits were vocal in stressing the importance of New Delhi\u2019s protecting its interests in its neighborhood in the face of U.S. democracy promotion activities. In particular, they argued that India\u2019s best bet in neighboring Bangladesh was to continue support for current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in the face of past US sanctions and newly-announced visa restrictions ahead of the country\u2019s upcoming national elections. While Modi\u2019s visit was intended to highlight Indian and American cooperation on \u2018issues of mutual interests\u2019, it was widely expected that areas of disagreement including Bangladesh would also feature in the bilateral discussions. Despite this anticipation, press reports following the visit were noticeably silent on Bangladesh. In particular, the expansive U.S.-India joint statement failed to mention Bangladesh, causing unease among supporters of Prime Minister Hasina who had expected that PM Modi would lobby President Biden on her behalf.<\/p>\n

In contrast to the silence from Washington following the Modi visit, other quarters have been being increasingly vocal about developments in Bangladesh. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin applauded Sheikh Hasina for \u2018speaking up the mind of a large part of the international community, especially the developing world\u2019; referring to the her criticism of US sanctions. Meanwhile, Russia has accused the Americans and Europeans of exporting \u2018neocolonialism\u2019 and committing \u2018blatant interference\u2019 in the internal affairs of Bangladesh by urging for free polls. Iran\u2019s state-supported television has also echoed the charges emanating from Moscow and Beijing. These comments ignore the widely held view that the previous two general elections in Bangladesh were widely seen as flawed. For their part, the European Union has echoed the U.S. emphasis on the importance of democracy and free elections, linking these to continued trade preferences. PM Hasina\u2019s supporters appear determined to push foward with efforts to ensure a new five year term despite charges of widespread human rights violations. Highlighting the stakes involved, Ali Riaz, Distinguished Professor of Politics & Government at Illinois State University, has noted that the future of multiparty democracy in Bangladesh is contingent upon the credibility of the upcoming election.<\/p>\n

In the last two general elections, New Delhi stood firmly behind Prime Minister Hasina and her government. In the wake of Modi\u2019s Washington visit and the subsequent silence on Bangladesh, observers have begun to wonder whether New Delhi may be quietly modifying its policy and hedging its bets on PM Hasina. There are also questions of whether India will continue to expend political capital advocating on PM Hasina\u2019s behalf with the Biden Administration.<\/p>\n

More broadly, questions remain on the extent to which the U.S. \u2013 India partnership will influence developments in the Asia Pacific Region. Daniel Markey, a senior advisor on South Asia at the United States Institute of Peace recently argued in Foreign Affairs magazine that \u2018Washington and Delhi share interests, not values\u2019. He added that \u201cU.S. officials must understand that, deep down, India is not an ally.\u201d Indian-origin Columnist Barkha Dutt argued in the Washington Post that \u2018India will not take its cue from America on China; New Delhi wants to manage the relationship on its own terms\u2019 and not \u2018to confuse strategic cooperation for a long-term alliance\u2019. Both articles were published on the eve of Prime Minister Modi\u2019 visit and hinted that beneath the pomp and circumstance of the visit the substance of bilateral discussions might not live up to the hype. During the visit, PM Modi coined the term \u201cAI\u201d to describe the relationship between America and India (perhaps piggybacking on the current buzz around Artificial Intelligence). Both AI\u2019s have important yet to be defined aspects. The role that democracy and human rights (the \u201cvalues agenda\u201d) is one of these areas for the America-India relationship, including how this will impact policy vis a vis Bangladesh.<\/p>\n

In the run up to the Modi visit, John Kirby, the NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications, briefly commented on Bangladesh, as previously detailed in South Asian Perspectives. When asked how Bangladesh would feature in the bilateral discussions with PM Modi, Kirby stated that \u201cWe let the Indian government speaks for its bilateral relations with Bangladesh, but we have already made clear our desire to see free and fair elections in Bangladesh.\u201d For his part, India\u2019s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, quite well known for his terse catchphrases, remarked that India was getting less involved with internal political affairs of its neighbors. The Foreign Minister\u2019s shared these views when speaking at an event at the India International Center in Delhi to celebrate the successes of the Modi government and which came a week after the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington.<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding its sanctions on the Rapid Action Battalion and the recently announced visa policy, over the course of Sheikh Hasina\u2019s 15 years in power, it has been widely assumed that Washington would ultimately defer to New Delhi on policy toward Bangladesh. Recent assertiveness from Washington and the silence after the Modi visit are challenging this conventional wisdom. This will likely gain further traction with senior U.S. officials planning to visit Dhaka in the coming weeks while Indian officials are keeping a much lower profile than was the case prior to elections in 2014 and 2018. Absent further disclosures about the substance of the Modi-Biden discussions on Bangladesh, observers will continue attempting to read the tea leaves.<\/p><\/div>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Even before the red carpet was rolled out at the White House for visiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indian pundits were vocal in stressing the importance of New Delhi\u2019s protecting its interests in its neighborhood in the face of U.S. democracy promotion activities. In particular, they argued that India\u2019s best bet in neighboring Bangladesh…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":5224,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[236],"tags":[],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-5222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lead-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5222"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5358,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5222\/revisions\/5358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5222"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=5222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}