‘Not expecting neighbours to do only what’s in my interest’: Jaishankar on Bangladesh amid Hasina row
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar was saying on Saturday when he spoke about India and Bangladesh.He was at the Economic Times World Leaders Forum in Delhi, and someone asked him about the current awkwardness between the two countries—especially Bangladesh’s demand that India hand over Sheikh Hasina, and the question mark hanging over a possible visit by Bangladesh’s new Prime Minister Tarique Rahman. Jaishankar didn’t get into the details of any private talks. He rarely does. Instead he kept it simple and practical. He said, “What I can tell you is for any relationship to work, it has to meet the test of mutual interest. It has to work for them, it has to work for us.” Then he added the line that really stays with you: “I am also realistic, I’m not expecting neighbours to do only what’s in my interest. There has to be a fair degree, a reasonable degree, of my recognising and respecting what is their interest, just as I expect them also to do so.” He went on to say that once both sides find that common ground—that “landing point”—things start moving more smoothly. At the end of the day, he said, mutuality is what holds these relationships together. It’s a calm, grown-up way of putting it at a time when things have been a bit tense. Sheikh Hasina has been in India since August 2024, when she left Bangladesh during the big political upheaval. Bangladesh has been asking for her return so she can face the cases against her there. Some reports say Dhaka has even linked that demand to Rahman’s possible trip to India. New Delhi has invited him—both for a regular bilateral visit and in connection with the BRICS summit, since Bangladesh chairs BIMSTEC right now. But the timing has been uncertain, and the Hasina issue keeps sitting in the background. After 2024 the relationship took a real knock. There was coolness, some trade friction, sharper public comments. When Tarique Rahman took charge earlier this year, it looked like both sides were trying to steady the boat a bit. Then Hasina did a virtual media interaction from India on the second anniversary of her departure, and that seemed to irritate Dhaka all over again. India has said it didn’t organise or endorse that interaction, but the episode still added to the strain. Jaishankar’s answer didn’t pick a fight and it didn’t give anything away either. He just stated the obvious truth: lasting ties can’t be one-sided. India has its own interests—border security, connectivity for the Northeast, trade, regional stability. Bangladesh has its own priorities, shaped by what its people and its politics want right now. Pretending those don’t exist doesn’t help anyone. He’s talked about neighbourhood diplomacy this way before. What feels refreshing is that he isn’t treating this as a zero-sum game. He’s not saying India holds all the cards, and he’s not saying Bangladesh has to simply fall in line. The message is quieter and more realistic: both sides need to feel they’re getting something out of it. That applies whether you’re talking about high-level visits, legal requests, border management or the everyday economic links that ordinary people actually feel. And ordinary people do feel it. Cross-border trade, medical travel, family visits, the movement of goods—those things matter more than diplomatic language. When the temperature stays high for too long, those practical connections start to suffer first. Finding common ground, as Jaishankar put it, is less about grand speeches and more about the patient work of spotting where interests overlap and managing the differences that will always be there. Right now the two governments are still talking about the visit. Whether it happens soon or takes a little longer, the larger point he made still holds. Neighbours don’t have to agree on everything. They just have to accept that each has legitimate interests of its own. Expecting only one side to adjust is a sure way to keep the friction going. Looking for the place where interests meet is the more practical path—and the one he said India is ready to take. In the end it’s the kind of plain-spoken view that doesn’t make for dramatic headlines, but it might actually help keep the relationship from drifting further off course. Mutual interest isn’t a fancy slogan. It’s just the basic condition for any lasting neighbourhood arrangement. And right now, that’s exactly what both sides need to remember. Sources: Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, India Today, Zee News, News18, India TV, WION, The Daily Star, Firstpost, Times of India (coverage of Jaishankar’s remarks at the Economic Times World Leaders Forum, 22–23 August 2026). @Rohit Manral
‘India has always been a great friend and will remain so’: Sheikh Hasina
Sheikh Hasina spoke yesterday like someone who has carried the same thought for fifty years. No big speeches, no careful wording. Just the plain truth as she sees it. India has always been a great friend, she said, and it will remain so. She was talking from New Delhi, two years to the day after she left Bangladesh. The country she once led had turned against her. Crowds filled the streets. She had to go. India took her in, the same way it took her in long ago. She went back to those old days without any drama. In 1971, when everything was falling apart and people were running for their lives, India opened its borders. In 1975, after her father and almost her whole family were killed, India gave her and her sister a place to stay. She lived there six years. That memory never left her. Whenever Bangladesh was in real trouble, she said, India stood next to it and gave shelter. Governments come and go, she added, but that friendship stays. It was the first time she had talked properly to the press since she fled. The meeting was private. India made sure everyone knew it had nothing to do with the event. Dhaka had already complained. None of that seemed to matter to her. She just wanted to say what she felt. She has been living quietly under Indian protection all this time. Her son later said the government treated her with the same respect they would give a sitting head of state. The security never slipped. She has not forgotten that kindness either. But the real point of her words was not about staying safe in India. It was about going home. She plans to return in December. She knows what might be waiting. They may lock her up. They may even try to kill her. She said she is ready for that. Fear cannot decide her duty anymore. She cannot sit here while people she still calls her own are suffering. Her return is not about power, she insisted. It is about trying to help put the country back on its feet, back toward development and the values she believes in. She asked for the ban on her party to be lifted. She asked for her people who are in jail to be freed. She said she wants only to stand with ordinary Bangladeshis again. There was no anger in her voice, just that same steady belief. Her son was more direct. He warned that things in Bangladesh are turning dangerous, that militants once locked away are free again, and that this is not only Bangladesh’s problem. India should pay attention. Hasina herself stayed softer. She kept coming back to the older story, the one about a friendship that has lasted through many different governments on both sides. Anyone who has listened to her over the years will know these words. She has said them before, after elections, in interviews from exile, whenever the subject of India came up. India helped Bangladesh come into being. India sheltered her when she had nowhere else. Later the two countries fixed their borders, grew trade, and worked together on security. She has always called that partnership one of the most important things her country has. On this anniversary she simply said it once more, without any decoration. India stood with Bangladesh in its hardest hours, and she believes it will keep doing so. She is still in India for now. She even mentioned wanting to visit Nizamuddin Dargah before she leaves. When December comes, she says she will go. What happens after that, nobody can say for sure. But the friendship she spoke about is the one thing she seems completely sure of. Sources: Contemporary reports from Hindustan Times, NDTV, News18, The Indian Express, Reuters, The Hindu and ThePrint on Sheikh Hasina’s remarks of 5 August 2026. @Rohit Manral
Request to extradite Sheikh Hasina ‘being examined’, Centre tells Parliament panel
The government has told a parliamentary panel that Bangladesh’s request for Sheikh Hasina’s extradition is still being examined. Officials said this while the committee was looking at the overall state of India-Bangladesh ties. They made it plain that the matter is moving only through the normal legal and judicial route. Hasina has been in India since August 2024. She left Dhaka when the protests became too big and her government collapsed. Bangladesh has asked India more than once to send her back so she can stand trial. A special tribunal there later gave her a death sentence in her absence for the way the protests were handled. That has kept the demand alive. When the panel brought it up, the Centre simply repeated what it has been saying for a long time: the request has come and it is under examination. No date was given. Officials also told the committee that Hasina is not being allowed any political activity from Indian soil. No platform, nothing directed against another country. The committee noted all of this. In its remarks it said the government should keep following its humanitarian line. It spoke about India’s old practice of giving shelter to people who are in real trouble and said these cases need careful handling, keeping both values and responsibilities in mind. This is not a fresh answer. At almost every MEA briefing the same words come out. “Yes, we have received an extradition request. As we have stated earlier, the request is under examination.” They also keep saying India wants peace and stability in Bangladesh and will keep talking to all sides. The story behind the request is simple enough. After 5 August 2024 Hasina crossed into India. The interim government in Dhaka, under Muhammad Yunus, sent a formal request under the bilateral treaty. The demand grew stronger after the death sentence. Bangladesh says India has a duty to hand her over. India has taken its time. Sending back a former prime minister is never straightforward, especially when the charges feel political. The treaty itself lets a country refuse if the offence is seen as political in nature. Lawyers say any final decision will have to look at that carefully, along with fair trial questions and the fact that the sentence is death. While this hangs in the air, ordinary work between the two countries goes on. The same panel worried that fewer visas for Bangladeshi citizens are hurting ordinary contact between people. After August 2024 visa services were cut and some staff were pulled out. The government told the committee that about 1,500 visas are being given every day now across five centres, most of them for medical reasons. The panel asked the Ministry of External Affairs to work with the security side and slowly bring the visa system back to normal when the situation allows, without dropping the needed checks. Hasina’s stay is still one of the sensitive points. For India she was a known partner for many years. For the people now running things in Dhaka she is unfinished business. Handling that without spoiling the larger relationship is the quiet job in front of the government. So far the public line has not changed. The request is being examined. No one is saying when a decision might come. In the panel meetings and in the statements from South Block the message stays the same: the process comes first. The committee’s suggestions will now sit on the record. Whether this examination ends with extradition, more legal steps, or just longer waiting is still not clear. What is clear is that India is dealing with it on its own terms — by the law, with some thought for humanitarian reasons, and with a careful look at its neighbourhood interests. Sources: Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs observations and Action Taken Report on India-Bangladesh relations (reported July 2026)Ministry of External Affairs weekly media briefings (Randhir Jaiswal statements, 2025–2026)The Times of India, 30 July 2026The Daily Star, 17–18 July 2026Deccan Herald, 17 July 2026Earlier MEA replies in Parliament (Rajya Sabha, 2025) @Rohit Manral