What should India do? Unlike Russia with Assad, New Delhi hasn’t formally granted asylum to Wazed, so it should help find another country where Wazed could safely stay in the long term
Charu Sudan Kasturi
The leader won an overwhelming majority in polls that much of the world condemned as not really being free or fair. But a close ally continued to support an increasingly unpopular government. Then, months later, the leader was overthrown and forced to flee to the ally, which now faces a conundrum of its own.
That’s a script that has played out twice in recent months, stunning the world on both occasions.
Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina Wazed was ousted in August, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad in December. Wazed had been re-elected as prime minister in January, while Assad’s ruling alliance swept parliamentary elections in July. Wazed escaped to India, Assad to Russia.
To be sure, there are major differences in the way events unfolded in Bangladesh and Syria. Wazed, despite her government’s turn towards authoritarianism in recent years, can’t be accused of bombing her own citizens with chemical gas — a charge Assad faces. Equally, the movement for her removal was led by unarmed students desperate for a new start. On the other hand, Assad was overthrown by an armed military campaign led by former affiliates of al Qaida and the Islamic State.
But from India’s perspective, there’s another key difference that should be very worrying: New Delhi appears to be struggling far more than Moscow in securing its interests after the setback of losing a friend in power.
This month, Bangladesh sent a diplomatic note to India asking New Delhi to hand Wazed over to Dhaka. At a time when anti-India sentiments dominate Bangladesh, Narendra Modi’s government finds itself in a difficult spot. It might not be a bad idea for Modi to pick up the phone for a chat with an old friend, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and take some tips on how to get out of this diplomatic mess.
India can start by breathing a sigh of relief: its quick decision to grant Wazed temporary shelter when she needed to leave Dhaka avoided a repeat of New Delhi’s embarrassing failure 32 years ago to save another important ally. The former Afghan president, Mohammad Najibullah, was assured asylum by India as mujahideen forces closed in on Kabul in 1992. But after he was unable to escape Kabul, New Delhi refused to let Najibullah stay at its embassy in the Afghan capital. Najibullah was eventually killed in the UN compound where he took shelter, tainting India’s reputation as a reliable ally in the neighbourhood, according to Avinash Paliwal’s book, My Enemy’s Enemy: India in Afghanistan from the Soviet Invasion to the US Withdrawal.
Fast forward to 2024. No one — not even Bangladesh’s interim government — expects India to give Wazed up. But India needs to avoid letting Wazed’s presence in the country shape New Delhi’s relations with Dhaka. That’s where Russia has, so far, been smart in its approach with the new leaders of Syria. While giving asylum to Assad, Russia has made clear that its priority with Syria is to build ties with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leadership. The public message from Russia is this: Moscow wants Syria under its new leaders to stabilise and does not want to see it fracture like Libya after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.
What should India do? Unlike Russia with Assad, New Delhi hasn’t formally granted asylum to Wazed, so it should help find another country where Wazed could safely stay in the long term. It should avoid provocations that seek to frame its relationship with Bangladesh through the lens of Wazed. Russia has shown that’s possible.
Charu Sudan Kasturi is a journalist who writes on foreign policy and international relations
