The Pulse | Diplomacy | South Asia

Is the Ice Finally Breaking in Bangladesh-India Relations?

Security officials from the two countries met in Delhi days after the BNP government took charge in Dhaka.

India’s Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar hands over a letter of condolence from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Tarique Rahman, then the acting chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, following the death of his mother and former Bangladesh Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, on his arrival at Dhaka for Zia’s funeral, Dec. 31, 2025.

Relations between Bangladesh and India were under severe strain for 18 months in the aftermath of the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government in August 2024. Mutual suspicions increased by the day and political; diplomatic and intelligence relations soured.

Recent developments, however, indicate that the frosty relations are beginning to thaw.

Less than a week after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led government took charge on February 17, Bangladesh’s newly appointed Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) Maj. Gen. Mohammad Kaiser Rashid Chowdhury made an unannounced trip to New Delhi.

The Indian media reported subsequently that Chowdhury had held talks with key personnel of India’s security establishment, including National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Research and Intelligence Wing Chief Parag Jain, and Director General of Military Intelligence Lt. Gen. R.S. Raman.

Although neither side issued an official statement, the visit indicates that intelligence contacts between the two neighbors could be reopening after more than a year of uncertainty.

The political upheaval of August 2024, when Hasina resigned and fled to India after weeks of protests and a harsh government crackdown, ushered in a new period in Dhaka’s foreign policy. Three days after Hasina’s exit, an interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was formed. Under the interim government, ties between Bangladesh and India deteriorated rapidly, even as those with Pakistan strengthened after remaining in a poor state during Hasina’s rule.

For New Delhi, the transition introduced strategic uncertainty. Bangladesh and India had forged one of South Asia’s closest security partnerships under Hasina, especially on counterterrorism and cross-border intelligence-sharing. With a new political order taking hold in Dhaka, those traditional channels of engagement began to slow dramatically.

However, by late 2025, the first tentative steps toward renewal began to take shape.

In November last year, Bangladesh’s then national security adviser and now the minister of foreign affairs, Khalilur Rahman, visited New Delhi to attend the Colombo Security Conclave and met Doval. It was the first known high-level security dialogue between the two countries since Hasina’s ouster. Although the meeting did not lead to an immediate broader change in bilateral relations, it reopened a channel that had been dormant for more than a year.

Another diplomatic outreach took place around this time. signaling a possible reset in bilateral relations. India’s external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar, met Tarique Rahman in Dhaka in December 2025 and extended his condolences over the death of his mother, Begum Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister of Bangladesh. Rahman, who was at that time acting chairman of the BNP, is now the BNP’s chief and Bangladesh’s prime minister.

In February, the BNP swept the general elections. Soon after the swearing in of the new government, India moved quickly to recognize the new political reality. New Delhi sent a high-level delegation, including Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, to participate in the swearing-in ceremony.

Visa policy had emerged as one of the main signs of the rupture in bilateral relations under the interim government. In August 2024, India suspended visa services to Bangladesh. In November–December 2025, a second, more sweeping closure followed, tied to anti-India protests and vandalism of some establishments relating to the killing of activist and student leader Sharif Osman Hadi. As a result, by late December, India had closed its visa application centers in Bangladesh. In retaliation, Bangladesh suspended its visa services to Indian citizens.

Both sides have started restoring visa services since the BNP took office in Dhaka. While Bangladesh recommenced full-scale visa services at its missions in India on February 24, India indicated that it would soon resume various categories of visas for Bangladeshis in phases, including medical,........

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