Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's absence from India's BRICS summit in New Delhi was not an accident. India extended two invitations — one for a BRICS outreach session in Rahman's capacity as BIMSTEC chair, another for a bilateral visit — but not a formal invitation as head of government. Dhaka read it as a downgrade from the treatment afforded to his predecessor Sheikh Hasina, who attended previous BRICS events as premier despite Bangladesh not being a member. The procedural slight became the latest flashpoint in a relationship that has deteriorated sharply since Hasina's ouster in 2024. The structural problem is Hasina herself. After fleeing to India following mass protests and a deadly crackdown, she was sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity. Bangladesh wants her extradited. India has not complied. Dhaka sees her continued presence in India — and her ability to make public statements from there — as a deliberate act of unfriendliness. As Bangladeshi analyst Zafar Sobhan put it: "Failure to rein her in is seen as an act of unfriendliness." Former Bangladeshi diplomat Humayun Kabir was blunter: the old relationship was "one-sided" and Dhaka now demands "dignity and equality." The China factor is not new, but it is deepening. Bangladesh joined the Belt and Road Initiative in 2016. China is now its largest trading partner and a major defence supplier. Beijing has pledged support for the long-stalled Teesta river management project — a file India failed to close despite years of talks. Rahman's first overseas trip as leader was to Beijing in June, where he secured agreements on trade, investment, infrastructure, and defence. Shanthie Mariet D'Souza of the Mantraya Institute describes this not as a pivot away from India but a "recalibration toward hedging and greater autonomy." India still holds structural cards. The two countries share a 4,096-kilometer border — the longest either has — plus 54 rivers. Bangladesh depends on India for trade routes, transit, electricity, fuel, medical travel, and regional connectivity. But those dependencies cut both ways, and several are approaching crisis points. The 1996 Ganga Water Sharing Treaty expires in December. The Teesta dispute is unresolved. Alleged Indian "push-ins" of undocumented Bengali-speaking Muslims remain a running sore. Bangladeshi scholar Shahab Enam Khan flipped the conventional framing: "If anyone should worry about this relationship, it is New Delhi," citing India's trade surplus and its dependence on Bangladeshi goodwill for its own security. He accused India of treating the 2024 uprising "as the loss of a client rather than a neighbour's political transition" — pointing to suspended visas, closed land ports, and shelter for Hasina. The message received in Dhaka: Delhi's goodwill was conditional on who held power. Former Indian diplomat Ajay Bisaria offered a more measured view, calling Bangladesh's decision to skip the summit a "missed trick" but noting that "lost ground is easily recovered." A bilateral summit is being discussed for November. India resumed tourist visas in June and appointed a new high commissioner. But both sides are constrained by domestic hardliners, and the Hasina question remains the load-bearing obstacle to any reset. The real question is not whether India is losing Bangladesh outright — geography prevents a clean break. It is whether India is losing its old ability to shape the relationship on its own terms. Dhaka is no longer a junior partner willing to accept asymmetry as the price of proximity. Every month India shelters Hasina without addressing Dhaka's demands, the leverage equation shifts a little further toward Beijing.
