With Sheikh Hasina, India treads a fine line between diplomacy and justice

Earlier this month, the Bangladesh International Criminal Tribunal issued an arrest warrant for former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina over her government's crackdown on the student-led reform movement this summer.

The ICT verdict centres around Hasina's role in committing massacres and killings against students calling on the government to restructure its quota system to allocate more jobs to young people. They expect her in court on November 18.

However, Hasina remains in India after fleeing there in August, upon the toppling of her government. This means that any attempt by Dhaka to hold her accountable is subject to India's compliance with Bangladesh's request for extradition.

But will India comply? So far, it has not commented on the arrest warrant. But hours after the ICT issued it, India's Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal reiterated that Hasina had come to India on short notice for "safety reasons."

Here are the considerations for New Delhi.

Serious charges

The charges against the Hasina administration during the 2024 unrest are significant.

Despite being the daughter of Bangladesh's founding leader, Sheikh Mujib Ur Rehman, Hasina responded with state brutality, extrajudicial killings and state terrorism against students calling for a reform of the quota system in government jobs.

Hasina's actions include the July 2024 massacre by law enforcement agencies which resulted in 650 deaths.

As per Bangladesh's Interim Health Ministry, more than 1,000 people were killed in total during Hasina's clampdown against protestors. The increasing violence only fueled dissent, culminating in the toppling of her regime.

With Hasina and her administration facing charges of committing crimes against humanity against her own citizens, she should ideally be brought back to Bangladesh to stand trial before the ICT.

India and Hasina

However, restorative justice in Bangladesh remains elusive due to the strong possibility that India will not comply with the ICT's arrest warrant.

New Delhi has had an excellent relationship with Sheikh Hasina during her 15-year rule in Bangladesh because of her pro-India and anti-Pakistan policies.

Her party, the Awami League, has also been praised by India for playing a key role in achieving Bangladeshi independence during the 1971 India-Pakistan war.

India has hence viewed Bangladesh under Hasina as a key ally against arch-rivals Pakistan and China, due to her quest to foster deep energy, business and defence ties alongside domestic clampdowns of anti-India insurgents.

The election of India's right-wing, hardline, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in 2014 further cemented ties with the Hasina government, spurring Bangladesh to partner with India on projects dealing with the development of rivers and coal-based power.

So, India may think it has little incentive to act against Hasina, for fear of jeopardising its quest to maintain strategic balance in South Asia through a friendly government in Bangladesh.

But, by not returning Hasina, India also risks jeopardising its relationship with the new interim government in Bangladesh and hence, losing out on political capital that it has developed with the country during the Sheikh Hasina years.

Hasina's refuge comes against the backdrop of an assertive China and possibility of border skirmishes, decades of hostile relations with Pakistan and a new left-wing, socialist government of Anura Dissanayake in Sri Lanka which could prioritise China over India.

This is why India may feel the need to invest in Hasina, regardless of her culpability and responsibility for massacres committed in Bangladesh.

As a result, it seems unlikely that India, which has provided Hasina with refuge for months and has had an ironclad relationship with the beleaguered leader, would heed Bangladesh's arrest warrant.

The cost of non-compliance

Yet, India's decision to continue harbouring Hasina could bring about significant regional repercussions.

Bilaterally, India has an extradition treaty with Bangladesh signed in 2013 and further amended in 2016 to hasten the exchange of fugitives between the two sides.

According to the treaty, both sides are supposed to extradite individuals who have been charged with or found guilty of extraditable offences, including financial offences and criminality.

The agreement further states that extradition can be granted if there is an attempt to commit, abet, incite or participate as an accomplice in the commission of an extraditable offence.

For Bangladesh, this clearly means that clauses in the extradition treaty can be invoked against Hasina due to her role in manslaughter, homicide and massacring students as charged in the ICT verdict.

These crimes also fall outside exceptions to extradition in the treaty, which includes considering an offence to be "political in nature." Also, as per a 2016 amendment to Article 10 (3) of the treaty, Hasina can be arrested if a simple competent court of a requesting country issues a warrant regardless of the provision of evidence.

So, if India chooses not to heed Bangladesh's request, this would violate the central tenets of the extradition treaty and sour diplomatic relations with the new political dispensation in Dhaka, leaving New Delhi with another hostile front in an increasingly hostile neighbourhood.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government could choose to counter Bangladesh's verdict by referring to Article 8 of the treaty, listing multiple grounds for refusal including an accusation made in bad faith in the interests of justice by the requesting country.

But this risks further alienation in Bangladesh, which is already irked by years of India's unequivocal backing of the Hasina regime.

Sadly, in many ways, the Modi government can afford to ignore a request from Bangladesh to extradite Hasina, despite the ICT’s verdict being backed by evidence of Hasina's responsibility.

This is largely due to the arrest warrant coming from Bangladesh, a Least Developed Country with limited international influence. Also, scant attention has been paid to the ICT’s verdict internationally, which again acts in India's favour.

However, that does not mean that India will be immune from international criticism or censure.

India under Modi is already facing Western criticism over its treatment of minorities and Kashmiris in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The government’s ties with criminal syndicates conducting targeted operations internationally have also drawn the ire of countries such as Canada.

By continuing to give Hasina refuge, who is a criminal under Bangladeshi law would lead to international questioning over the Modi government's commitment to tackling crimes against humanity overseas.

As a result, the pragmatic course for India is to hasten Hasina's accountability process in Bangladesh, instead of adhering to narrow parochial politics.