How does a country rebuild a relationship after half a century of suspicion and rancour? The question resonated in Dhaka this week as Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi sat across from Bangladesh’s new minister of state for foreign affairs. As official communiqués put it, the two sides saw “vast opportunities for investment.” In another season, such platitudes might have passed as diplomatic boilerplate, but the new political setting suggests they carry a rare chance to acquire meaning.
The return of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to power and the ouster of Sheikh Hasina have substantially loosened Dhaka’s foreign policy orbit, and Pakistan is trying to find a respectful way back into a relationship that was frozen for too long.
The initial steps are tangible. Naqvi’s host praised Islamabad’s role in mediating between Washington and Tehran during the recent Iran?US flare?up. Both sides have also committed to regular exchanges of delegations and agreed to open their economies and cultural sectors to each other. Since January, Biman Bangladesh Airlines has resumed direct flights between Dhaka and Karachi, restoring the first non-stop (even if modest) air link in fourteen years.
The economic case is stronger than the politicians admit. Bilateral trade rose nearly 20 per cent in the last fiscal year to about $865 million. Bangladesh imports raw materials for garments, leather, clinker, fabrics, cotton, onions and potatoes from Pakistan, while Pakistan imports tea, ready-made garments and raw jute from Bangladesh. There is also growing Bangladeshi interest in Pakistani higher education, along with patients travelling to Pakistani hospitals for transplant treatment. It goes without saying that Dhaka’s search for more partners is being read in New Delhi through the old stained glass of propaganda. Pakistan should be careful. Instead of wasting energy in competing with Indian influence, its role should be to offer Dhaka another serious option. That distinction will decide whether this reset matures into policy or collapses into another round of South Asian shadowboxing.
Then comes 1971. Bangladesh’s wounds remain part of its national consciousness, and Pakistan cannot expect economic diplomacy to erase memory. At the same time, a relationship between two large Muslim-majority countries with shared cultural, linguistic and commercial strands cannot be held hostage forever by the politics of grievance. Sheikh Hasina’s years hardened the anti-Pakistan line while promoting a personality cult around Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and suppressing political opposition. Bangladesh has changed since then. Pakistan must respond to the new Bangladesh, not the ghosts arranged for it by old regimes. The bigger question, therefore, is what Islamabad does now. It should move beyond polite statements and put concrete proposals on the table, including but not limited to joint ventures in textiles, pharmaceutical cooperation, student quotas, easier visas for business delegations and cultural exchanges that outlive embassy receptions. We have, before ourselves, a rare diplomatic opening. Here’s to hoping Pakistan uses it to build a relationship that can survive history because it finally serves the future. *