Indian FS due today to lay groundwork of Modi's Dhaka visit
Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla will get to Dhaka today (Sunday), the first high-level visit to Bangladesh since the CAA-NRC issue introduced strains within an otherwise robust bilateral relationship, reports Indian Express.
Shringla, who has earlier served as India’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh, will be in Dhaka until Monday to meet up the Bangladesh leadership.
He will lay the groundwork for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s likely visit to Bangladesh for the birth centenary celebrations of Father of the country Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The function will be held on March 17 - Bangabandhu’s 100th birth anniversary- and may very well be attended by, aside from Modi, former President Pranab Mukherjee and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
In January this year, more than a month following the CAA was passed leading Bangladesh to cancel at least two ministerial visits to India, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had said that as the CAA and NRC were “internal matters” of India, the CAA was “not necessary”.
Within an interview to Gulf News in Abu Dhabi, she had said that she didn't understand the goal of the CAA, that provides a faster path to Indian citizenship for non-Muslim minorities who've faced persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
“We don’t realize why [the Indian government] achieved it. It was not essential,” Sheikh Hasina said.
In December, Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister A K Abdul Momen and Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan cancelled their visits to India following the Indian Parliament passed the CAA, sparking strong reactions in Dhaka. Both ministers cited scheduling commitments for not having the capacity to visit.
Momen has said that the brand new citizenship law could weaken India’s secular character, and has rejected suggestions that minorities are facing religious persecution in his country. MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had clarified at the time that there was no religious persecution under the “present government” of Bangladesh, but had happened beneath the “previous government” and “military rule”.
