The external affairs ministry is playing down the cancellation of diplomatic visits from Bangladesh, stating that these should not be linked to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act that concerns citizenship to religious minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said that India had excellent relations with Afghanistan and Bangladesh and that India had explained its stand to these countries as well as to other countries and international organisations.
Bangladesh has recently cancelled visits of its foreign and home ministers, and also postponed the visit of a delegation for the Joint Rivers Commission meeting that was to be held on December 18.
Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen dropped his visit to New Delhi for the Delhi Dialogue (between December 12 and 14), while Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan cancelled his visit to Shillong, Meghalaya.
While Momen later said that his cancellation had nothing to do with the CAA, citing a clash of schedule with domestic martyrdom and victory day celebrations, he has also criticised the CAA while in Dhaka, saying “India is historically a tolerant country which believes in secularism [but] their historic position will be weakened if they deviate from that.”
In addition, he rejected Home Minister Amit Shah’s claim of minority repression in Bangladesh, saying that “whoever gave them the information, it is not correct...we never judge anybody by their religion.”
Asaduzzaman Khan’s planned visit would have coincided with largescale unrest in the northeast region over the CAA.
Most recently, Bangladesh postponed the visit of its delegation for the Joint Rivers Commission meeting that was scheduled for December 18, citing “technical issues”. The JRC is a bilateral setup to ensure mutually-agreeable decisions on water-sharing between the two countries, which share multiple rivers. The 2019 meeting was to result in the first update of data on six common rivers in 34 years.
The MEA stressed that the relationship with Bangladesh remained close. "We have 75 dialogue mechanisms with Bangladesh. A relationship so close should not be defined in terms of a few postponements," said Kumar.
He added that the Bangladesh Foreign Minister had stated that the reason for the postponement of the JRC talks was that Bangladesh did not yet have data for the six rivers in question.
He said India had explained its stand to countries and international organisations which had by and large agreed that this was India's internal decision and that it was not targeted against any group.
“We enjoy [an] excellent relationship with Bangladesh and both countries are keen to work together to further deepen our partnership,” Kumar said.
He added that while the present government in Afghanistan was addressing concerns of the minorities, there had been persecution under the Mujahedeen and Taliban regimes. “In fact, Taliban had actually told minorities to either convert or leave Afghanistan,” he said.
