When Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar landed in Dhaka on August 23–24, it marked the first Pakistan foreign minister–level visit to Bangladesh in 13 years—and the clearest sign yet that Islamabad and Dhaka are trying to thaw a relationship long frozen by the legacy of 1971.
The visit produced a small stack of agreements. Dhaka and Islamabad announced one agreement and five MoUs, including visa abolition for official passports, cooperation between their foreign service academies and state news agencies, and a new joint working group on trade.
Still, Bangladesh made sure the visit did not skate past history: Dhaka formally raised the unresolved “1971 issues,” including an apology, stranded Pakistanis, and asset settlement. Dar’s response was deliberately non-committal, and the two sides agreed to keep talking.
For India, the symbolism and sequencing matter as much as the paperwork. A Pakistan–Bangladesh reset lands amid India’s own rocky patch with Dhaka, and that changes the geometry of South Asia’s economic, diplomatic, and security landscape.
Bangladesh’s political churn since August 2024, when Sheikh Hasina resigned and Muhammad Yunus was sworn in to lead an interim government, has prompted a broader foreign-policy reassessment in Dhaka.
Ties with India, historically close under Hasina, have grown testy over trade frictions and public messaging. New Delhi recently imposed restrictions on imports from Bangladesh (especially garments), after earlier terminating a transshipment facility—moves that fed a narrative in Dhaka that India is turning screws at a sensitive moment.
India has also publicly pushed back against the Yunus government’s claims about anti-Bangladesh activities emanating from Indian soil. The Ministry of External Affairs called those concerns “misplaced,” while reiterating Delhi’s expectation of “free, fair and inclusive” elections in Bangladesh.
Into this space steps Pakistan. Islamabad sees an opening to normalize relations with a key South Asian economy, broaden market access for its textiles, pharmaceuticals, and agricultural products, and, perhaps most importantly, reduce its regional isolation by demonstrating that dialogue with Dhaka is possible even when SAARC remains moribund.
During Dar’s visit, both sides explicitly discussed reviving SAARC; that is notable because India has preferred to pivot regional cooperation to BIMSTEC to avoid Pakistan-related gridlock.
Trade, textiles and sea lanes
The most concrete change in Pakistan–Bangladesh ties over the past year is logistical, not ideological: the resumption of direct sea cargo between Karachi and Chattogram in November 2024. Cutting out transshipment reduced transit times and costs; a second voyage quickly followed, signaling genuine demand rather than a one-off photo-op.
That new route is starting to show up in the numbers and the policy agenda. Dhaka and Islamabad say bilateral trade is still under US$1 billion, but they now have a channel to scale it. Dhaka’s flagship daily reported bilateral trade at roughly $865 million in FY2024–25 (with Bangladesh exporting about $78 million), while the two governments created a joint working group to push further.
Textiles are the obvious next frontier. According to the US Department of Agriculture’s 2025 country report, China supplied 60.5% of Bangladesh’s woven cotton fabric imports (HS 5208/5209) in 2024, but Pakistan (18.2%) and India (17.7% are the next two suppliers locked in a close contest for second place in a market worth nearly $2 billion.
Even marginal shifts in sourcing, helped by faster shipping, cheaper credit, or visa facilitation for buyers and technicians, could translate into hundreds of millions of dollars.
If Islamabad can leverage the new sea link, quicker customs and government-to-government signaling to nudge Bangladeshi mills toward Pakistani greige and finished fabrics, India will feel it in lost market share, weaker yarn sales via land routes and fewer opportunities to embed Indian firms in Bangladesh’s garment supply chains.
That risk is sharpened by India’s own recent import curbs on Bangladeshi apparel, which Dhaka frames as a hostile move.
The political headroom for a true Bangladesh–Pakistan rapprochement still depends on 1971. Dhaka repeated its long-standing demands: an apology, the fate of “stranded Pakistanis,” and settlement of pre-independence assets.
Islamabad counters that the matter was addressed in the 1974 tripartite agreement and through public statements by Pervez Musharraf two decades ago. This gap will not close quickly, but the fact that both sides aired it at the ministerial level and still signed six instruments suggests they are willing to compartmentalize.
For India, the 1971 question is double-edged. On the one hand, Dhaka’s insistence on accountability resonates with Indian public memory of the war and reinforces Delhi’s long-standing narrative of Bangladesh’s liberation.
On the other, a Pakistan that is visibly engaging Dhaka without conceding in 1971 reduces India’s ability to shape the tone of regional historical debates and may normalize a “park the past, do business” approach that weakens Delhi’s moral leverage.
Indian security elites are already alert to the optics of a China–Pakistan–Bangladesh triangle. In July, India’s Chief of Defense Staff publicly warned that a growing “convergence of interests” among the three could have implications for India’s stability.
Those comments came alongside references to India’s doctrine and a recent India–Pakistan standoff, underscoring how Delhi reads regional alignments through a hard-security lens even when the immediate drivers are commercial.
Dar’s Dhaka swing also had a defense flavor at the margins: just before he arrived, Bangladesh’s army vice chief met Pakistan’s joint chiefs’ chairman in Rawalpindi to discuss “enhanced defense and security cooperation.” That does not translate into imminent military alignment, but it is a reminder that ties once considered taboo are now discussable.
Implications for India
- If New Delhi wants to curb Chinese (and now Pakistani) commercial inroads, it cannot do so while throttling Bangladeshi market access. Re-sequencing the newest import restrictions—paired with a structured dialogue on rules-of-origin and subsidy concerns—would send the right signal without giving up leverage. The alternative is to push Dhaka to diversify away from India, which is already happening.
- Progress on the Teesta water arrangement and practical fixes on border management buy India political space when sensitive moments arise. The more Bangladeshis see Indian projects as reliable and on time, the less oxygen there is for narratives that Delhi delays, blocks, or punishes.
- The textile data are clear: Bangladesh sources a large slice of fabric from Pakistan and India. With direct Karachi–Chattogram shipping now in play, Indian exporters need policy help (logistics credit, faster clearances, land-port facilitation) to hold share against Pakistani rivals. Encourage Indian yarn and fabric firms to co-locate in Bangladesh’s export processing zones with long-term offtake agreements—turning competition into coopetition.
Dar’s Dhaka visit did not herald a grand realignment; rather, it was a careful, interest-driven reset bounded by history. But in South Asia, where optics shape options, small steps, including new sea lanes, easier visas and working groups that actually meet, can accumulate into leverage.
If Pakistan can lock in routine commercial flows with Bangladesh while India and Dhaka spar over trade access and talking points, the regional balance will tilt at the margins: first in factories and freight schedules, then in forums like SAARC.
India’s best response is less about protesting a thaw between two of its neighbors, and more about making closer India–Bangladesh ties the most valuable option on Dhaka’s table. That means reliable delivery, fewer surprises and a willingness to compete—on price, on speed and, crucially, on respect.
Md Obaidullah is a PhD candidate in political science at Southern Mississippi University. His profile may be accessed here.
