India seeks to mend Bangladesh ties with coronavirus vaccine diplomacy

India is expected to reassure Bangladesh it will prioritize the supply of Covid-19 vaccines to its South Asian neighbor, part of its vaccine outreach to counter China’s rising influence in the region.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina are scheduled to meet Thursday in a virtual summit -- the first high-level meeting of the leaders from the two countries since relations nosedived when India passed its controversial religion-based citizenship law late last year.

The new law fast-tracks Indian citizenship for non-Muslims from three neighboring nations including Bangladesh. Foreign minister AK Abdul Momen and home minister Asaduzzaman Khan had both called off visits last December as nationwide protests against the law erupted in India.

New Delhi has since made overtures to smooth relations with Dhaka, with whom it has a long history of cooperative ties.

Indian foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla visited Bangladesh twice this year. The second visit in August came amid rising border tensions with China, which has committed $40 billion in investments in Bangladesh.

Discussions are expected to include trade, regional security and the restoration of a rail link between the two nations that had stopped functioning in 1965. Annual trade between India and Bangladesh stood at $10.25 billion in the fiscal year ended March 2019, Indian government data shows.

Dhaka is also expected to raise the issue of management of trans-boundary rivers including the long-pending water sharing agreement for river Teesta. India’s foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and his counterpart Momen had in September noted their commitment to finalizing an interim deal in a dispute has lingered since the 1980s without any resolution.

The “long-drawn failure to sign the Teesta river water agreement” and the new citizenship law have together “unsettled public opinion in Bangladesh” against New Delhi despite decades of close ties, said Delwar Hossain, a professor of international relations at Dhaka University. “Now Covid-19 has brought the two nations together once again.”

Bangladesh’s Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd. signed an agreement with Serum Institute of India Pvt. in November for 30 million vaccine doses, shortly after India’s Jaishankar committed supplies to Dhaka during his meeting with Momen.