Over three months after it designated the Bangladesh posting as a “non-family” posting at the height of tensions between the two South Asian neighbours, India has redesignated the Bangladesh posting as a “family” posting for its officers posted in that country. The development is being seen as a precursor to the resumption of full visa services by Delhi in its missions in Dhaka and four other regions of Bangladesh, and comes days after Bangladesh Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman visited India.
Bangladesh was rocked by protests and massive anti-minority violence in the aftermath of the killing of student leader Osman Hadi in December last year. The Indian High Commission in Dhaka and the assistant high commission in Chittagong were attacked in the same chain of events. Stones were pelted at the residence of the Indian Assistant High Commissioner in Chittagong and protesters also marched towards the Indian missions in Khulna and Rajshahi. Security around the Indian mission at Sylhet was also heightened while operations at the Indian visa application centres in Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi were suspended.
As the situation worsened, India, in January, designated Bangladesh as a “non-family” posting and recalled the families of Indian officials working at its different missions in the neighbouring country as relations between the two nations nosedived under the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus. “The Bangladesh posting has been redesignated as a family posting and Indian officials posted at the high commissions are bringing their families now,” a senior Indian official privy to the developments told The Sunday Guardian. Talks are also going on between the two sides over resumption of full visa services by Delhi too, official sources said.
Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) confirmed the development and said that the change was effected in April. Although Bangladesh resumed full visa and consular services to Indian citizens on February 23 soon after Tariq Rahman took over as Prime Minister, India is currently only issuing medical, emergency visas to Bangladeshi citizens along with visas for humanitarian causes. While the number of visas being issued by India to Bangladeshi citizens had been going down ever since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime (India returned over 20,000 passports of Bangladeshi citizens by September 2024 amid protests and threats), India had suspended visa services to Bangladeshi citizens in December 2025 after attacks on its missions in Bangladesh.
While during the Sheikh Hasina regime, around 10,000 visas would be issued by five Indian missions in Bangladesh on a daily basis, after her ouster and under the interim government, the number had come down to as low as 1,200-1,500 per day. “Discussions are going on between the two sides over the resumption of full visa services by Delhi. That too will be done in the coming months,” a senior government official told The Sunday Guardian. This reporter had reported on March 31 that India had been waiting for the completion of the election process in West Bengal before resuming full visa services. Further, India’s MEA had also been closely monitoring the security situation in the neighbouring country before taking the step.
Both nations have attempted to normalise bilateral relations ever since the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) emerged as the winner after a landslide victory in the February 12 election and its chief Tarique Rahman was sworn in as the Prime Minister of the neighbouring country. The designation of the Bangladesh posting as a “nonfamily” posting in January this year had led to apprehensions among Indian officials who had been posted in Bangladesh and even those who were in line to take up the posting.
Sources say that India’s crucial help to Bangladesh during the West Asia crisis after the latter reached out requesting oil supplies has given leverage to New Delhi in the diplomatic ties between the two neighbours. Further, the fact that Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman is also counting on India to back his candidacy for the post of the president of the United Nations General Assembly underlines India’s importance for Dhaka. “The designation of Bangladesh as a non-family posting was a decision taken because of the poor security situation that had prevailed under the interim regime. Situation has improved under the new government, but there is still some room to watch out for the developments in Bangladesh as far as security is concerned. Security will now always be a concern in Bangladesh but both sides have been making efforts to improve ties,” a senior government official said.
In 2023, as many as 1.6 million visas were issued to Bangladeshi citizens by India of which 450,000 were medical visas. Further, Bangladeshi citizens rely on India for issuance of transit visas in a major way as it lacks missions in several foreign countries. In the past, Indian missions in Bangladesh have reported misuse of visas issued to Bangladeshi citizens too.
While the Bangladesh foreign ministry had summoned India’s Acting High Commissioner, Pawan Badhe and lodged a formal protest over controversial comments made by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Bangladeshi citizens, highly placed sources in Bangladesh government said that the comment would not come in the way of the thawing of India-Bangladesh ties. “The comment is being viewed as his personal statement,” a senior official in the Bangladeshi government told The Sunday Guardian. Sarma had triggered a row after he stated in an interview that people in Assam preferred frosty ties between the two South Asian neighbours. “I always pray to God in the morning that the situation that existed during Yunus’s time should remain the same, and that relations should not improve…We like it when India-Bangladesh relations are not good. Because when relations improve, the Indian government also does not want to push back illegal migrants. Therefore, people of Assam prefer a hostile relationship between India and Bangladesh. When India and Bangladesh become friendly and when the BSF and BGB start shaking hands, it becomes dangerous for Assam,” Sarma had said in an interview to an Indian news channel.
