Published: 12:07 AM, 13 September 2026
From BRICS to Makkah, Bangladesh misses two buses in one week
Bangladesh's foreign policy establishment has had quite the week. After spending a good part of a month talking up Dhaka's desire to join the Makkah Defence Alliance, the whole thing has come crashing down. The word from Islamabad was clear: the alliance is not looking to invite anyone at this point.
This came on the heels of an official statement in Dhaka that Prime Minister Tarique Rahman would skip the BRICS summit being held in Delhi. He was invited to the BRICS Outreach programme as the current chair of the regional grouping BIMSTEC -- Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation.
One humiliation, followed by self-inflicted harm.
Right next door to Bangladesh, some of the world's most consequential leaders gathered in the Indian capital of Delhi on Sept 12 and 13, for the 18th summit of BRICS. The 10-member states of the grouping currently represent nearly 38 percent of the world's GDP and half the global population.
China's Xi Jinping, Russia's Vladimir Putin, Iran's Masoud Pezeshkian, Egypt's Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, among others, joined India's Narendra Modi for two days of debates about current volatility in the global economic system as well as geopolitical issues affecting developing nations collectively known as the "Global South".
The grouping has already set up the New Development Bank, which is designed to make soft loans to developing countries without strings, as an alternative to the World Bank. They are in the process of launching BricsPay, an international payment system to rival the US-controlled SWIFT.
BIMSTEC in the Wind
In previous years, Bangladesh had expressed a desire to be part of the process, hoping to be a "partner country" at some point in the future. Such an opportunity did not materialise for Bangladesh in the past, although then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina was invited to the 15th summit in Johannesburg.
The original five members of the grouping, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- hence BRICS -- have been cautious from the beginning about expanding. It took them 24 years after the first summit to invite new members to the fold, at the 15th summit in South Africa in 2023.
There was a possibility that Bangladesh could make its presence felt at the Delhi summit, and thus make a strong case for its inclusion as a partner country at a future gathering. Even though Tarique Rahman was invited in his capacity as chair of BIMSTEC, nothing would have prevented him from promoting Bangladeshi interests at bilateral meetings and Outreach sessions.
At the same time, it was incumbent upon Tarique to promote BIMSTEC collaboration with BRICS in economic spheres.
Dhaka, however, chose to pass that opportunity up, for reasons that challenge logic. A suggestion was floated that, because the invite was for the Chair of BIMSTEC, and not for the prime minister of Bangladesh, Dhaka found it "disrespectful".
The fact that the BIMSTEC chair and Bangladesh prime minister are one and the same person did not seem to matter.
Besides, this wouldn't be the first time the head of a country's government has been invited to BRICS in a different capacity. In 2024, for instance, President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith was invited to the 16th BRICS summit in his capacity as the chair of ASEAN.
Dhaka's Strategic Pivot
So, what compelled Dhaka to snub BRICS? The reason cannot be that the invite to Tarique as BIMSTEC chair was seen as a "slight". Such a suggestion would likely sound quite petty and immature in diplomatic circles.
It is possible that the new order in Bangladesh does not view BRICS with enough importance, and hence giving the summit a miss was not seen as much of a miss. After years of close partnership with India, the post-2024 regime in Bangladesh has moved closer to the United States, which views BRICS with suspicion.
Dhaka has also chosen to pivot to China, and build a new, strategic partnership with Beijing. The decision to begin talks on the purchase of advanced fighter jets from China is a clear sign that Dhaka is building a new alignment with clear strategic, defence elements.
But given this new relationship with China, viewing BRICS as something of an irritant appears rather strange. China is not only one of the founders of BRICS, it is the lifeblood, the very fountainhead of energy for the group.
It seems more likely that the current state of bilateral relations with the summit host, India, has dictated Bangladesh's decision to cold-shoulder the BRICS gathering. Foreign policy decisions here are taken to appease the hardline anti-India constituency, which is then dressed up as "defending Bangladesh's sovereignty".
Distancing from India
The sequence of events since the Feb 12 elections demonstrates a desire on Bangladesh's part to steer away from India. Delhi's relations with Dhaka in the aftermath of Sheikh Hasina's fall on Aug 5, 2024 had turned ice-cold. India also refrained from any effort to improve relations, preferring to wait for an elected government to take office.
Following Tarique's assumption of office on Feb 17, Narendra Modi immediately invited him to visit Delhi with his family. The invitation did not receive a response. Instead, Tarique chose to visit China in June and sign a raft of agreements and MoUs. This was a clear signal to Delhi that Bangladesh would now choose a different path, which would not necessarily cross that of India.
The invitation to BRICS came on Jul 14, two months before the scheduled start of the summit. Bangladesh remained noncommittal. Rather than treat the invitation as a multilateral issue and an opportunity to make a mark in one of the world's most important groupings of states, Bangladesh treated it as yet another dispute with India.
Bangladesh's current publicly stated position is to prioritise a bilateral visit over the multilateral BRICS gathering. But the bilateral visit is conditional upon creation of a "favourable environment", which basically means the extradition of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who is currently living in Delhi.
The sequence of events leaves no one in any doubt that Bangladesh is playing hardball to either force India to hand over Hasina in handcuffs, or simply create distance with New Delhi.
Makkah Alliance Interests
Much of this anti-India posture -- which now includes sacrificing the BRICS opportunity -- is clearly designed to appease the hardliners in BNP as well as the Jamaat-e-Islami and NCP, which appear opposed to normalisation of ties with New Delhi. This tendency to play to the domestic gallery has also been evident in another foreign policy arena of late.
The Makkah Defence Alliance formed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan on Aug 7 this year created a great deal of interest in Bangladesh. A new defence bloc in the treacherous political landscape of West Asia would naturally elicit a lot of intellectual interest.
The Makkah alliance was essentially a regional construct for security and stability in West Asia ravaged by the US-Israeli war on Iran, which had created a security vacuum. This was also a pact to offer security to Saudi Arabia in particular, which feared a resurgent Iran to the east and Yemen's Ansar Allah group to the south.
Southeast Asia, where Bangladesh is located, was never in the equation. There was also no indication that the alliance was aimed at India, despite Pakistan's presence.
Yet, the discussion in Bangladesh inevitably and swiftly turned to India. Those championing the cause of joining saw it as a deterrent against India. Some of those opposing it fell into the same trap and countered that Bangladesh joining would not go down well in New Delhi.
Playing to the Gallery
Government leaders, keen to play to the gallery, weighed in. Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman told parliament on August 27 that Bangladesh had not received any invitation to join. He then went on to call the alliance a "self-defence mechanism for the Muslim world".
In a clear jab at India, he suggested that "others" need not have any concerns about it, describing the alliance as an internal matter of the "Muslim family".
Such words were clearly designed to sell the idea of joining the Makkah Alliance to the public, even though there was a certain lack of veracity in what he said. The Makkah Alliance declaration itself made no such claims.
On the very same day that Tarique was speaking to parliament, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Humaiun Kobir met the Saudi foreign minister in Jeddah on the margins of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers meeting. The Bangladesh foreign ministry's read-out on the meeting made no mention of any discussion about the pact.
All this ended on Sept 11 when a Pakistani foreign ministry spokesperson poured cold water on the idea of expansion. According to him, there was even no discussion taking place "regarding the expansion of the Makkah agreement".
It was apparent to any discerning observer that the Makkah Alliance was unlikely to expand soon, or invite countries far from the region. But the officials in Dhaka led the public to believe it was there for Bangladesh to join, which would deliver a bulwark against Indian influence.
It seems, while such hype was being whipped up to engage the domestic constituency, the Khalil-Kobir duo failed to convince the Alliance members themselves of the need to include Bangladesh in their endeavour.
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