They were once one country, but, in Bangladesh under Sheikh Hasina, Pakistan was a taboo subject. Relations had been fraught ever since Bangladesh won its independence from Pakistan in 1971, but, in the last 15 years, they reached an all-time low. Trade, movement of people, and official cooperation all ground to a halt. Pakistani diplomats in Dhaka were given the cold shoulder and two were even expelled. Meanwhile, most Pakistanis found Bangladesh off-limits for travel as an iron curtain seemed to descend between the two countries.
All that has changed since Hasina fell last August, after four terms of increasingly authoritarian rule. India has become the focus of public and political resentment, while some in Bangladesh have wondered aloud about a closer relationship with Pakistan. As Bangladeshis reckon with their national identity in the aftermath of the “Monsoon Revolution” of 2024, many have started to look on Pakistan with different eyes, while state-to-state relations between the two countries are being conducted with a warmth unseen for decades.
Hasina’s successor, Muhammad Yunus, the Chief Advisor to Bangladesh’s interim government, has met his counterpart, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, three times in four months, while he has not met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi once since taking office. Pakistan’s high commissioner in Dhaka, Syed Ahmed Maroof, has found himself much in demand. Recently, he has taken meetings with businessmen, political leaders, and the interim heads of various government ministries.
Since August, Maroof told me in his office at Pakistan House in North Dhaka, he has begun to enjoy his job. We met in mid-December, as he was preparing for a concert by Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan for an audience of 10,000 in Dhaka’s Army Stadium. The idea had originated with Dhaka University students, who were among the prime movers of the protests that brought Hasina down. The event was a fundraiser for injured protesters and the families of those killed in the unrest, and the singer waived his fee at the Pakistan high commission’s request.
But it was otherwise a sensitive week for Pakistan in Bangladesh. Days earlier, the country had celebrated Victory Day, marking the surrender of Pakistan forces in 1971 and the birth of Bangladesh. Even so, the concert, held on December 21, became the latest salvo in a highly successful charm offensive.
Maroof said trade and bilateral relations had begun to pick up: “All these areas were in a state of stasis before -- there was no movement … but now we are seeing real progress.” Bilateral trade has increased 28% since the end of Hasina’s regime, and the high commissioner hoped it would continue to expand and diversify beyond textiles and raw materials, the mainstays of Pakistan’s exports to Bangladesh.
India has become the focus of public and political resentment, while some in Bangladesh have wondered aloud about a closer relationship with Pakistan
“The trade balance is highly lopsided,” he said. In 2023–24, bilateral trade amounted to $723 million, with $666m worth of exports from Pakistan. Maroof wanted to see Pakistan export essential commodities such as construction materials and food to Bangladesh, and import tea and medicines in return. “Bangladesh produces drugs at a very cheap price, and this is immediately available for our market,” he said. He expected a further boost to trade after a Pakistani trade delegation that is due to visit Dhaka in January. “As the businesspeople meet each other, they will identify more opportunities.”
Iqbal Hossain Khan, Maroof’s counterpart in Islamabad, echoed those priorities. “We have the highest population density in the world -- we have to explore mutual economic benefits in our relations,” the Bangladesh high commissioner told me. He said he was focused on facilitating the import of food to Bangladesh from Pakistan and the export of pharmaceuticals in return.
But, with economic instability in both countries, fresh investment might be hard to find. And another major challenge to bilateral trade is connectivity. Pakistan is separated from Bangladesh by some 1,500km of Indian territory, a distance that might dampen the enthusiasm of businessmen on both sides.
Since 2018, there have been no direct flights between the two countries. For years, Pakistanis could not get visas for Bangladesh except in rare cases, as stringent security clearance requirements from different state agencies made travel practically impossible. In a sign of goodwill, Bangladesh’s interim government has removed those requirements, while Pakistan has reciprocated by removing visa fees and security clearance for Bangladeshi travellers. Maroof had already noticed “a substantial increase in medical tourism to Pakistan” as he continued to focus on restarting direct flights.
Diplomatic ties have also progressed apace. “So many people are reaching out to us with good intentions -- things are moving towards normalization,” Maroof said. He had recently announced the roll-out of 300 scholarships for Bangladeshi students at universities in Pakistan. And he had visited the Urdu department of Dhaka University -- a significant gesture in a country that often still sees Urdu as a symbol of past domination by the Pakistan state. Previously “there was a ban on engaging in any academic activity with Pakistan,” Maroof said, “but now that’s been removed.”
And he had met with almost every government ministry -- “I’ve lost count,” he laughed. “We’ve felt a very receptive attitude from the government.” He had also met with student leaders who spearheaded the movement against Hasina and now form part of the interim government, and with the Bangladesh National Party (BNP). A bitter rival to Hasina’s Awami League (AL), the BNP is now the country’s largest political party, though not part of the interim government. The periods of BNP rule, from 1991 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2006, saw markedly better relations between Bangladesh and Pakistan, and many in Bangladesh -- and in India -- looked at the party’s apparent closeness with Pakistan with suspicion. In Maroof’s view, “the BNP was more pragmatic.”
The high commissioner had been careful to refrain from meeting the Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s main Islamist party, which remains infamous for its support of Pakistan during the 1971 war. In September, he also avoided an event commemorating the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, at Dhaka’s Press Club. “I thought it wasn’t the right time,” he said. Jinnah remains associated in Bangladesh with the suppression of the Bengali language, and the fact that he can now be openly celebrated in Dhaka shows how much has changed since Hasina’s fall.
Rafiuzzaman Siddiqui, Pakistan’s high commissioner to Dhaka from 2016 to 2018, told me that he was frozen out by the AL government under Hasina. “I never got a chance to meet the foreign minister, or for that matter any minister -- my requests were simply not entertained,” he said. The drivers of guests at the high commission would be harassed, friends were scared to receive his phone calls and officials treated him “like a leper.”
The Bangladesh-Pakistan relationship was jeopardized from the outset by a series of disputes arising from the war. Issues over population transfer, the division of assets, and accountability for war-time crimes remained unresolved for years
In 2013, the high commission in Dhaka was stormed by protesters after Hasina bolstered her popularity by overseeing the executions of Jamaat leaders on charges of war crimes dating from 1971. In 2015, two Pakistani diplomats were expelled from Bangladesh amid allegations of “terror financing.” Farina Arshad, the second secretary at the high commission, was accused of passing cash to a Bangladeshi Islamist militant. Maroof maintained that the allegations were without merit. “Farina is a professional diplomat and she was expelled for political reasons,” he said.
But even under Hasina, the high commissioner was at pains to point out, relations with Pakistan were not completely frozen. In recent years, he said, there were around a thousand Pakistanis working in Bangladesh, mainly in the textile sector. In Beximco, one of Bangladesh’s largest conglomerates, “the heads of departments were mostly Pakistanis,” he said. Beximco is owned by the billionaire Salman F Rahman, one of Hasina’s closest advisors. Known for his ties to Pakistan, Rahman is currently in detention in Dhaka on murder charges. He also faces allegations of corruption involving sums in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Bangladesh’s army also retained links with Pakistan, undercutting the Hasina government’s official hostility. The high commissioner confirmed that, over the last 15 years, it imported horses from Pakistan, and the two countries exchanged military training delegations. Since August, Bangladesh has started importing ammunition from Pakistan.
Afrasiab Mehdi Hashmi, Pakistan’s high commissioner in Dhaka from 2011 to 2014, remembered a paradoxical relationship with Bangladesh. He told me “the relationship was cold” on an official level but on the streets and at cricket matches he “always got a good reception for the Pakistani flag.”
Rafiuzzaman remembered warm relations with Bangladeshis he met socially, in contrast to the “dramatic political hostility” of Hasina’s government. “AL carries the political baggage of ’71,” he said, “and they have always been close to India.”
Under Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Awami League was at the forefront of the struggle for Bangladesh. After a brutal crackdown by the Pakistan Army and pro-Pakistan forces, pro-independence fighters won the 1971 war with assistance from India.
Cyrus Naji was educated at the University of Oxford and the University of St Andrews. From 2022 to 2023, he was a teaching fellow at the Asian University for Women, a private university in Chittagong. A version of this article previously appeared in Himal Southasian and has been reprinted under special arrangement. Part 2
