There is nothing unusual about a newly elected government reviewing agreements signed by its predecessor. Governments change, circumstances change and, with them, the terms on which a country assesses its international commitments.
The problem begins when a review becomes an exercise in political inheritance—when agreements are judged primarily by who signed them rather than by what they deliver.
That distinction matters as Bangladesh’s BNP-led government reviews 101 agreements and memorandums of understanding concluded with India during the previous Awami League government.
BNP Chief Whip Nurul Islam Moni has said the government is reviewing the agreements and will announce its findings. He has also stressed that Bangladesh wants to maintain friendly relations with India while giving priority to national interests.
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has struck a similar balance. In a meeting with India’s high commissioner, he called for a “conducive environment” to advance bilateral relations, even as Dhaka continues to press New Delhi over the extradition of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
There is no contradiction here. A government can seek to renegotiate individual agreements while maintaining a broader working relationship with its neighbour.
The real question is whether the review will be conducted as a policy exercise or become another chapter in Bangladesh’s increasingly partisan debate over India.
Not all agreements are created equal
The number 101 is politically potent but analytically almost meaningless.
A trade agreement is not a power-purchase agreement. A connectivity arrangement is not a security pact. A memorandum of understanding does not necessarily carry the same legal obligations as a treaty.
Some agreements may need revision. Others may have outlived their purpose. Some may have produced disappointing results. Others may be working reasonably well.
The starting point, therefore, should not be whether an agreement was signed under the Awami League. It should be whether it serves Bangladesh’s interests.
That is not an abstract distinction. Bangladesh’s own experience with India shows why it matters.
The Land Boundary Agreement
Consider the Land Boundary Agreement.
In 2015, after India’s Parliament passed the constitutional amendment required to implement the 1974 Bangladesh-India Land Boundary Agreement and its 2011 Protocol, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia welcomed the development. The BNP also formally welcomed the Indian Parliament’s action, even as it continued to criticise the Awami League government over other issues, notably the unresolved Teesta water-sharing dispute.
When the exchange of enclaves was implemented later that year, Khaleda Zia congratulated the former enclave residents and the BNP welcomed their acquisition of Bangladeshi citizenship.
The episode offers a useful lesson for today’s political debate.
An agreement does not become less legitimate because it was negotiated or implemented while one’s political opponents were in office.
The Land Boundary Agreement resolved a problem that had left residents of the enclaves living for decades with uncertainty over citizenship, administration and access to public services. Its significance belongs to the Bangladeshi state, not to a single political party.
That does not mean the agreement is beyond criticism. It means criticism should be based on its substance, not its political parentage.
The same principle applies at sea
Bangladesh’s maritime boundary settlement with India offers another example.
After years of dispute, Bangladesh pursued arbitration under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. In 2014, the arbitral tribunal issued its award, establishing the maritime boundary between the two countries and increasing Bangladesh’s maritime area by 19,467 square kilometres.
India accepted the award.
The dispute was therefore resolved through an international legal process. Whatever political credit successive governments may claim, the resulting boundary is a matter of the Bangladeshi state.
The more useful question today is not which party deserves credit. It is whether Bangladesh has made effective use of the maritime space secured through the settlement.
That is a question of policy, not political ownership.
The Adani dispute shows what a real review looks like
The energy relationship with India is a different matter because some agreements raise substantive commercial questions that deserve scrutiny.
Bangladesh imports electricity from India through cross-border connections and also receives power from the 1,600-megawatt Adani plant in Jharkhand under a 2017 power-purchase agreement.
The agreement has become the subject of a significant commercial and legal dispute. Bangladesh paid an average tariff of 14.87 taka per unit for Adani electricity in fiscal 2023-24, compared with an average of 9.57 taka for electricity supplied by other Indian companies. Bangladesh has also challenged aspects of the agreement, including the treatment of tax benefits.
The dispute subsequently moved into international arbitration. In November 2025, Bangladesh’s High Court halted the arbitration while a committee examined the agreement.
This is precisely the kind of arrangement for which a government review can serve a useful purpose.
The relevant questions are contractual and economic: How was the tariff calculated? What costs were incorporated? What concessions were granted? Are comparable suppliers receiving different terms? What does the contract require, and what does Bangladesh have the legal ability to change?
Those questions cannot be answered by describing an agreement simply as “pro-India” or “anti-Bangladesh.”
They require documents, numbers, legal analysis and negotiation.
The previous review should be a cautionary tale
The BNP government is also not the first administration to announce a review of Bangladesh’s agreements with India.
The interim government undertook its own examination. In October 2025, Foreign Affairs Adviser Md Touhid Hossain said one agreement—the purchase of tugboats from India—had been cancelled, while the Adani power agreement and several other projects were being reviewed for possible revision or cancellation.
That experience illustrates an important point: announcing a review is easier than producing a defensible policy outcome.
A serious review should leave a public record. If an agreement is found to be harmful, the government should explain why. If it is renegotiated, the public should know what Bangladesh obtained. If it is retained, the government should explain the reasons.
Otherwise, “review” risks becoming a political slogan rather than a mechanism of government.
Connectivity is not automatically a concession
The same caution applies to connectivity.
Bangladesh and India have expanded the use of inland waterways under the Indo-Bangladesh Protocol on Inland Water Transit and Trade. India’s Inland Waterways Authority reports that about 4.68 million tonnes of cargo moved along the protocol route in fiscal year 2023-24.
India benefits from these arrangements, particularly because they improve access to its northeastern states.
But the fact that India benefits does not establish that Bangladesh has lost.
Bangladesh occupies a strategically important geographical position between India’s northeast, mainland South Asia and the Bay of Bengal. The World Bank has estimated that seamless transport connectivity between Bangladesh and India could increase Bangladesh’s national income by as much as 17 percent, while also benefiting India.
The policy challenge, then, is not whether India gains. It is whether Bangladesh gains enough.
A country does not protect its national interest by refusing every arrangement from which a neighbour also benefits. It protects its interests by negotiating terms that produce a satisfactory return.
Water will test the government’s diplomacy
The 1996 Ganges Water Sharing Treaty presents a more immediate diplomatic challenge.
The treaty established a formula for sharing Ganges waters at Farakka during the dry season. Bangladesh’s Joint Rivers Commission says it has been implemented annually from January to May since 1997. The 30-year agreement is due to expire in 2026.
Renewal or renegotiation is therefore an immediate policy question.
But here too, there is a difference between arguing that an existing arrangement needs improvement and declaring that the existence of the arrangement itself represents diplomatic failure.
If Bangladesh believes the treaty no longer adequately protects its interests, the government should present the hydrological evidence, identify the shortcomings and set out its negotiating objectives.
The Teesta presents a similar challenge. The dispute remains unresolved, and Dhaka is entitled to pursue a better arrangement.
But unresolved negotiations and settled agreements are not the same thing. Nor should Bangladesh treat an international arbitration award or a mutually accepted boundary settlement as if it were simply another political agreement waiting to be discarded.
Foreign policy must survive changes of government
This is ultimately a question of institutional maturity.
Governments change. States remain.
Treaties, borders, energy contracts, waterways, infrastructure arrangements and other international commitments therefore cannot sensibly be treated as the political property of whichever party happens to be in power.
The BNP has every right to scrutinise decisions made by the Awami League government. If an agreement disadvantages Bangladesh, the government should seek to change it. If an agreement is defective, it should be challenged. If circumstances have changed, renegotiation may be entirely justified.
But the burden is to demonstrate the case.
That is especially important in relations with India, where the two countries are tied together by geography, trade, energy, water, transport and security interests. Disagreements are inevitable. The challenge for any government is to manage them without turning the entire relationship into a referendum on domestic politics.
The history of the Land Boundary Agreement offers a useful precedent. Khaleda Zia could oppose the Awami League government while welcoming an agreement that she believed benefited Bangladesh.
The same distinction is available to the BNP today.
The BNP can scrutinise and revise its predecessor’s policies without treating every decision of the previous government, or the broader Bangladesh-India relationship of that period, as inherently suspect.
What should the 101-agreement review produce?
If the review is to be more than political theatre, it should ultimately answer a set of straightforward questions.
What does each agreement actually provide?
What obligations has Bangladesh undertaken?
What has Bangladesh received?
Has the agreement been implemented?
What measurable economic, strategic or security benefits has it produced?
What costs or failures have emerged?
Does it require amendment, renegotiation or termination?
And, if renegotiation is necessary, what exactly does Bangladesh intend to seek from India?
That would give the review substance.
It would also allow the government to distinguish between agreements that genuinely require correction and agreements that may simply be politically inconvenient because they were concluded by a predecessor.
That distinction will matter.
Bangladesh does not need a foreign policy in which every change of government produces a new list of agreements to distrust. Nor does it need a policy that treats continuity as unquestionable.
It needs something more difficult: a foreign policy in which agreements are judged on evidence, performance and Bangladesh’s long-term interests.
If an agreement is harmful, change it—and explain why.
If it is beneficial, preserve it—and explain the benefit.
If it is flawed, renegotiate it—and disclose what Bangladesh secures in return.
And when an international question has already been settled through treaty, arbitration or another accepted legal process, reopening it should require a substantive reason, not merely a change of government.
The real measure of the BNP’s 101-agreement review will therefore not be how many agreements it places under scrutiny.
It will be what it does after the scrutiny is complete.
That is the difference between reviewing the past and governing the country.
