Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman will not be attending the BRICS summit or visit India at all until Delhi extradites former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Dhaka, The Tribune has learnt.Rahman conveyed this message to India’s High Commissioner Dinesh Trivedi when they met in Dhaka on August 10, diplomatic sources said, on the eve of Trivedi’s departure for Delhi, casting a new gloom on bilateral ties the two neighbours have tried hard to resurrect since Hasina fled Dhaka for Delhi two years ago.Dhaka’s new hardline is clearly a consequence of the press conference by Hasina and her son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Delhi on August 5, marking two years of her asylum in India.She and her son took questions from the assembled media, but Hasina’s tone was especially aggressive. She vowed to return to Dhaka in December even though she said “they may even kill me”.The extent to which Rahman and his Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led government is upset with Hasina trying to hijack the relationship is clear from the fact that Dhaka has also told Delhi that “even a bilateral visit would depend, fifty-fifty,” on Hasina’s extradition by Delhi.The diplomatic sources were referring to PM Modi’s invite to Rahman soon after he won the elections in February. Modi was among the first world leaders to do so. This bilateral invite is being seen as separate from the BRICS grouping invite, which was made to the Bangladesh PM in his capacity as the chair of the Bay of Bengal grouping called BIMSTEC, in keeping with the established practice of inviting heads of regional organisations.But India quickly distanced itself from the August 5 press conference, with officials stating they had no role at all in organising it, but the damage, the sources confirmed, had been done. So when the head of India’s external intelligence agency, R&AW’s Parag Jain, travelled to Dhaka to meet his counterpart, the Bangladesh PM’s close aide and Defence Affairs Adviser Brig Gen (retd) AKM Shamsul Islam, on August 10, the changed mood in Dhaka was clear to see, the sources added.The same day, August 10, when Trivedi called on the Bangladesh PM in the morning — a meeting which lasted 45 minutes — he was tersely told by Rahman that Dhaka had decided that any visit by him to India was conditional upon Hasina’s extradition.Trivedi is believed to have tried to reason with the Bangladesh PM, saying that the sky was the limit in improving bilateral ties and India would spare no effort in renewing them, but Rahman was unrelenting, the sources said.To the press, Trivedi sought to project the meeting as part of India’s efforts to put ties on a “positive, constructive and forward-looking” track. India, he said, was “looking forward” to the visit by the Bangladesh PM, saying there was no issue between the two countries that could not be resolved.In Delhi, over the past few days, Trivedi is believed to have briefed PM Modi about Dhaka’s changed stance on what he, otherwise, publicly described as a “multifaceted and enduring” tie.With the PM personally investing energy into promoting ties with nations on India’s eastern flank, with Bangladesh being at the heart of this renewed “Look East” initiative, Rahman’s toughened position seems to have come as a bit of a shock.Both sides are now trying to moderate each other’s charged positions, keenly aware that they need each other in a rapidly diversifying world. The Bangladesh PM’s first outside visit to Malaysia and China was carefully watched by India. As for Hasina, the diplomatic sources pointed out that India could not abandon the daughter of an old and trusted friend, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, especially as she had sought asylum in India for the second time in her life.However, the sources admitted that Hasina’s press conference had thrown a severe spanner in improving ties. “India’s security needs on its eastern flank are paramount and only a friendly Bangladesh can protect that,” the sources added. (With inputs from Ujwal Jalali in Delhi)