India’s Fortunes Shift in Bangladesh

After a five-decade hiatus, a Pakistani cargo ship docked in the port city of Chittagong, Bangladesh, last month. The ship’s arrival signaled a significant shift in Bangladesh’s dealings with Pakistan, from which it seceded in 1971. Dhaka has also boosted its acquisition of arms and ammunition from Islamabad and dispensed with its practice of a full customs inspection of Pakistani imports.

These developments have come in rapid succession since Bangladesh’s interim government took over a few months ago. Leader Mohammed Yunus, a Nobel-winning economist, was the consensus candidate after Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stepped down under pressure in August. During her last two terms in office, she worked closely with India’s government. (Hasina has received asylum in New Delhi, and Dhaka recently asked Interpol to issue a red notice for her arrest.)

Hasina’s departure in the face of mass protests blindsided India, which had frosty relations with her principal political opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). As a result, New Delhi now finds itself with few allies in Bangladesh, even as Yunus has reiterated his interest in maintaining good bilateral relations. The interim government’s overtures toward Pakistan certainly loom large over India’s misgivings about the future of its own ties with Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, India now faces what international relations scholars call a foreign-policy realignment. Such shifts mostly stem from two sources: changes in the external environment that force a country to reassess its priorities and strategies or changes in domestic politics. The latter is apparently contributing to a dramatic alteration in Dhaka’s foreign-policy orientation, with significant consequences for New Delhi.

Under Hasina, who held power in Bangladesh for more than 15 years, the two countries enjoyed a symbiotic relationship. Hasina kept Bangladesh’s Islamist forces in check, did not grant sanctuary to Indian secessionist organizations, and welcomed Indian investment. For its part, New Delhi was willing to overlook Dhaka’s democratic deficits under Hasina, provide access to the Indian market, and boost cross-border rail and road connections.

Despite these arrangements, some underlying tensions—both bilateral and rooted in Bangladesh’s domestic politics—dogged the relationship. With Hasina’s departure, these differences are coming to the fore and are likely to lead to a reappraisal of priorities for both sides.

From India’s standpoint, irregular immigration from Bangladesh was always a fraught issue—regardless of the government in office, but more so after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) assumed power in 2014. Even under Hasina, the leadership in Dhaka proved unwilling to address the matter. The BJP politicized the issue, especially in the lead-up to the 2019 general elections in India; the party’s intransigence can largely be attributed to religious identity and Islamophobia.

Tensions are now rising: After the arrest of a Hindu monk in Bangladesh in November and the protests that have followed, the two countries have traded accusations of failing to protect the rights of religious minorities within their borders. If Bangladeshi Hindus seek refuge in India, the immigration question could take a troublesome turn. A BJP government would grant these migrants sanctuary while upbraiding Bangladesh.

Backed into a corner, Dhaka would no doubt assail New Delhi for its treatment of Indian Muslims—leading to spiraling hostility. Such hostility is made worse by misinformation: Some Indian reports have misrepresented the situation on the ground in Bangladesh, including portraying events as a “genocide.”

Another issue on which the two sides have failed to agree is a water-sharing agreement on the Teesta River, despite the resolution of a conflict over the Ganges River in 1996. This issue is particularly nettlesome because even as the BJP government was willing to resolve the matter, it failed to obtain the assent of the state government of West Bengal, which borders Bangladesh. This issue may become a political cudgel for anti-India forces within Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, some strands of Bangladesh’s domestic politics have long worried India regardless of the party in power in New Delhi. One is the rise of Islamist militancy in Bangladesh and its adverse effects on the country’s Hindu minority. Those who helped oust Hasina included Islamists and anti-India groups that are now feeling exhilarated. Despite its rhetorical commitment to minority rights, the interim government in Dhaka has so far failed to address the fears and misgivings of Hindus in Bangladesh.

India also fears a possible contagion effect within its own Muslim communities, especially those located along the border with Bangladesh. India’s principal counterintelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, has long kept a close watch on these developments. Given the BJP’s largely Hindu base, it cannot afford to appear unconcerned about Hindus in Bangladesh. For the moment, however, all India can do is name and shame the interim government—any escalation would surely backfire.

Hasina’s Awami League party is all but discredited for the foreseeable future in Bangladesh, and the BNP will be a political force to reckon with in a new government once elections are finally held. Given India’s troubled history with the party, India’s influence in Bangladesh could be at its lowest ebb in decades. The interim government’s recent foreign-policy choices show that India may find its ability to shape Bangladesh’s outlook more limited than ever before.

If Bangladesh’s principal Islamist party, the Jamaat-i-Islami, allies with the BNP as it has in the past, the foreign-policy realignment is likely to become full-blown. India’s misgivings about an increasingly hostile neighbor would be realized. New Delhi has few tools at its command to stave off this possible outcome; its inordinate reliance on Hasina and the Awami League to the exclusion of other parties and Bangladeshi civil society has put it in this untenable position.