Bangladesh underwent its ‘Second Liberation’, also known as the ‘July Revolution’, in 2024 leading to the fall of Sk Hasina’s Awami League (AL) government which assumed power fourth time in a row earlier that year; the PM fled the country on August 5 and found shelter in India. The immediate trigger of this political transformation was a massive student upsurge under the banner of the Anti-Discrimination Students’ Movement which catapulted into power an interim administration headed by ‘Chief Advisor’ Md. Yunus, a Nobel Prize winning economist who had a history of crossing political swords with Hasina in the past. The so called ‘Second Liberation’ exhibited a couple of paradoxical features: While it was Sk Mujibur Rahman, the supreme leader of the AL – and Sk Hasina’s father – who fought the Pakistani autocracy to bring about liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, the ‘Second Liberation’ involved ‘freedom’ from the autocratic rule of Hasina and her AL as well as a no-holds-barred attack on Mujib’s political legacy. And secondly, the government of India made a significant contribution to the birth of Bangladesh in 1971 which was openly acknowledged by Mujib; but the ‘July Revolution’ had a pronounced anti-India character. This article seeks to examine the background of this political transition, its implications for the polity of Bangladesh, and the challenges India faced as its closest neighbour.
Backdrop
The immediate trigger of the uprising that ultimately caused the collapse of the Hasina government was the student-led anti-quota protests which began in July 2024. After assuming power in 1972, Sk Mujib introduced a quota for the Mukti joddhas (freedom fighters), apart from carving out a quota for Bangladeshi women who were victims of torture by the Pakistani military during the liberation war. After his death, the quota system underwent changes: measures for freedom fighters were diluted while the quota was extended to the underrepresented sections of society such as women, ethnic minorities and individuals inhabiting the underdeveloped areas. Over time the number of freedom fighters who could avail of the quota system declined. But provisions were made for bringing their children and grandchildren within the quota arrangement. This, critics pointed out, opened the door to political manipulation: it was suspected that shortfalls in reserved seats were being compensated for by extending the quota to members of the ruling AL. This, according to the critics, was a ploy to accommodate the ruling party loyalists within the bureaucracy who would ensure the continuance of the AL rule.
In 2018, the Bangladesh High Court rejected a petition challenging the legality of the quota arrangement existing since the 1970s. Sk Hasina declared she would maintain the quotas for the descendants of the liberation war veterans to continue the legacy of her father which for her was an emotive issue. This announcement, however, sparked a major agitation by the students who demanded a reform of the quota system. But in response to the unrest, Hasina cancelled all quotas in the civil service through an executive order, indicating if freedom fighters were not to get any quota, no one should enjoy the facility either. The executive order came into effect in 2020, which prompted a group of relatives of the war veterans to file a petition to the High Court for restoration of 30 per cent reservation in government jobs for descendants of the liberation warriors – and the High Court obliged in June 2024 (Hindu 2024). This sparked a peaceful protest by university students in mid-July, and all Hasina had to do to quell the protests was to tell the agitating students that her government had decided to appeal to the Supreme Court against the High Court ruling (Bhaumik).
But instead the protesting students at Dhaka University were attacked – allegedly by the members of Bangladesh Chhatro League, an AL affiliate – with rods, sticks and clubs, a pattern that was repeated at other universities as well. This was followed by a ruthless crackdown by the administration involving imposition of curfews, internet shutdown, and police firing leading to loss of young lives. The government proposed a discussion, but the protesters rejected it in the face of mounting death tolls. The Supreme Court meanwhile dismissed the High Court order, slashed the freedom fighters’ quota to a bare 5 per cent, and announced that 93 per cent of seats in government jobs would henceforth be filled up on merit (Amnesty 2024; Hindu 2024). For a while, the protest seemed to dissipate; but it surged with renewed vigour in the end of July demanding the resignation of Hasina as a single-point priority. This new phase of the agitation, the ruling party contended was orchestrated by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami, gathered quick momentum and ultimately brought about the downfall of the Hasina government.
However, the stage for this seemingly abrupt transition was being set for long, especially – but not exclusively – during the course of Sk Hasina’s three successive tenures of prime minister-ship. To set the record straight, as one of the longest serving women leaders of the world, she left behind a mixed legacy. Under her leadership, Bangladesh did make substantial economic progress that was both top down and bottom up. She also reorganized the Awami League into a formidable force in the long years of agitation against military rule and then against the Islamist coalition governments of BNP and Jamaat. That her party did retain a degree of commitment to the ideal of secularism and protection of minority rights could not be denied either. At the same time, ever since her return to power in 2008 – although more so after 2013-14 – Hasina was accused of increased authoritarianism and blamed for the country’s widening democracy deficit. Thus, in 2011, the Awami League-led government abolished the provision of caretaker government – an innovative mechanism incorporated in the Constitution of Bangladesh to ensure free and fair elections in mid-1990s – through the 15th constitutional amendment (2011), a move that attracted shrill protest by the opposition parties. Indeed, the entire opposition line-up – political parties, civil society organizations, and the media – became targets of the government’s repressive measures. Arguably politically motivated cases were slapped on opposition leaders – of which the BNP supremo Khaleda Zia bore the brunt – while all cases against Hasina initiated by previous regimes were withdrawn at one stroke. Elections were turned farcical; new laws including the infamous Digital Security Act (2018) were enacted to bear down on the opposition and to muzzle the press in particular; new teeth were added to the Information and Communication Technology Act (2006) to serve the same purpose. The drastic changes made in the judicial service rules aimed at tightening parliamentary control over appointment of judges pushed the Hasina government towards a collision course with the courts. On top of it, as political scientist Ali Riaz pointed out, Bangladesh was gripped by a ‘culture of fear’ where people being subjected to torture, crossfire, forced disappearances and extra-judicial killings became virtually everyday occurrences (Riaz 2022).
In the interest of fairness, however, it needs to be stressed that ever since its inception, democratic culture could never strike firm roots in Bangladesh. Sk Mujib, who led an autonomy movement in erstwhile East Pakistan which was kind of a prelude to the emergence of the new state in course of the liberation movement, gave his people a parliamentary government on independence. However, it amounted to a virtually single-dominant party system that underscored the supremacy of the AL – the party that brought independence to the country – and established the unilateral control of the executive wing over the legislature and the judiciary. And critics maintained that the last vestiges of democracy in Bangladesh were wiped out once Mujib introduced a presidential government with a single-party – Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BAKSAL) – located at its core. Mujib’s unfortunate assassination in 1975 was followed by a series of military coups and a decade-and-half-long spell of military rule which offered little scope for nurturing democratic values and practices (Jahan 2005). But more disappointingly, even after democracy was formally restored in the 1990s, Bangladesh failed to fix its democratic deficit: election results were regularly questioned by the losing sides; the trust between the ruling and the opposition parties reached its lowest point; the two front-ranking leaders were often not on speaking terms; the government sought to marginalize the opposition by all means; the opposition in its turn frequently resorted to boycotting the parliament and hitting the streets, all this, finally, encouraged the prevalence of money and muscle power in politics (Jahan 2005; Datta 2004). In sum, Bangladesh was hardly alien to autocratic rule – however, it undeniably scaled new heights during Hasina’s successive prime ministerial tenures.
To inquire next into the economic context of Sk Hasina’s ouster, the anti-quota protests doubtless exposed her as a leader who was unresponsive to the issues of jobs and livelihood. Yet, to take a wider perspective, Bangladesh, once mockingly called a ‘basket case’ by Dr. Henry Kissinger, made amazing economic strides acknowledged even by the UN General Assembly when it announced that the country was set to graduate from the LDC status to that of a developing country by November 2026. This success story had two aspects: On one hand, it created a world class readymade garment (RMG) industry which exported more than India, pushed up its per capita income to $2600 (higher than India again), and accounted for a near-miraculous growth rate of 6.5 per cent since 2000. On the other hand, the social indicators, such as lower fertility, higher life expectancy, high female workforce participation, and overall empowerment of women recorded a steady improvement which also compared favourably with the record of its giant neighbour. But this miracle story suffered a jolt under the shadow of Covid, and Bangladesh with a running inflation rate of 9.4 per cent had to apply for IMF assistance (Aiyar 2024).
One major reason behind the ‘prosperity’ of the RMG industry which accounted for 84 per cent of Bangladesh’s exports, and employed 4 million women directly and another 4 million indirectly, was – unlike India – the absence of non-wage costs. In the unionised Indian labour market, these costs included contributions to Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF), pension scheme, health insurance, and various kinds of leave which acted as kind of disincentive for Indian companies to employ thousands in RMG factories. On the other hand, the RMG industry in Bangladesh did not exist in the 1990s – when people bought cloth and had it tailored – which made it politically easy to create special free trade zones for RMG, with bonded warehouses for duty-free imports and assured credit to exporters. But Dhaka failed to extend this approach to other labour-intensive industries such as footwear, agro-processing, and plastic products because of strong domestic lobbies favouring high tariffs, and these sectors, as a result, failed to take the advantage of cheap labour export. The resulting failure to diversify exports (as against India’s highly diversified export basket above all in services) was one reason for Bangladesh’s current economic crisis which fanned popular discontent that found expression through the countrywide protests (Aiyar 2024).
A separate problem, however, was the steady rise in the number of the educated unemployed who did not find working in the garment industry attractive, and tried desperately to secure prized government jobs. In India, similar aspirations have driven the demand for job reservation from various castes, sub-castes and religious groups; and here successive governments, by subscribing to these demands in stages, managed to keep the hope alive for the educated unemployed. But as we saw, job reservation was highly detested in Bangladesh: indeed, in popular perception, it was weaponized politically by the AL – after all the quota beneficiaries, children and grandchildren of 1971 freedom fighters were AL sympathizers. This has angered the students outside Hasina’s political circles, and in the absence of a thriving service sector which could have accommodated at least part of their aspirations forced them to revolt against her regime (Aiyar 2024).
Future implications
The so called Second Liberation – on which Chief Advisor Yunus has put his seal of approval (TOI 9 Aug 2024) – launched a frontal assault on Bangabandhu Sk Mujibur Rahman, the ‘Father of the Nation’, the legacy of the liberation movement (especially as understood by the AL) as well as the ‘foundational values’ of the state of Bangladesh. Mujib’s statues, memorials, and residence suffered vituperative attacks; the demand to declare Jinnah instead of Mujib as the founder of the nation went up from a meeting held at Dhaka Press Club which had a glorious history of association with the liberation war or the anti-Ershad movement of the late 1980s (ABP 13 Sep 2024); new textbooks produced under the Yunus regime claimed it was General Zia rather than Sk Mujib who declared the country’s independence in 1971 (TOI 3 Jan 2025.); finally, Major Dalim, one of the killers of Mujib who had long remained absconding gave an interview to a ‘pro-Jamaat scribe’ in which he defended his past action and welcomed the anti-Hasina uprising (ABP 7 Jan 2025). One obvious explanation of course was Sk Hasina’s ancestral connection with Mujib, as well as her claim to the legacy of Mujibism, or, as her critics held, her efforts to derive political mileage from the same. Yet, one could not overlook a calculated attempt to reclaim or reassert Bangladesh’s Islamic self. Some scholars averred the attacks on Mujib’s statues were in keeping with detestation for idols in Islam, but the implications of this series of events went further and deeper.
Per received wisdom, the AL’s commitment to secularism dated back to the late 1940s when Mujibur Rahman, then a student leader, along with his associates challenged Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s plea to make Urdu the state language of Pakistan overlooking the claim of Bengali. This arguably amounted to contesting the ‘two nation theory’ which was the ideological bedrock of Pakistan, paved the way for the historic language movement in the early 1950s, and set the stage for the defeat of the Muslim League in the first provincial election of East Pakistan held in 1954. The Language Movement forced the Pakistani authorities to recognize Bengali as state language along with Urdu; yet leaders of West Pakistan continued to heap cultural slurs upon the citizens of the eastern segment – treating them as ‘lesser Muslims’ thanks to their close everyday connection with their Hindu compatriots – which further consolidated their Bengali identity, and shaped the Bengali nationalism which laid the foundation of the liberation war of 1971 and the new state emerging in its aftermath. Yet the military regime of Genl. Zia took over following the tragic assassination of Mujib in 1975, and the process of sidelining the secular ideal began in right earnest: the term ‘secularism’ was removed from the Constitution along with Bengali nationalism being officially replaced by Bangladeshi nationalism marked by a pronounced Islamic and anti-(Hindu)India slant. After Zia, President Ershad emulated his legacy by officially declaring Islam to be the state religion of the Republic of Bangladesh.
How come this deletion of secularism only five years after its incorporation in the Constitution of Bangladesh happened, and obtained popular acceptance? To answer this question, scholars argued, we need to revisit Sk Mujib’s ideological inclination and ask the question: was Bengali nationalism really opposed to Islam? (Riaz 2021) They contended that Mujib’s Six Point autonomy demand of the mid-1960s which evolved into the clamour for liberation in course of a few years primarily highlighted political, economic and cultural grievances but never questioned Islam as Pakistan’s guiding ideology. Again, they pointed out, it would be a folly to (under)estimate the influence of the so called ‘Islam Pasand’ parties – the Jamaat and its ilk – in East Pakistan by looking at their slim vote percentage in the national elections of 1970. Indeed, inclusion of secularism in the Constitution triggered a strong protest which accounted for the early dilution of the secular spirit during Mujib’s own regime in order to accommodate the sentiment of the Islamic lobby.
After democracy was restored in the 1990s, neither of the two major political parties – AL and BNP – managed to secure an electoral majority which enabled the Jamaat to emerge as the kingmaker: it helped Khaleda Zia to form government through outside support in 1991 which resulted in concomitant rise in its political clout – so much so that even Sk Hasina was found to hobnob with it on the eve of the 1996 polls. Again, the first Hasina government (1996-2001) was succeeded by the BNP-Jamaat coalition regime led by Khaleda – now Jamaat became an official part of the government – which assumed office in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy and declaration of the ‘War on Terror’ by the US. Its term in office (2001-2006) witnessed an unprecedented rise in Islamist militancy in Bangladesh – including a fierce bomb blast in 2005 which eliminated almost the entire top leadership of barring Sk Hasina – while the government looked the other way (Karlekar 2005).
True, after recapturing the prime ministerial office in 2008, Hasina restored secularism in the Constitution, but on a compromised note: Islam continued to enjoy the status of the state religion which critics pointed out was a concession made to the Islamist lobby without which she was convinced it would be difficult if not impossible for her to survive in the seat of power. Similarly, initially she met out an iron-hand treatment militants of all varieties, but later she took recourse to playing one set of Islamic militants against another: more precisely, she struck an alliance with the Hefazat-e-Islami to put the Jamaat, still in embrace with her arch rival BNP, on a tight leash. Indeed, a whole new generation of Islamist outfits, some with al Qaeda and Islamic State (IS) connections, flourished and engaged in dastardly campaigns in full visibility of the administration; yet the PM was highly reluctant to acknowledge that and tried instead to put the blame entirely on the Jamaat. Still worse, there were reports of stray incidents involving AL cadres who joined hands with Hefazat elements in perpetrating atrocities on members of the Hindu minority who always remained steadfast supporters of the AL and looked upon Hasina as their saviour (Riaz 2021) .
No wonder, the Jamaat and the BNP leaders sought to hijack the high-pitched anti-quota protests which they perceived as a perfect opportunity to bounce back into power. Indeed, the movement seemed to have calmed down somewhat following the Supreme Court’s quota judgment in the third week of July 2024, but was reinvigorated apparently through the intervention of this political duo in later that month with a singular focus on Hasina’s resignation. Much of the violence could be traced to the Jamaat and its student wing Chhatro Shibir; otherwise it was difficult to explain the attacks on vital infra such as metro stations (Shringla 2024). Hence the desperation, even after her government was toppled, not only to finish off Hasina and the AL as a political force, but to wipe out all traces of that ideology – Mujibism which dared to envisage a secular Bangladesh – and rewrite the country’s political future strictly in the language of Islam. All this was writ large on the cancellation of the holiday declared by the earlier government on Mujib’s birthday; abolition of ‘Joy Bangla’ (Victory to Bengal), a chant popularized by Mujib during the liberation war, as the national slogan; and the second assault on Mujib’s Dhanmondi home in January 2025 (TOI 7 Feb 2025)which was earlier set on fire and now literally smashed to smithereens. Destruction, allegedly by ‘outlawed’ Hizbut Tahrir militants, of the memorial dedicated to the police officers who laid down their lives to foil the infamous terrorist assault on Dhaka’s Holey Artisan Café in 2016; or demand for ban on music in the mazars of the Sufi saints who propagated the values of syncretism and inter-faith harmony carried the same message as well.
This brings us to an exploration of the unfolding political scenario in Bangladesh since the collapse of the Hasina government in August 2024. Of course the picture is far from clear as yet; hence only an outline of some of the emerging trends could be presented in this section. To begin with, some commentators opined that Sk Hasina was ousted in a ‘quiet military coup behind a civilian facade’ (Chellaney 2024). These scholars duly noted the role of the violent, student-led, Islamist-backed protests against Hasina’s secular but increasingly undemocratic reign in forcing her out of office. But for them the decisive factor was loss of support of the country’s powerful army: when the protesters were rampaging through the streets of Dhaka, it was the army’s refusal to enforce a government-ordered lockdown that and ultimately persuaded the PM to flee the country aboard a military transport plane. These conclusions not only drew on the military’s past record of political intervention – both direct (1975-1990 under Generals Zia and Ershad’s stewardship) and indirect (2006-2008 when a Caretaker Government overstretched its tenure) but also alluded to the army’s expanding economic stakes which presumably encouraged it to indulge in political machinations.
This reading was buttressed by the fact that after the PM’s flight created a political vacuum, it was the army chief Waker uz Zaman – handpicked by Hasina for the top job only a few weeks ago – met with the student leaders, addressed a gathering of the major political parties (barring the AL of course) to present a political route map for the country. These scholars also suspected that the interim government of advisors with Md. Yunus as its main face was essentially at the beck and call of the army: this suspicion was deepened when during a controversy that arose within the body of advisors as to whether the President, a Hasina appointee, was to be removed from office, it was decided to wait for the return of Zaman who was abroad at that time before taking any final call. However, based on past experience, it would be safe to say that the army would not directly take over the reins of power – it might irk the international donors and also attract UN strictures against inclusion of Bangladesh security force members in its peacekeeping operations – but like to act as the friend, philosopher and guide to the new administration.
To turn next to the interim administration, Md. Yunus immediately after taking over, expressed his gratitude to the youth behind the movement, included some leading faces of the movement within his administration, and called upon the country to move forward on the path shown by the students (TOI 9 Aug 2024). One of the first steps the Yunus administration took was to ensure that the AL had to pay for its ‘past misdeeds’; a slew of serious cases were slapped on former AL ministers and office-bearers, many of whom were subjected to torture and manhandling in public; the Chhatro League, the AL’s students’ wing, was banned. Alternatively, functionaries of the BNP (including Khaleda Zia) and the Jamaat incarcerated during the Hasina regime were released. The interim administration also pledged to remove the AL’s hold over the state machinery by firing police chiefs and other members of the state apparatus. The key expectation from the new administration, however, was holding of early elections once the necessary reforms were completed in a time-bound manner; and the BNP stressed this point time and again. But the administration indicated that the polls were not likely to be held anytime soon – until and unless a comprehensive reform agenda encompassing the election commission, judiciary, civil administration, security forces and media was completed (TOI. 30 Oct 2024).
As to its governance record, two issues stood out in particular: first, the administration failed to arrest the political strife and unrest in the country that gripped the country since mid-2024, especially the spate of attacks on the Hindu minority; secondly, its economic policies – its incapacity to control food price inflation; imposition of new taxes allegedly on IMF advice; adverse impact of the deteriorating law and order situation on export performance – also generated considerable concerns. Meanwhile, the leaders of the Anti-Discrimination Students’ Movement planned to float a new political party, reportedly to end the decades-long AL-BNP ‘duoply’(TOI 17 Aug 2024); and delaying the elections, it could be surmised, was meant to give them some extra time to drum up support for the proposed organization. However, the popularity of the student leaders suffered a jolt thanks to reported infightings; questions were raised as to the sources of funds spent on the operating and maintenance costs of the student body sprawling office at the heart of the capital.
No less curious was the evolving equations between the BNP and the Jamaat, the allies of yesteryears turned adversaries today. The Jamaat, it was reported, was aspiring to capture power by mediating and coordinating among all Islamist parties – including Hefazat, a body of madrasa teachers and one-time AL ally – and bringing them on a single platform with a view to execute a long term design of converting Bangladesh into an Islamist state (ABP 31 Aug 2024). Speculation was rife over the profound influence the Jamaat leaders were exerting on the day to day affairs of the Yunus administration, further fuelled by the administration’s earlier decision to withdraw the ban clamped on the party and its affiliate Islami Chhatro Shibir. Shafiqur Rahman, the new Ameer of the Jamaat also sought to fabricate a responsible image for the party by playing down its anti-India image, and also pleading for inter-faith harmony stopping short of course of making any reference to secularism. He also criticized the Yunus administration’s penchant for slapping numerous charges on AL functionaries which he maintained would only dilute the seriousness of the exercise, and demanded early elections for Bangladesh (ABP 29 Aug 2024).
The BNP, the second major political party of Bangladesh along with AL on the other hand appeared somewhat peeved by the increased prominence that the Jamaat, its erstwhile ally, was getting in the post-revolution political scenario. This frustration found sharp expression in the words of the party’s Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam that those who would not be able to capture a single seat if elections were held were indulging in tall talks which received wide media coverage. He also clearly stated that while BNP and the Jamaat fought hand in hand during the anti-Hasina protests, his party had no understanding with the Jamaat at present (ABP 31 Aug 2024). The BNP was also highly critical of the Yunus administration’s stand that the elections could be held only after completing a wide array of reforms and made it clear that it did not believe in reforms brought about by a few: undertaking comprehensive reforms was the prerogative of an elected government alone. The party also condemned the ADSM’s move to ‘bury’ the Mujib Constitution through its ‘July Proclamation’ as fascist and asserted that the Constitution, formulated as a result of the Liberation War, and drafted at the cost of the blood of millions of martyrs could not be so frivolously tinkered with. Incidentally, of all the political parties of Bangladesh, it was the Jamaat which stood four square with the ‘July Proclamation’ which further exposed the widening chasm between the former political partners (TOI 31 Dec 2024).
Finally, the political future of the AL constituted perhaps the proverbial million dollar question. As already mentioned, untold atrocities were perpetrated upon the AL leaders and cadres in Bangladesh apparently in collusion with the Yunus administration; in fact the recent ‘Bulldozer Mission’ at Sk Mujib’s Dhanmondi residence was reportedly ordered to teach Hasina a lesson for her audacity to address her party activists online (ABP 6 Feb 2025). Members of the Yunus administration – the student advisors in particular – appeared determined to banish the AL from the political arena and debar it from participating in the forthcoming elections even after the newly appointed Election Commissioner of Banglsdesh pointed out there was no legal barrier to prevent AL from contesting the polls (TOI 1 Jan 2025). BNP, on the other hand, firmly opposed the move towards outright exclusion of the AL from the electoral exercise, and averred that the AL was a political party; and the people alone would decide if it would contest the elections or not. Sajeeb Wazed Joy, Hasina’s son presently based in London took this opportunity to extend an olive branch to the BNP and pleaded for settling past differences which he said was important in the interest of bringing democracy back to Bangladesh (ABP 31 Aug 2024). In response, however, BNP Secretary General pointed out his party had no objection as such to work with AL; still he insisted that ‘those who killed people and laundered the country’s money abroad must be brought under the law, tried, and punished’(TOI 21 Nov, 2024) . Meanwhile, the AL cadres resorted to all kind of innovative mass contact techniques including guerrilla style functioning to carry their leader’s message to the people during the run-up to the elections.
India’s concerns
The anti-India character of the ‘Second Liberation’ has already been noted. Indeed, a surge in anti-India sentiment in Bangladesh was being visible for some time which found expression, for example, in derisive social media reactions to India’s defeat in cricket matches to the call for boycott of Indian goods, the so called ‘India Out’ campaign. The immediate trigger of the anti-India mindset was the pervasive perception of New Delhi as the international patron of Sk Hasina which was ready to connive at her ‘misdeeds’. The Yunus administration asserted (and BNP and Jamaat seemed to concur) that India’s ties with Bangladesh involved engaging with a single political party i.e. the AL, and did not reflect people-to-people connect (ABP 6 Sep 2024), an argument partly corroborated by the past experience that New Delhi’s equations with Dhaka were far from comfortable during BNP/BNP-Jamaat regimes, not to speak of the phases of military rule. Further, this relationship, it was averred, was one of dependence, not equality: the multiple steps taken by Hasina to address India’s security concerns were never effectively reciprocated as was evident in India’s procrastination on the Teesta Water-sharing Deal or the way New Delhi ‘humiliated’ Dhaka by passing the Constitution Amendment Act(CAA) in 2019. To this may be added the incessant propaganda emanating from the Islamist circles which never endorsed closer Indo-Bangla ties: after all, the appeal and influence of ‘Bangladeshi nationalism’ with its pro-Islamic and anti-India thrust appeared far stronger in Bangladesh today compared to the ‘Bengali nationalism’ propagated by Mujib and his associates.
Following the collapse of the Hasina government, the most important diplomatic test New Delhi faced was how to deal with the palpable vulnerability of the Hindu minority of Bangladesh. The political ascent of the hardline Islamist Jamaat struck deep fears into the Hindu community; disturbing videos of vandalism, looting, and arson were doing the rounds; Hindu homes and places of worship were targeted in particular, reflecting deep-seated communal animosity and tensions. New Delhi, on one hand, successfully neutralized the unwarranted prospect of large chunks of the hapless Hindu population crossing over from Bangladesh into India in the wake of the turmoil; on the other, it managed to mount effective pressure upon the Yunus administration, both at political and official levels, to stop this politics of retaliation, and adopt appropriate measures to ensure the security and welfare of the minority populace (TOI 10 Dec 2024). The interim administration initially tried to beat about the bush: that New Delhi was indulging in unnecessary exaggeration of the ground realty; that the rulers of Bangladesh were very much committed to the principles of peace and harmony among the different communities; that the Hindus were not being attacked qua Hindus but because they were AL supporters, i.e. the anti-Hindu violence was political and not necessarily communal in nature. Finally, and somewhat begrudgingly, Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to chief advisor Yunus, acknowledged 88 incidents of communal violence against minorities, primarily Hindus, following ouster of Sk Hasina, and that 70 people were arrested in those incidents (TOI 11 Dec 2024).
Again, a constant source of irritation in bilateral ties was the question of Sk Hasina’s ‘asylum’ in India: the Yunus administration as well as other political parties were unanimous in pointing out that while all of them favoured improved diplomatic ties with New Delhi, this could not happen till Hasina continued to stay in India, and deliver provocative speeches denigrating the ‘July Revolution’ from her political sojourn. Indeed, Dhaka left no stone unturned to bring back Hasina under India-Bangladesh extradition treaty: its International Crimes Tribunal (ICT, which, ironically, Hasina weaponized earlier to settle scores with the Jamaat) issued arrest warrants against her for ‘crimes against humanity and genocide’; more recently, it sought Interpol’s assistance in issuing a Red Corner Notice against Sk Hasina. New Delhi, which initially signalled it was consulting several states to settle the question of Hasina’s asylum, later put its foot down and declared that the case of repatriating Sk Hasina was not covered by the terms of the extradition treaty because the extradition demand was clearly politically motivated (ABP 14 Nov 2024).
Yet another disconcerting development from New Delhi’s perspective was release of notorious militant leaders in close succession to withdrawal of the ban on the Jamaat, especially the discharge, from Gazipur’s high security prison, of Jashimmuddin Rahamani, the chief of the Anasarullah Bangla Team (ABT) in August 2024. The group was allegedly trying to forge a jihadi network with help of sleeper cells in West Bengal and the northeast for the past several years, by recruiting local youth from both Bengal and Bangladesh to realize the goal of establishing a ‘Greater Bangladesh’. It may be recalled that ever since the Khagragarh blasts in 2014, Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) created greater impact in Bengal; however, it reportedly suffered split on the question of the composition of the proposed political entity – whether it should consist of the two Bengals only or to include Pakistan as well – and the pro-Pak elements broke out of JMB and floated ABT. The release of Rahamani fuelled apprehensions of reinvigoration of ABT activism which indeed came true when in December 2024 when eight men, with alleged ABT links, were arrested who the Bengal Police claimed were plotting to target the highly sensitive Siliguri corridor, or the ‘chicken’s neck – the narrow strip of land that connected the north-eastern states with the rest of the country (TOI 21 Dec 2024; ABP 21 Dec 2024.).
Again, in the backdrop of deteriorating Indo-Bangla relations, the wider concern was that of China and Pakistan conjointly deepening their influence in Bangladesh which was critically located at the intersection of South and Southeast Asia. Indeed, observers pointed out that keeping all its eggs in Sk Hasina’s basket put India at a distinct disadvantage under the changed circumstances, whereas China which always took care to connect with all political forces in Bangladesh – ruling or opposition – enjoyed a head-start. As to the bitter rivalry India had with China over maintaining investment and bagging infrastructure projects in Bangladesh, Sk Hasina when in office never desisted from signalling that India was her preferred economic partner, as she did while allocating the reservoir of the Teesta water project to India last year. The interim administration, however, has already expressed its resolve to review all Hasina-era economic agreements which of course included agreements signed with the Chinese too; still when fresh agreements would come up for discussion, China was expected to grab the lion’s share given its cosy political equation with the powers that be and also its greater financial clout. Bangladesh under Hasina was already the second largest importer of Chinese defence equipment; under its changing threat perceptions, this dependence on Chinese arms was likely to increase only. It might also be recalled that China has already contributed to developing numerous Bangladeshi ports; wider access to any or all of these ports could substantially bolster Beijing’s “strings of pearls” strategy to hem in India in the Indian Ocean (Grossman 2024).
That Bangladesh’s ties with Pakistan were warming up also added to India’s sense of discomfort: Dhaka waived customs inspections for Pakistani imports; and for the first time in five decades, a Pakistani cargo ship docked at Chittagong port in Bangladesh. Pakistan and Bangladesh stepped up military-to-military contacts; Dhaka started making defence purchases from Pakistan; and its decision to relinquish security clearance requirements for Pakistani citizens, South Block officials suspected, might be misused by the merchants of terror (Grossman 2024). New Delhi was also keeping a close watch on the enhanced activism of ISI, Pakistan’s ill-famed intelligence agency in Bangladesh amid reports of the ISI chief undertaking a clandestine trip to Dhaka in January (ABP 25 Jan 2025). Meanwhile, Pak PM Shabaz Sharif had a long meeting with Md. Yunus during the D-8 conference at Cairo; Pakistani foreign minister Ishaq Dar was also slated to visit Dhaka in near future. Pakistan’s growing intimacy with Bangladesh was fomented not only by their shared antipathy towards India; their burgeoning Islamist connections and the China factor also played a facilitative role. This was a major headache for Delhi because for the first time since the birth of Bangladesh, it would have to worry about the prospect of dealing with three separate fronts: Pakistan, Bangladesh, and China.
Under this rapidly evolving political scenario, India would likely find it really challenging to protect the gains it made vis-à-vis Bangladesh during the last decade of which curbing militancy and expansion of trade and connectivity projects stood out in bold relief. However, in conclusion, some silver linings could be noted in the seemingly dark clouds hovering over the bilateral landscape. For one, neither the Yunus administration, nor the BNP and the Jamaat de-valued Bangladesh’s ties with India; and even during these turbulent times, India joined Nepal and Bangladesh, both keen on electricity trade, in inaugurating the first trilateral power transaction – from Nepal to Bangladesh via the Indian grid – in a major boost for energy connectivity in the region. As to Islamabad’s efforts to fish in Bangladesh’s troubled waters, New Delhi exerted effective counter-pressure by deepening its engagement with the Afghan Taliban in the backdrop of recent Pak airstrikes inside Afghanistan targeting TTP militants but allegedly ending up killing civilians, and securing in return an assurance from Kabul’s ruling Taliban that they would not allow Afghan territory to be used against India (TOI 9 Jan 2025). Thirdly, India and China recently experienced a mini-détente when they endorsed an earlier deal to disengage their militaries along their disputed borders out of pragmatic considerations, which was likely to temper India-China rivalry in the Bangladeshi context. Finally, China’s increasing footprint in Bangladesh would certainly not be welcomed by the US since it would thwart its plans to keep the region ‘free and open’ and encourage it to cooperate with India in tackling the issues in its backyard (Grossman).
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