Key Findings
- BJP’s Bangladesh policy is driven by electoral utility—Hindu persecution narratives for West Bengal constituencies, anti-Muslim rhetoric for national polarization—rather than strategic calculation
- India backed Sheikh Hasina not for Bangladesh’s benefit but because authoritarian allies are easier to control than democratic partners responsive to their own publics
- This approach has backfired catastrophically: India now faces rising anti-India sentiment across Bangladeshi society, Pakistan-Bangladesh defense alignment discussions, and accelerated Chinese economic penetration
- What India actually needs—a stable, prosperous, cooperative Bangladesh—is precisely what its current policies undermine
- The “Big Brother” approach has failed across South Asia; Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and now Bangladesh have all pushed back against Indian paternalism
In January 2024, Sheikh Hasina won her fifth consecutive term as Bangladesh’s Prime Minister. The election was boycotted by the opposition, condemned by Western democracies, and delivered a predetermined result. India celebrated.
Seven months later, Hasina fled to New Delhi in a helicopter as millions of Bangladeshis demanded her ouster. India’s entire Bangladesh policy collapsed in forty-six days.
The failure was not incidental. It was structural—the inevitable result of a foreign policy designed for electoral consumption rather than strategic effect.
The Electoral Utility of Bangladesh
To understand India’s Bangladesh policy, one must understand Indian domestic politics. Bangladesh serves three electoral functions for the BJP:
1. The Hindu Persecution Narrative
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) of 2019—which fast-tracks citizenship for non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh—was never primarily about refugees. It was about electoral mobilization.
The narrative is simple: Hindus in Bangladesh face existential persecution; India must protect them; the BJP is the only party willing to do so. This message resonates powerfully in West Bengal, where the BJP has sought to break the Trinamool Congress’s dominance.
Every incident of communal tension in Bangladesh—real or exaggerated—becomes fodder for BJP campaigns. The December 2024 attacks on Hindu properties following Chinmoy Krishna Das’s arrest generated weeks of coverage on Indian news channels, with explicit electoral framing.
2. The Controllable Ally
Democratic governments respond to their publics. Authoritarian governments respond to their patrons. This is why India preferred Hasina.
Under Hasina, Bangladesh:
- Suppressed anti-India sentiment
- Provided intelligence cooperation without public scrutiny
- Accepted unfavorable water-sharing arrangements
- Tolerated border killings by BSF
- Granted transit rights for Indian goods
A democratic Bangladesh—responsive to a public with legitimate grievances about Indian behavior—would be far less accommodating. From New Delhi’s perspective, Hasina’s authoritarianism was not a bug but a feature.
3. The Anti-Muslim Framework
BJP’s broader electoral strategy requires Muslim threats—domestic and external. Pakistan serves as the primary villain, but Bangladesh provides a supporting role: the country where Hindus are persecuted, where militants find sanctuary, where anti-India forces gather.
This framing ignores the fifteen years of security cooperation under Hasina, the billions in bilateral trade, and the cultural bonds between Bengali-speaking peoples. But electoral narratives need not be accurate—only effective.
What India Actually Needs
Strip away the electoral calculations, and India’s strategic interests in Bangladesh become clear:
| Strategic Interest | Current Policy Effect |
|---|---|
| Secure Northeast | Cooperation collapsing; insurgent revival possible |
| Counter Chinese encirclement | Bangladesh accelerating pivot to Beijing |
| Growing export market | Trade disrupted; CEPA stalled |
| Regional influence | Anti-India sentiment at historic highs |
| Democratic credibility | Seen as backer of ousted authoritarian |
India needs a stable Bangladesh. A destabilized Bangladesh becomes a security liability, an economic dead zone, and an invitation for Chinese strategic penetration.
India needs a prosperous Bangladesh. A growing economy of 170 million people provides markets for Indian goods, destinations for Indian investment, and shared interest in regional connectivity.
India needs a cooperative Bangladesh. Security threats—from insurgency to terrorism to trafficking—require bilateral coordination that only functional relationships enable.
India needs a sovereign Bangladesh. A client state generates resentment; a genuine partner generates goodwill.
Every element of India’s current policy undermines these interests.
The “Big Brother” Failure
India’s approach to Bangladesh follows a pattern visible across South Asia. The “Neighborhood First” policy, announced with fanfare in 2014, has produced neighborhood-wide backlash.
Nepal: The Blockade Blunder
In 2015, India imposed what Nepalis experienced as an economic blockade following Nepal’s adoption of a new constitution. The blockade achieved nothing except lasting resentment and accelerated Nepal’s embrace of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s December 2024 visit to Beijing—featuring new BRI agreements and reduced reliance on India—demonstrates the long-term consequences of short-term coercion.
Sri Lanka: Crisis and Competition
India’s relationship with Sri Lanka has been defined by Tamil politics, strategic competition with China, and inconsistent engagement. Despite the 2022 economic crisis providing India opportunities to rebuild ties, China maintains significant leverage—including the Hambantota Port that India’s own failures helped deliver to Beijing.
Maldives: “India Out”
The “India Out” campaign that swept the Maldives represented the most explicit rejection of Indian influence in the region. President Muizzu’s government has systematically reduced Indian presence while expanding ties with China and Turkey.
The Common Thread
In each case, India’s approach featured:
- Support for politically convenient allies over democratic processes
- Economic leverage used as coercion
- Failure to deliver on developmental commitments
- Perception of interference in domestic affairs
- Assumption that small neighbors have no alternatives
And in each case, the result was identical: backlash, diversification toward China, and diminished Indian influence.
The Credibility Gap
The Bangladesh Inflection Point
Bangladesh represents India’s most consequential neighborhood failure. Unlike Nepal (population 30 million) or Sri Lanka (22 million) or the Maldives (500,000), Bangladesh is a nation of 170 million with:
- Geographic centrality: Surrounding India’s vulnerable Northeast
- Economic weight: $450+ billion GDP; India’s largest South Asian trade partner
- Strategic location: Bay of Bengal access; connectivity to Southeast Asia
- Cultural affinity: Shared Bengali heritage with India’s West Bengal
Losing Bangladesh to Chinese influence would be categorically more damaging than any other regional setback.
And yet India’s policies seem designed to produce exactly this outcome.
The Hasina Albatross
India’s decision to provide sanctuary to Sheikh Hasina—facing charges including crimes against humanity for the July-August 2024 killings—has become a defining liability.
From Dhaka’s perspective, India is:
- Harboring a fugitive from justice
- Providing a platform for political interference
- Prioritizing a deposed ally over bilateral relations
- Demonstrating that it backed the repressor, not the people
From New Delhi’s perspective, abandoning Hasina would:
- Signal unreliability to other allied regimes
- Acknowledge the failure of its Bangladesh strategy
- Provide ammunition to domestic critics
- Require engaging with a government it helped suppress
The result is paralysis. India cannot extradite Hasina without political cost; it cannot normalize relations while hosting her. The longer this continues, the more permanent the damage.
The Pakistan-China Alternative
India’s behavior is accelerating precisely the alignment it most fears. Defense discussions between Pakistan and Bangladesh—unthinkable during Hasina’s rule—are now publicly reported.
The logic is straightforward: if India treats Bangladesh as an adversary, Bangladesh will seek partners to balance against India. Pakistan offers defense cooperation; China offers economic investment and infrastructure; together they offer an alternative to Indian dominance.
This is not Bangladesh’s preference. The interim government under Muhammad Yunus has repeatedly emphasized desire for good relations with India. Foreign Affairs Adviser Touhid Hossain stated in January 2025 that maintaining good relations with India remained a priority.
But India’s actions speak louder than Bangladesh’s preferences. When New Delhi scales down visa services, suspends rail connectivity, and harbors fugitives while its media amplifies anti-Bangladesh narratives, the message is clear: India is not interested in partnership.
Bangladesh is responding accordingly.
The Electoral Trap
BJP has constructed a political economy that makes rational Bangladesh policy impossible:
- Anti-Muslim rhetoric mobilizes the base but alienates Bangladesh’s Muslim-majority public
- Hindu persecution narratives generate votes in West Bengal but poison bilateral atmospherics
- Support for Hasina was electorally costless domestically but strategically catastrophic regionally
- Nationalist posturing prevents the flexibility genuine diplomacy requires
Each element serves electoral purposes. Combined, they constitute strategic suicide.
The tragedy is that India’s interests and Bangladesh’s interests substantially align. Both benefit from trade, connectivity, security cooperation, and regional stability. Both lose from conflict, instability, and Chinese dominance.
But BJP cannot pursue these shared interests because doing so would require abandoning the electoral narratives that depend on Bangladesh as threat rather than partner.
The Bottom Line
This Issue Brief represents the analysis of the Inqilab Delta Forum research team.