India forced to recalibrate Bangladesh policy after Hasina’s ouster

New Delhi has gone totally silent following the ouster of an ostensibly pro-India government of Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh in the second week of August.

Unlike the United States and China, which “welcomed” the formation of a transitional government in Bangladesh on August 8 following weeks-long violent protests against Hasina’s 15-year reign, the external affairs ministry in New Delhi has yet to issue a formal statement acknowledging the dramatic changing of the guard in Dhaka.

The last statement by India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on August 6 was one part despair and three parts alarm.

“We… will naturally remain deeply concerned till law and order is visibly restored. Our border guarding forces have also been instructed to be exceptionally alert in view of this complex situation,” the minister said a day after Hasina resigned and fled to New Delhi amid violent protests tinged heavily with anti-India sentiments.

The Indian government had to evacuate more than 7,000 students and professionals from Bangladesh last month as protests against the Awami League government turned violent.

India has enjoyed warm relations with Bangladesh since it midwifed the latter’s birth at the end of a full-fledged war with Pakistan in 1971. Bilateral ties improved to unforeseen levels after 2009 when Hasina returned to power in Dhaka, with the two countries forging a deep economic and security partnership.

But some analysts accuse New Delhi of propping up Hasina’s Awami League government for 15 years amid widespread allegations of rigged elections in 2014, 2018 and 2024.

Michael Kugelman, the Washington-based director for the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, tells TRT World that India is now looking to ensure that the interim government in Bangladesh is “not too detrimental” to its interests.

“The problem is that India has lost a lot of leverage in Bangladesh since the fall of Hasina’s government,” he says, adding that its capacity to shape developments in Dhaka will be “quite limited” going forward.

There’s no love lost between New Delhi and the political parties opposed to Hasina’s Awami League that are set to assume a greater say in the running of the $437 billion economy in the foreseeable future.

For example, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader and two-time premier Khaleda Zia—Hasina’s de facto rival who was sentenced to 17 years in prison for corruption in 2018—is widely considered pro-Pakistan.

She was released from prison a day after Hasina’s resignation following “discussions with defence chiefs and politicians”—a development that points to greater participation by anti-Awami League parties in the upcoming dispensation.

Similarly, New Delhi has no sympathy for Jamaat-e-Islami—another opposition party that faced repeated crackdowns under Awami League’s long reign—because of the religious party’s rabidly anti-India and stridently pro-Pakistan politics.

Umbilical links

Indian analyst Sandip Ghose tells TRT World that India’s foreign policy goals extend beyond any particular political party in Bangladesh. New Delhi has always maintained a close working relationship with Dhaka “across governments, even in the previous regime” of Zia.

Ghose says Bangladesh can’t do away with its dependence on India partly because of the shared border of over 4,000-kilometre-long border, which is the fifth-longest land border in the world.

Strong bilateral trade ties and the sharing of water resources with India—viewed by smaller neighbouring countries as an affluent elder sibling they love to hate—make it nearly impossible for even a hostile government in Bangladesh to “cut itself off” from the regional giant, he says.

That’s probably the reason Bangladesh’s foreign affairs adviser in the interim government, Mohamad Touhid Hossain, said on August 12 that Dhaka will strive to maintain strong ties with New Delhi, even though it’s currently hosting Hasina, who faces murder charges at home.

Alienating Dhaka

Speaking to TRT World, Dhaka-based academic and political commentator Zahed Ur Rahman said serious efforts are underway from certain Indian quarters to liken the change in government to Dhaka falling into the hands of the so-called Islamists.

“They say Islamists are [now] in power in Bangladesh. It’s totally wrong,” he says.

Rahman took exception to the fact that India never “congratulated” the people of Bangladesh for overthrowing a deeply unpopular but pro-New Delhi government that held on to power through rigged elections.

He says the concern in India about attacks on the Hindu community is overblown.

“Yes, there have been some attacks, but these aren’t communal,” he says, noting that Muslim leaders from the Awami League have also faced such attacks amid nationwide protests that sometimes took a violent turn.

He says even Nepal, another relatively small country bordering India, has turned against New Delhi because of its high-handed foreign policy.

“Nepal has a Hindu majority that, in percentage terms, is bigger than that of India. Why have the Nepalese turned against India?”

India has long had an unresolved border dispute with the neighbouring landlocked country, but the issue flared up recently after the Nepali government printed a new currency note that asserted its sovereignty over the three border areas, also claimed by New Delhi.

Rahman says India has made “lots of mistakes” in Bangladesh.

“They should remember that a country can change its friends, but it cannot change its neighbours,” he says, adding that turning a neighbouring country of 180 million people into a sworn enemy won’t help India realise its global ambitions.

Return of Hasina?

Hasina remains in India for the time being. But her continued presence is likely to create further resentment in Bangladesh against India, which is losing a PR war by harbouring a hated premier ousted after weeks of violent mass protests.

Analysts say she won’t stay in India for the long term, even though she enjoys a very close personal relationship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The existence of an extradition treaty between India and Bangladesh means the new Bangladesh government has a legal right to bring Hasina home from New Delhi to face criminal charges.

However, Kugelman of the Wilson Centre says he is “sure” that India would like to see Hasina return to power one day.

Hasina’s son initially claimed that she wouldn’t return to politics because of her old age. But later, he stated that the deposed premier would return to Bangladesh to contest elections, adding that she had no plan of seeking asylum in any country.

“But we know that in Bangladesh, like in so many other parts of South Asia, dynastic leaders have many lives and many second chances,” says Kugelman.

Referring to the Zia-led BNP, Kugelman says Hasina’s Awami League's archrival has risen from the dead after many years of inactivity.

“[The BNP] was weakened, it was divided. It wasn't able to do much at all politically, its leaders arrested, fled overseas and so on. But we see what’s happened now… So I definitely would not rule out a Sheikh Hasina return,” he says.

Analysts say it wouldn’t be surprising if the new dispensation in Bangladesh softens its stance towards India in the coming days. After all, the Maldives has just begun a sudden recalibration of its relations with India after months of diplomatic tensions.

Earlier this year, the newly-elected Maldivian government of President Mohamed Muizzu forced India to completely withdraw its soldiers from the island nation. Muizzu’s victory in the September 2023 election was built on an India Out campaign that promised to eliminate India’s political and economic influence in the Maldives.

But the Muizzu government is now trying to mend its relationship with the regional superpower. As part of this revival of bilateral relations, Indian External Affairs Minister Jaishankar visited the Maldives last week to inaugurate water and sanitation projects in 28 islands commissioned under the Indian Line of Credit.