The current situation in Bangladesh constitutes the most severe strategic challenge to India since the 1971 War of Liberation. With its enduring ally, Sheikh Hasina, deposed, India stares at dealing with heightened security and geopolitical challenges and a radicalised and pro-Pakistan regime.
INTRODUCTION
This essay analyses the upcoming elections in Bangladesh and their potential outcomes, which are likely to have significant implications not only for Bangladesh but also for India and the broader region. These elections represent a critical contest among democratic survival, radical recrudescence, and geopolitical realignment. As the Shashi Tharoor-headed Parliamentary Committee notes, the developments in Bangladesh pose the “greatest strategic challenge” to India since the Liberation War of 1971.
NO INCLUSIVE ELECTIONS
Sans the Awami League, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (BJI) are the two leading contenders to govern the country in the upcoming elections. BNP and the National Citizens Party (NCP) are collaborating in the elections, albeit without any formal agreement. The NCP was established in February 2025 by Students Against Discrimination and the Jatiya Nagorik Committee, in the aftermath of the July uprising, as the first student-led political party in Bangladesh’s history to present a “third option” to the voters.
However, without an inclusive electoral process, the election risks being perceived as illegitimate, reduced to a contest among various radical Islamist parties. This scenario raises serious concerns regarding the prospects for subsequent political stability, too.
WITHERING SECULAR ETHOS
Awami League cadres and networks have been systematically dismantled across the country, and secular voices have been suppressed. Freedom of the press is also under severe strain. The interim government, lacking an electoral mandate, has rapidly appointed Jamaat-aligned vice chancellors and administrators, thereby seeking to reshape the education system to promote radical ideologies and discourse.
The resurgence of ideological divisions, pro-Pakistan narratives, and extremist rhetoric signals a palpable departure from Bangladesh’s foundational secular and liberation-era principles.
SHEIKH HASINA’S TRIAL AND ANTI-INDIA TIRADE
There has been criticism in many sections of the human rights and legal bodies about the award of capital punishment to Sheikh Hasina, giving short shrift to the established dictum of audi alteram partem. The dictum “is a core principle of natural justice in criminal justice, demanding that every person affected by a legal decision gets a fair chance to present their case, challenge evidence, and defend themselves before any judgment is made, ensuring fairness, preventing arbitrary power, and upholding the right to a fair trial, which includes rights to notice, legal representation, and cross-examination”. (Wikipedia)
Several student groups have expressed their anger at the refuge provided by India to Sheikh Hasina despite an official request from Bangladesh to extradite her to face trial and sentence. Some of them, under the banner of July Oikiyo, have demonstrated in front of the Indian missions in Bangladesh, jeopardising the security of diplomats and other personnel. This threat has particularly increased after the death of a key student uprising protagonist and a candidate for the general elections, Sharif Osman Hadi, who was shot by unknown assailants as he launched his electoral campaign a day after the poll panel announced the general election date. He was airlifted to Singapore for treatment but succumbed to the injuries a week later. As a spokesperson for Inquilab Mancha, Hadi nurtured an anti-India stance. Some mischievous elements are peddling the narrative that his assailants have found safe haven in India.
Forces inimical to India-Bangladesh friendship will surely fish in these troubled waters to sully the image of India by orchestrating more protests and street violence against the minorities before the elections. They will also exploit public anger to sabotage elections to preserve the present arrangement.
SORDID LAW & ORDER – NEED FOR INTERNATIONAL ELECTION MONITORS
India’s concerns about the targeted violence of minorities in Bangladesh have remained unanswered. Between August 4 and 20, 2024, the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian (Aikio Parishad) Unity Council documented 2,010 incidents of attacks on minority communities and businesses across Bangladesh. An independent investigation by Prothom Alo identified 1,068 attacks in 49 districts during the same period. Indian Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs, in its recent report covering India-Bangladesh relations, has also expressed concern about the selective targeting of religious minorities, cultural institutions, and businesses in Bangladesh. The number of such incidents has declined significantly, but fears about Bangladesh’s capacity and willingness to uphold its constitutional commitment to the protection of minorities remain.Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) finds that the current law & order situation and available resources make free and fair elections in Bangladesh a far cry. There have been 281 killings and 7,698 injuries in political clashes from August 2024 to September 2025, as per a local NGO, Odhikar. The Bangladesh Police has recorded 3,509 murders from January to November 2025. There are instances of politically motivated extrajudicial killings by the Bangladesh Police, with 40 extrajudicial killings recorded from August 2024 to October 2025. At least 718 persons were lynched to death, including 41 police officers, from August 2024 to November 2025, including 637 mob lynching deaths from August 2024 to July 2025 and 81 mob lynching deaths from August to November 2025.
Thousands of people have been facing political persecution in the name of countering terrorism. At least 12,231 political activists were arrested in February 2025 alone under Operation Devil Hunt-1, which was launched on 8 February 2025. Another 4,232 political activists were arrested as of 18 December 2025 under Operation Devil Hunt-2, launched on 12 December 2025. Furthermore, by October 2025, an unprecedented 5,19,529 persons were implicated in 1,586 politically motivated cases. Such wholesale arrests point to violations of the human rights of a large number of political activists opposed to the radical Islamist ideologues guiding the interim government.
There is no surprise that ACHR has strongly advocated for the positioning of international election monitors to oversee the elections.
ECONOMIC HEADWINDS
India and Bangladesh embarked on efforts to improve regional connectivity and communication. Connectivity across the border has already become a collateral casualty as relations between the two neighbours have suffered a setback after the July-August 2024 events. The Maitree Express train, which had commenced following sustained efforts by both sides, has already halted. The recently inked MoU between the Indian and Bangladesh Railways on ‘Rail Connectivity’ is also headed for a similar fate. India has committed nearly $10 billion in lines of credit and grants for Bangladesh’s infrastructure projects.
BANGLADESH-PAKISTAN AXIS
In the last week of October, an eight-member delegation of the Pakistan Army visited Bangladesh to further trade, investment, and defence collaboration. Muhammad Yunus stoked controversy after presenting a gift to the visiting Pakistani general that featured a distorted map of Northeast India in Bangladesh. The controversial map appears to represent the idea of a “Greater Bangladesh,” a concept propagated by the Dhaka-based Islamist group Sultanat-e-Bangla. In 2024, Yunus’s close associate Nahidul Islam, the founding convenor of the NCP, had circulated a similar map online, suggesting the inclusion of West Bengal, Tripura, and Assam within Bangladesh’s territory.
Pakistan’s claim that the next attacks on India will be launched from the eastern side is suggestive of the sinister plans designed by the deep states of both countries. In a strategic shift against India, Pakistan Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir appears to be eyeing India’s eastern flank, leveraging recent political change in Bangladesh. In an interview with The Economist, a senior Pakistani general warned, “We’ll start from the East,” suggesting a possible front via the India-Bangladesh corridor. With Dhaka’s new regime reportedly softening toward Pakistan, old Islamist ties and militant channels may be reactivating. As Munir’s grip tightens and U.S. ties deepen, India faces the challenge of countering a multi-front hybrid threat rooted in evolving regional alliances and asymmetric tactics.
India’s northeast becomes particularly vulnerable if Bangladesh permits the use of its territory to ISI and Islamist groups to launch operations to destabilise peace. The growing Islamist nexus could engineer trouble in regions east of the proverbial ‘Chicken’s Neck’ or the Siliguri Corridor. In his book titled ‘The Myth of Independence’, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto laid claims to Assam and lamented his country’s inability to get ‘some areas of India’s northeast included in Pakistan.’ Bhutto went on to flag Assam’s non- inclusion in his country, an unfinished agenda of partition, saying the issue was “…nearly as important as the Kashmir dispute.”
DRAGON MUSCLE FLEXING
With the expansion of the Mongla port, the development of a large submarine base at Pekua to accommodate as many as eight submarines, whereas Bangladesh has just two, and the expansion of a dual-purpose airfield at Lalmonirhat, barely fifteen kilometres from the Indian border, China seems to be playing its grand game of encirclement in the east and northeast. China gains a positional advantage in strategic intelligence, with visibility and surveillance of Indian defence assets through these developments.
India has consistently maintained that Bangladesh’s external partnerships are matters of its sovereign choice. However, the concentration of strategic assets, such as ports, telecom infrastructure, and energy facilities, under external financing arrangements impinges on India’s interests, which lie in maintaining a balanced regional security architecture, particularly in the Bay of Bengal.
UNCERTAIN BORDER
Bangladesh has the longest land border with India. The 4,000-kilometre Radcliffe Line in the East has, for the most part, remained peaceful, aside from cross-border informal trade and illegal immigration. However, with the changed scenario of softening of attitudes towards Pakistan and its military leaders, the situation could rapidly deteriorate. There are vast unfenced tracts which could be exploited for criminal and terrorist activities. The possibility of cross-border infiltration, regrouping of Pakistan-backed modules, and revival of extremist networks cannot be dismissed. Graver is the threat of the restoration of maritime trade between Karachi and Chittagong. The ships from Pakistan could easily conceal contraband, weapons and explosives to arm insurgent groups to implement the policy of a thousand cuts through the eastern corridor as well. India can ill afford the radicalisation of Bangladesh to spill over into West Bengal, Assam, or the Northeast regions that are already sensitive to demographic and ideological depredations.WHAT’S ON THE HORIZON
It is good that India’s responses to provocation from Bangladesh have been guarded. India has extended its hand of help, whether for the treatment of Khaleda Zia or Hadi. There have been exchanges of officials. The Bangladeshi national security adviser, Khalilur Rahman, met his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, on the sidelines of a regional security forum in New Delhi. He has invited Ajit Doval to visit Bangladesh at an early date. Bangladesh, through its interim government’s Foreign Affairs Adviser, Mohammad Touhid Hossain, has officially stated that its relations with India would “extend beyond a single issue” and that no single matter would be allowed to derail the overall relationship.
It must be explicit to the Indian policymakers that they may have to deal with a non-Awami League and a radical, pro-Pakistan setup in Bangladesh in the foreseeable future. Given the prevailing anti-Awami League sentiment in the country, it would be an uphill task for the Awami League to stage an early comeback. Consequently, it is fait accompli for India to plan for life without Hasina at the helm of Bangladesh affairs. The strength of statecraft and diplomacy lies in pursuing one’s national interest in every environment.
The effort to engage with the essentially well-meaning people of Bangladesh should remain a high priority for India and an abiding feature of India’s security doctrine. The stakes are high for India, but losing the endgame is not an option!
