While recent developments in Bangladesh have seen a rise in anti-India voices, the two neighbors can reset their ties with a realistic approach.
By Shubham Ghosh
With the political situation in Bangladesh getting no better and anti-India voices on its soil getting stronger, New Delhi will only feel more worried and look for ways to improve things with its eastern neighbor, which it borders on three sides. The rulers of South Asia’s biggest nation perhaps could never imagine that Bangladesh, a country which it had helped to get independent in 1971, would challenge them one day. But as they say, there are no permanent friends or enemies in international relations but only permanent national interests.
For India, maintaining cordial ties with Bangladesh certainly serves its national interest. Having a friendly neighbor to the east helps India’s Act East Policy and facilitates its own communication with the land-locked north-eastern region which has a complex socio-political character and has a border with China. In terms of trade and internal security in India’s north-east too, good ties between New Delhi and Dhaka are imperative.
Having Bangladesh by its side also helps India’s strategic plans to counter China in South Asia and Indo-Pacific regions. But when the government of Sheikh Hasina collapsed in Bangladesh on August 5 this year and she fled to India, the foundation of the two neighbors’ solid ties over the last five decades was rocked.
For India’s foreign policy masterminds, this is a major setback. While India so far has taken a cautious approach to understand the developments in Bangladesh where the minority Hindu community has been allegedly attacked and the Indian Tricolor has been humiliated, it cannot overlook the fact that its Bangladesh policy over the years has been far from perfect.
It is undeniable that New Delhi’s connection with Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s founding father, was strong, thanks to the Liberation War against former West Pakistan (today’s Pakistan), and it continued even after Rahman’s assassination in 1975. Rahman’s daughter Hasina and his Awami League have been a reliable friend that India always relied upon and saw as a guard against Islamic fundamentalism.
‘Putting all eggs in one basket’
But New Delhi erred by what many analysts feel is “putting all eggs in one basket”. India never had smooth relations with the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the country’s largest Islamic political party, both of which are anti-India. Similar situations could be seen in relation to Nepal, where the monarchy fell in 2008, and Afghanistan, where the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
On both occasions, India had to enforce a policy shift since it had traditionally supported the monarchy and opposed the Taliban. In the case of Bangladesh, the stakes are higher. Unlike Nepal and Afghanistan, Bangladesh is not a land-locked nation and has a crucial geo-strategic significance in The Bay of Bengal region. It is also one of India’s major trade partners and shares with it a long boundary.
With a porous border with Bangladesh, it also becomes India’s responsibility to ensure that the safety of that country’s minority Hindus is taken care of so that its own internal security is not threatened by any potential disturbance in Bangladesh. The two neighbors also have deep-rooted mutual interests in sharing river waters that flow through their territories, secure Indian investments in Bangladesh, improvement and maintenance of infrastructure in Bangladesh, and most importantly, continue with the free flow of people on either side of the border.
Given Bangladesh was once a part of India and its language – Bengali – is also spoken by several people in India, there is a robust cultural connection between the two countries. Many people from Bangladesh also visit India for education and health services. While India will be wary that the situation in Bangladesh does not deteriorate to the point where China and Pakistan gain significant influence on its soil and force New Delhi to open too many diplomatic fronts, emerging voices in Bangladesh would also believe that they cannot wish India away.
Just as nations cannot choose neighbors, India and Bangladesh need some realistic course correction to ensure that they maintain their mutually beneficial relationship as they have over the past half a century.
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(The writer is a senior journalist and political analyst based in Bengaluru, India. The views expressed are his own)
