As Sheikh Hasina era ends, rise of anti-India forces in Bangladesh poses major challenges

In January, Sheikh Hasina won a record fourth term as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh effectively unopposed.

Barely eight months later, a day after Bangladesh witnessed the deadliest violence in decades, Hasina on Monday resigned and fled the country for her life.

With its best friend out of power in Dhaka, India now finds a major crisis in Bangladesh as radicals and fundamentalists are set to take over the country with help from benefactors in Pakistan and China.

Recent changes of guard in Maldives and Nepal, and whispers of change from Bhutan, had already disturbed the balance of power in the region in favour of the Pakistan-China combine. Now, friends of the two adversarial countries have scored a victory in Bangladesh as well: the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Opposition leader Khaleda Zia and Jamaat-e-Islami.

Anti-India, pro-China forces set to take over Bangladesh

The ouster of Hasina is part of Pakistan’s long-running efforts to replace the India-friendly government of Hasina’s Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) with a pro-Pakistan regime.

Top intelligence sources are saying that Pakistan not only funded the ongoing movement of Jamaat and its student wing but also held briefings on how to wage their movement and arranged for shelter as Hasina’s forces cracked down on them.

Sources further say that the endgame of Pakistan is to not just dislodge Hasina, but to generate international legitimacy through staged elections in favour of a pro-Pakistan government of BNP. To do so, they say they are following the playbook that they unsuccessfully sought to implement in Kashmir previously.

“They provoke unrest, killing, and terrorism, so that the world’s attention comes to them. Once that is achieved, they want a neutral government and elections again by the UN. Neutrality right now is to remove Hasina by force or by international pressure and then go for elections. The idea is only to get a new government led by BNP and Jamat,” say sources to CNN-News 18.

What does Sheikh Hasina’s fall mean for India?

Even though the movement against Hasina’s rule had popular student participation, it is an open secret that it had practically been taken over by political and religious extremists — both of them opposed to India. Sources in the Indian intelligence community have also confirmed this.

More than Hasina’s fall, it is the takeover of Bangladesh by radicals and Islamists which worries India, says Manish Dhabade of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

“The radicals and Islamists of Opposition leader Khaleda Zia’s BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami are the main problems for India. They had hijacked the Bangladesh protests and any future government which includes them is set to be problematic for India as they are fundamentally pro-China and pro-Pakistan. They had led ‘India Out’ campaigns in the past, accusing Sheikh Hasina of being an Indian stooge,” says Dhabade, Associate Professor at the Centre for International Politics, Organisation & Disarmament at JNU.

Bangladesh under Hasina was central to New Delhi’s vision for the subcontinent which it sees as its sphere of influence — being encroached upon by China. From regional infrastructure to security cooperation, Hasina was closely working with New Delhi on a wide range of issues.

The security cooperation with Hasina meant that terrorist and criminal networks that had found a safe haven in Bangladesh had been systematically checked over the past 15 years. This reflected in the decline of violence in India’s northeast and falling cross-border movement of terrorists.

Now that Hasina is out and Islamists are on the verge of taking over the country, as the Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) without Hasina is a spent force, 15 years of gains in the domains of counter-terrorism and cross-border security cooperation are at the risk of getting eroded.

Previously, Bangladesh not just served as a transit for weapons for India’s various insurgent movements, but the country also hosted several leaders and camps of these insurgents. While Hasina cracked down on them as she found cooperating with India more beneficial than harbouring these elements, a pro-Pakistan government is expected to allow them yet again. At a time when Manipur is already ablaze for more than a year, if such elements take root in Bangladesh again, they may look forward to destabilising India’s northeast.

Harsh Vardhan Shringla, former Foreign Secretary of India who also served as envoy to Bangladesh, also said that an unstable Bangladesh can add to instability in parts of India.

#WATCH | Delhi: On political crisis in Bangladesh and its possible impact on India, former Foreign Secretary and ex-Ambassador to Bangladesh, Harsh Vardhan Shringla says, "...An unstable Bangladesh can add to instability in parts of our country, which we do not want to see. So, a… pic.twitter.com/yzMXHTCJnD

But is everything lost in Bangladesh?

As Hasina had become synonymous with Bangladesh over the past 15 years, her unceremonious ouster ​amid nationwide violence has completely changed the long-held equations.

For a long time, critics of the Indian foreign policy had said that New Delhi placed all its eggs in one basket by backing Hasina, but Dhabade of JNU tells Firstpost that’s not the case.

As BNP and Jamaat, the alternatives of Hasina, are fundamentally opposed to India and are bound to run the country and foreign policy from an Islamist bent, the circumstances made India support Hasina as she was the only one supportive of India in Bangladesh, says Dhabade.

Even though Hasina had been accused of running the country with an iron fist and suppressing the Opposition, and she effectively won the election this year unopposed as the BNP had boycotted the vote, Dhabade says Hasina was the elected leader of the country and working with her was India’s natural choice.

“If Khaleda Zia’s BNP and Jamaat were really popular, they would have won by elections and come to power. Even now, they are not coming to power by elections. Sheikh Hasina has been overthrown by street violence and not elections. Whatever critics said, she was the democratically elected leader and it was natural for India to work with her,” says Dhabade.

As for the post-Hasina Bangladesh, Dhabade says that not all is lost.

It has been a trend in South Asia that the Opposition forces which come to power on the back of anti-India campaigns, often fuelled by Pakistan or China, become moderate once they form the government.

“Once you form the government, you have to run the country and it is a fact that you cannot run a country in South Asia by making an enemy out of India. India is a regional power and a huge economy and you have to maintain a working relationship. We have seen in Nepal and Maldives how anti-India leaders smoothened their approach after coming to power. If the Opposition has to run Bangladesh smoothly, it will also have to give up outright animosity to India and establish a working relationship,” says Dhabade.

Madhur Sharma is a senior sub-editor at Firstpost. He primarily covers international affairs and India's foreign policy. He is a habitual reader, occasional book reviewer, and an aspiring tea connoisseur. You can follow him at @madhur_mrt on X (formerly Twitter) and you can reach out to him at [email protected] for tips, feedback, or Netflix recommendations see more