On August 5, today, one year after she was forced to flee, Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s longest-ruling leader, remains exiled in India. She is now wanted by a tribunal that last Saturday began her trial on charges of “crime against humanity” and includes graft and murder.
She had originally set up that International Crime Tribunal to prosecute the Islamists who had opposed the country’s freedom movement and collaborated with Pakistani authorities. They are now orchestrating moves against her.
Today is also the day when those who worked to depose her are to announce what is billed as the “July Charter” of reforms in the political system. It may cover measures, as announced by Mohammed Yunus, the new ruler, “to bury the 1972 Constitution.” The change of fortunes and the country’s political landscape is swift and complete.
Even if one does not look at Bangladesh from Hasina’s prism, this has radically altered the equations among the nations that were, till the 1947 Partition, constituted the British-ruled India.
Bangladesh’s birth in 1971 following a violent separation from Pakistan, in which India got involved, changed South Asia’s map. Last year’s developments, while keeping that map unchanged, push Bangladesh closer to Pakistan and even more to China, which is perceived as trying to encircle India in the region.
China, Pakistan’s all-weather ally that had opposed Bangladesh’s liberation, is today its largest arms-giver and trading partner. Dhaka looks to them, whatever its equations with India. This zero-sum game negatively impacts India, the largest entity in the region, in its internal security and external relations.
While this appeared to be a given when Hasina was ousted, a new factor that was only suspected and speculated has emerged. Significant support to the interim regime has come from the Trump administration. In its global drive to impose tariffs, it has reduced Bangladesh’s from 35 to 20 per cent.
In the immediate fallout, this makes Bangladesh’s garment exports, its biggest exports and economic mainstay, more competitive than its major competitors, including India. It would be churlish for India, the larger economic entity, to complain about this were it not for a deep suspicion. Not officially spelt out since India is the US’s strategic ally, is the erstwhile Biden administration’s hand in Hasina’s ouster, though it was caused by street protests that she misread and mishandled. Trump has added vigour to this push.
The US has pledged funding for several large commercial sales and infrastructure projects. This boost to the new Dhaka regime, analysts say, has more to do with the US’s long-term need to ‘contain’ China. Reports say the US now plans to use Bangladesh’s southeastern border to take on the China-supported military regime in Myanmar. Foreign military boots are stomping the ground, and Washington has reportedly invested USD 400 million to create a “humanitarian corridor” to facilitate the Rohingya refugees’ return to Myanmar.
In the foreseeable future, given the history of how Pakistan lost its erstwhile east wing, now Bangladesh, it is a zero-sum game: India loses as Pakistan and China gain. The American factor has hugely added to these complexities, all of this making the South Asian region the playground for geopolitical games as never before.
Neither the US, nor Pakistan, nor China appears concerned about the ill-treatment of religious minorities and the surge of the Islamists who surround Yunus, but all three rupture India-Bangladesh ties.
India is concerned about the movement of the Rohingyas, many present on its soil. This combines with the resurgence of the Islamists, which explains attacks on the minorities – Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians. Yunus calls the reports exaggerated, while the Western democracies that have endorsed him, to use a mild term, are unconcerned.
Nevertheless, the Human Rights Watch (HRW), citing a UN report listing atrocities committed by the Hasina regime, which killed 1400 people during June-July 2024, also points out: "The hope of the thousands who braved lethal violence a year ago when they opposed Sheikh Hasina's abusive rule to build a rights-respecting democracy remains unfulfilled."
Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at HRW, has said: “The interim government appears stuck, juggling an unreformed security sector, sometimes violent religious hardliners, and political groups that seem more focused on extracting vengeance on Hasina's supporters than protecting Bangladeshis' rights."
A stumbling block in Dhaka’s efforts to lay the UN-US-sponsored “humanitarian corridor” has come from the army. Army Chief, General Waker-uz-Zaman, has said: “Bangladesh needs political stability. This is only possible through an elected government, not by unelected decision-makers.” He also said: “The army is meant for defending the nation, not for policing … We must return to the barracks after the elections.”
The dynamics of Bangladesh’s politics dictate the holding of elections. Yunus has promised elections for April next year. His government has banned Hasina’s Awami League from contesting them, and its leaders are either in jail or on the run. While established parties like former premier Begum Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) want early elections, the Jamaat-e-Islami, the principal Islamist party, a clutch of other Islamist groups, and significantly, Bangladesh Nagorik Party, touted as the “King’s Party” floated by students and those surrounding Yunus, want reforms first. This tussle has dominated the political discourse as Bangladesh awaits a violence-prone election.
The current move appears to tie down the Zia party in a way that it may not get the majority and may be forced to align with Jamaat and the other Islamists. The crux of the problem is that all of them are ideologically anti-India. So is the Zia party.
For these reasons, and for over five decades, India had put all its eggs in the Awami League’s basket. It failed to nurture an alternative, and now the situation is more challenging.
A favourite ploy in any election, the India factor is already building up with Dhaka. It demands Hasina’s custody. How long will India refuse?
The times when India could influence Bangladesh are over, for now, at least. With the Sino-Pak collusion building up, it cannot walk away from the adversarial neighbour that could threaten security in its East and northeast. It must play its cards carefully. This is easier said than done when nations across the world, buffeted by conflicts and chaos, when everything from climate to trade is weaponised, are busy protecting self-interest.
(The writer is a senior journalist who was posted in Bangladesh and follows the development in the region.)
