India's tightrope walk: Navigating the post-Sheikh Hasina era in Bangladesh 

From the Padma to the Ganga, Bangladesh’s ties with India are bound by the shared geography of its largest land boundary. Their destinies have long flowed together beyond cartographic lines, shaped by a common linguistic and cultural heritage, a shared agro-ecology and an inclusive, open social fabric that cannot be judged by a few strains in the relationship. The strain in the Delhi-Dhaka bond came with Sheikh Hasina’s journey into exile in India after the student-led protests in Bangladesh last year. This winter, Hasina, 78, the former prime minister and daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman—revered as the father of the nation—finds herself in an ironic twist. She is tasked with breathing new life into her party, the Awami League, while rebuilding trust with the people to lift her country out of its current uncertainty and return it to an elected leadership.

“The state must serve the people,” Hasina agrees. “As a young politician in the early 1980s, I set out to understand the needs of our people and learn about the realities and hardships they faced first-hand,” Hasina tells THE WEEK. A young Hasina had just come out of forced exile in New Delhi in 1981 after her father and most of her family were assassinated in a military coup in 1975. But when she returned to her country as the leader of the Awami League, she emerged as one of the key figures in the pro-democracy movement to end the military rule in 1991, along with Begum Khaleda Zia, leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). “Overall, our country was moving in the right direction,” says Hasina. “Most of the credit for this goes to ordinary Bangladeshis, not to politicians.”

As prime minister, Hasina focused on people’s needs as much as security measures. She signed the Ganga Water Treaty with India in 1996 and the peace treaty on the Chittagong Hill Tract in 1997 to ease long-drawn tensions. But political violence, populist policies and corruption were seeping in, although these were dismissed as signs of a maturing democracy. The Awami League lost the elections in 2001.

The turn of the century brought the BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami alliance to power. Between 2001 and 2006, India’s primary quarrel with the alliance was cross-border insurgency, as arms and militants slipped under cover and rebel groups like ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam) used Bangladeshi territory for training, securing weapons and launching attacks on Indian security forces. The flashpoint came in 2004 with the Chittagong arms haul, when ten truckloads of sophisticated weapons were intercepted at the Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Limited jetty. Subsequent probes showed the arms were destined for insurgent groups like ULFA, making New Delhi further anxious about its eastern neighbour.

While the BNP-led government officially denied complicity, its reluctance in intelligence sharing and the refusal to sign an extradition treaty with India created suspicion. Khaleda was at the helm, but her son Tarique Rahman, who was rising in influence at the time, became the face of the anti-India policy during that period. For India, securing its volatile northeast against insurgent groups has always been a primary strategic concern. With the BNP in power, the relationship was driven by a security-first strategy where other issues like trade, water-sharing and connectivity took a back seat.

An era of constructivist diplomacy began after the landslide victory of the Awami League in 2008 and the return of Sheikh Hasina. The Awami League government cracked down on anti-India insurgent groups, dismantled their camps and handed over key ULFA leaders like Anup Chetia. Security cooperation became the key to opening doors to trade, infrastructure loans and energy cooperation, drawing people of both countries closer. The Land Boundary Agreement of 2015 brought relief to thousands, and Hasina was able to make Dhaka a priority for New Delhi once again. However, at home and abroad, she was criticised for conducting controversial elections in 2014, 2018 and 2024, which were boycotted by the opposition.

But while this political affinity deepened bilateral ties, it also limited India’s strategic flexibility. New Delhi’s total alignment with the Awami League proved to be a cardinal mistake, as it prioritised ties with a single party over a durable state-to-state understanding. Says Asif bin Ali, Atlanta-based geopolitical analyst and doctoral fellow at Georgia State University, “The Awami League’s 17 years in power allowed certain power centres to ride roughshod over other institutions, losing checks and balances to strong-arm tactics.”

Hasina says mistakes were sometimes made in the government. “The transition from a more traditional way of life was hard for many. Some public officials were dishonest. There were instances of injustice.”

In July 2024, when students took to the streets, they were supported by the masses, and later, by political parties like the Jamaat and the BNP, leading to the ouster of the Hasina government. There was no time for relief or rapprochement as people took over Ganabhaban (the prime minister’s residence), and Hasina was flown out to safety in a chopper. The rage spilled blood of ordinary citizens, and a UN fact-finding report estimates that up to 1,400 people were killed during the crackdown on mass protests between July 1 and August 15, 2024, with children accounting for roughly 12–13 per cent of the deaths. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk says senior figures of the Awami League government were aware of and were involved in the “brutal, systematic repression” of the protests. However, the Awami League has denied these accusations.

Today, there are shrill demands by the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus for Hasina to return to her country and face the verdict handed down by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal for atrocities and crimes against people during the Awami League regime. “It was not just the massacre of hundreds of civilians during three harrowing weeks in July and August last year. Hasina’s regime had long perfected the machinery of repression—over more than a decade, it oversaw a pattern of enforced disappearances, custodial killings and arbitrary detentions, meticulously documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Disappearances,” says Mohammad Tajul Islam, chief prosecutor, International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh. “Hasina’s trial would thus not be an act of vengeance against a fallen autocrat, but a necessary step toward justice and accountability, an affirmation that no ruler stands above the law, and a safeguard to ensure that future generations of Bangladeshis are spared such brutality.”

For New Delhi, it is a tightrope walk, as the challenge is not only keeping Hasina on its soil, but also giving a vote of confidence to the people of Bangladesh that when they elect their new leader, it will make room for a Padma-Ganga meeting once again. “Bangladesh has always approached converting challenges into opportunities. It aspires for a peaceful and prosperous neighbourhood where all can prosper, upholding universal values while also protecting our interests,” says M. Riaz Hamidullah, High Commissioner of Bangladesh to India.

India is facing a tough test because of the political uncertainty in Dhaka, a possible revival of far-right Islamist networks and the delicate question of who will lead Bangladesh next. Will New Delhi allow security needs to shape foreign policy, or will it play a “constructivist” role built on cultural and ideological affinity? The answer lies in the lessons both New Delhi and Dhaka choose to learn from the past.

The BNP’s relationship with Jamaat-e-Islami has altered dramatically in the past 25 years. Sources say old lessons have distanced Tarique, the BNP’s prime ministerial face, from controversial networks and surrounded him with a new generation of advisers who are liberal and pragmatic. In recent public statements on Bangladesh’s neighbourhood policy, Tarique has adopted a constructivist, rationalist stance, signalling a shift away from a narrowly realist foreign policy.

Some in Dhaka’s civil society argue that New Delhi must re-evaluate its perception of Tarique and engage with the BNP leadership without blinkers of the past. “With the Jamaat expected to stand in opposition to the BNP in the elections in Bangladesh next year, it opens a window for India to engage with a more moderate BNP,” says Ali.

There are some unresolved issues that should be tackled fast, says Saimum Parvez, special assistant to the BNP chairperson’s foreign affairs advisory committee. “As the ICT trial is going on, improvement in bilateral relations will depend on how the Hasina question will be addressed by India. If Hasina is sent back by the Indian government to Bangladesh, it could be the beginning of a good relationship between the two countries,” he says. “It is also time India should think about establishing working relations with the new government formed after the elections. India is our biggest neighbour and the BNP wants to have a working relationship based on mutual respect and non-interference in domestic politics,” he says.

The BNP’s contribution to the country goes back to its founder Ziaur Rahman, a freedom fighter, who may have taken the reins as a military strongman, but transitioned the country towards a multi-party system. The engagement with the BNP becomes critical at a time when the Awami League has been slapped by an interim ban and the Jamaat is learnt to be consolidating influence within the interim government and bureaucracy.

Months ago, what seemed like a limited rapprochement between Dhaka and Islamabad gained unexpected traction, with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence establishing links with young activists and far-right extremist groups, according to Indian security sources. “Election is the only solution for Bangladesh as there are forces which may like to delay elections and bring chaos,” says Ali.

With elections expected early next year, political fault lines are sharpening the divide in Dhaka. At the same time, efforts of an “inclusive vote” that accommodates independents and smaller parties, even if mainstream Awami League candidates face restrictions, are also gaining steam. A section argues that Awami-aligned figures who cannot contest under their banners might contest under other banners or independently, such as the Jatiya Party, to maintain representation in parliament. “Politics abhors a vacuum; if a flag can’t fly, its followers will carry the vote under another colour,” says Ali.

The silver lining is the maturity, at least among mainstream parties like the BNP and the Awami League, that only an elected government can restore stability. “No matter how good or bad the interim government is, elections are essential,” says Faisal Mahmud, press minister at the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi. “Only then can the culture of accountability begin.”

There are signs that the Awami League itself is preparing for change. There is speculation about Hasina contemplating a power transition to her son and daughter and rebranding the party to regain international legitimacy. But there is no official word from the Awami League on it. “As one phase fades, new opportunities emerge,” says Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman, executive chairman of Power and Participation Research Centre, Dhaka. “Twenty-five years ago, SAARC was a more active reality, but today regionalism has taken a back seat. The focus is more on bilateral relationships rather than broad regional frameworks,” says Rahman. Therefore, it is incumbent upon New Delhi and Dhaka to resolve the disappointments and trust deficits stemming from past political shifts and move ahead.

India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval’s recent remarks emphasising good governance as a lesson for the neighbourhood have signalled the first change towards a more realistic assessment of the challenges. “Our two nations can reimagine bilateral and regional cooperation, not as a legacy of the past, but as a strategic necessity, for our collective good and resilience,” says Hamidullah.

However, given the fact that Hasina is staying in India, the appetite for major strides in new forms of engagement will have to be developed. The starting points can be issues like water sharing, Bangladesh’s grievances regarding unfair deals—especially in the power sector—handling of the Rohingya issue, cross-border firing incidents and other matters that will take time and political sensitivity to process.

As Bangladesh navigates the transition to an elected government amid a fragile economy, it will be a tightrope walk for India as its nuanced approach will be watched closely.What remains to be seen is whether Delhi and Dhaka succeed in liberating their friendship from political anxieties.