India’s support was decisive in Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971.
Bangladeshi freedom fighters lacked the military capability to overwhelm the Pakistani army and bring down the Dhaka government. Hence, India’s direct military intervention was instrumental in Bangladesh achieving independence.
This intervention, however, was not purely humanitarian. The 1971 war offered India a rare strategic opportunity to dismember its principal rival, Pakistan, secure its eastern frontier and decisively tilt the balance of power in South Asia in its favor.
This historical reality is widely acknowledged in Bangladesh. However, Indian strategic circles often interpret this past support as a justification for influencing Bangladesh’s foreign policy.
Today, Bangladesh–India relations are at a crossroads. With Bangladesh heading into a national election on February 12, a post-election reset is both necessary and unavoidable. The core problem is not the normalization of relations itself, but the assumption of hierarchy embedded within New Delhi’s strategic thinking toward Bangladesh.
During the rule of Sheikh Hasina, India implicitly treated Bangladesh as if it could be managed through a de facto Bhutan-style model—one marked by constrained foreign policy autonomy and informal deference to Indian strategic preferences. That approach may work for a small Himalayan kingdom like Bhutan, with limited global connectivity and a narrow economic base. It cannot work for Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is not structurally comparable to Bhutan or other smaller South Asian states such as the Maldives, Nepal or Sri Lanka. With a population exceeding 170 million, Bangladesh is the world’s eighth most populous country.
It possesses a large, globally integrated economy and is expanding connectivity across the Indo-Pacific and beyond. Bangladesh has real agency, diplomatic leverage and credible strategic alternatives.
India’s attempts to apply a Bhutan-style model to a country of this scale constitute a strategic error that generates resentment rather than influence, erodes trust rather than builds soft power and ultimately exposes the limits of India’s strategic outreach.
Costs of partisan alignment
India’s backing of Hasina during her 15-year rule went far beyond normal diplomatic practice. Over time, New Delhi came to be perceived as intervening directly in Bangladesh’s internal politics—providing political cover, diplomatic protection and strategic support even as credible allegations of authoritarianism, electoral manipulation and repression mounted.
This generated deep resentment across Bangladesh’s society and politics. Many Bangladeshis came to view India not as a partner, but as an external actor seeking to meddle in domestic politics in pursuit of its own strategic interests, including access to Bangladesh’s expanding market and critical transit and connectivity corridors.
Following Hasina’s fall during the Monsoon Revolution of 2024, this resentment intensified. It was reinforced by Indian media narratives and disinformation campaigns that framed Hasina’s removal primarily through a security lens and underplayed popular aspirations for democratic renewal.
India’s decision to host Hasina and members of the Awami League (AL) further compounded these perceptions. Hasina’s use of Indian territory as a platform for disseminating hostile online narratives has become a significant source of concern in Bangladesh.
Taken together, these dynamics have damaged India’s image in Bangladesh far more severely than New Delhi has been willing to acknowledge.
Needed electoral reset
Bangladesh’s February election presents a genuine opportunity to recalibrate relations with India. Due to its role in the 2024 crackdown and associated violations, Hasina’s AL is currently under a provisional ban and barred from contesting the election.
The electoral field has thus been fundamentally reshaped by the post-uprising political reconfiguration. Current polling suggests that the center-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is leading, while an Islamist-leaning coalition anchored by Jamaat-e-Islami is narrowing the gap.
Jamaat’s partners, including the youth-driven National Citizen Party (NCP)—whose leadership played a central role in the popular mobilization against the Hasina regime in 2024—are also expected to retain a substantial support base and electoral relevance.
The BNP enters this election with a long-standing grievance: for much of the past decade and a half, it was the principal challenger to the AL while India was Hasina’s primary backer. More recently, however, New Delhi has expanded its engagement with BNP leaders, indicating New Delhi’s preference to rebuild channels with the party most likely to form the next government.
Even so, a BNP-led administration would face sustained pressure from a Jamaat–NCP-aligned opposition bloc prepared to contest any policy perceived as overly accommodating toward India.
A post-election reset will be credible only if India accepts Bangladesh’s political outcome—regardless of which government emerges. At a minimum, New Delhi must end the use of its territory as a base for Sheikh Hasina’s political activities.
Allowing Hasina or her associates to operate from Indian soil while directing political messaging against Bangladesh undermines trust and would foreclose any meaningful opportunity for genuine normalization of bilateral relations.
Thus, a genuine reset requires neutrality and respect for Bangladesh’s internal political process.
ASEAN-style approach
If India wants a durable reset with Bangladesh, it must abandon the implicit premise of hierarchy and adopt a different operating model—one that treats Bangladesh as a sovereign equal rather than a subordinate space to be managed. A useful reference point is Southeast Asia’s practical norm: non-interference as the baseline conditions for cooperation.
An ASEAN-style approach, adapted to the Bangladesh-India context, would begin with a clear Indian commitment to neutrality in Bangladesh’s internal politics. Furthermore, such a reset also requires India to realize Bangladesh’s strategic autonomy.
A strategically self-aware Bangladesh will pursue diversified external partnerships based on its own national interests. Hence, engagement with the United States, China and other regional and extra-regional actors should not be read as a zero-sum alignment against India.
India and Bangladesh have many areas where their interests naturally align, especially in trade, investment, connectivity and border governance. At the same time, the unresolved issue of transboundary water sharing, particularly the Teesta River, remains a major concern in Bangladesh.
For years, the absence of a formal agreement has been widely viewed in Dhaka as evidence of New Delhi’s reluctance to treat Bangladesh as an equal partner in managing shared water resources.
How India addresses these issues will be the clearest test of whether it is serious about a genuine reset. In parallel, meaningful security cooperation would depend on the strength and credibility of these bilateral foundations.
Moving ahead, Bangladesh–India relations should reflect Bangladesh’s strategic autonomy and the reality that durable cooperation rests on equality and mutual respect. A post-election Bangladesh will not seek confrontation with India, but it will expect respect for its sovereignty and strategic choices.
A credible reset, therefore, lies in non-interference, acceptance of Bangladesh’s strategic autonomy and cooperation grounded in pragmatism.
Taufiq E Faruque is a PhD student in Political Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research focuses on security dynamics in South and Southeast Asia. X: @FaruqueTaufiq