Did Sheikh Hasina’s good economics lead to political disaster in Bangladesh?

India is willing to work with the interim government as long as the interests of minorities and India are protected.

Published on: Aug 8, 2024, 12:03:51 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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New Delhi: Ousted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is traumatized by the turn of events since August 5, when she had to flee to India as both the Bangladesh Army and Police stood down on rampaging protests all over the country.

Soldiers stand guard in Bangladesh amid violence.

Three days later, Sheikh Hasina is at Hindon Air Force base near Delhi and has no immediate plans to go to any third country as the former PM is safe and secure in India. She apparently still has to come to terms with what happened on August 5 and how come the people of Bangladesh threw her out despite her making Bangladesh the second largest economy in the Indian sub-continent, leaving Pakistan way behind way back in 2016.

While India has reached out to the military leadership of Bangladesh to ensure that normalcy returns to the strife-torn country, it is also monitoring violence against Hindu minorities and Awami League workers in the neighbouring country. For the present, India will assess Bangladesh on the basis of the Interim government and whether the Bangladesh Army will keep the Jamaat-e-Islami and Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh Islamists under control. Both are rabidly fundamentalist groups with close links with Pakistan and pan-Islamic jihadists.

Although the Modi government is under full control of its borders with Bangladesh with BSF and Assam Rifles on high alert, the fall of democratic Bangladesh due to Sheikh Hasina misreading her popularity amongst the masses and due to machinations of regime change players in the West has sparked concern within India. With Pakistan, Maldives, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and even Nepal under political turmoil, India has to ensure that the fires of instability do not reach its shores. “ There is global turmoil. We are down but definitely not out in Bangladesh. But if Indian people think that they will remain safe while the world goes down in Iran, Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, the UK and France, then they are mistaken. PM Modi is doing his best to hold things together despite the divisive agenda of the Opposition INDI alliance. There is a storm ahead and Indians need to hold together,” said a senior Cabinet Minister.

That India is holding firm is quite evident from External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s visit to Maldives for two days starting tomorrow. It is quite clear that Maldives leader Mohamed Muizzu has realized the significance of India in its sub-continent with EAM Jaishankar all set to launch multiple projects in Male.

Also read: India reaches out to Dhaka, wants military to restore peace and normalcy

Even though India has no qualms in dealing with Bangladesh Army Chief Gen Waker-us-Zaman, it is monitoring the state of play in Dhaka as any tilt towards China or Islamists will spark off alarms in Raisina Hill. Political Islam to seize power has been a tool used by Islamists in the Middle East and this has led to radicalization sweeping into the Indian sub-continent with Pakistan using it as a convenient tool for its power project much above its body weight.

Also read: Sudden escalation, losing grip caught Sheikh Hasina off-guard

While India knew that both the US and the UK were out to uproot Sheikh Hasina for the past decade, it is willing to work with the interim government as long as the interests of minorities and India are protected. The Modi government has been fearing the Bangladesh nightmare for years now and has various plans to deal with the fallout.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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