Changes on the cards in relations between India, US, China and Pakistan.     

The ouster of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina by a student-led movement on 5 August has upset the geopolitical configuration in South Asia, in which the US and China are also key players.

Hasina’s exit under a cloud is a grave setback for India, but it opens new opportunities for the US, China, and Pakistan.

The ouster has caused acute anxiety in India because Hasina was New Delhi’s protégé. India’s anxiety is reflected in the frenzied comments in Indian television debates, news reporting, and expert opinions aired in seminar halls.

While the Indian government has not commented on the developments in Bangladesh, Indian think tanks and the media have attributed Hasina’s overthrow to a conspiracy hatched by Pakistan, the US, and China.

India’s Stakes

The new government in Dhaka is not anti-India, at least on the face of it. But it is certainly not going to be India’s camp follower as Hasina’s government was. One of the popular charges against Hasina in the movement against her was that she was India’s puppet.

Thanks to Hasina’s tight grip on power from 2009 to 2024, India was able to pump in huge Lines of Credit totalling US$ 7.9 billion in 2023. These were spent on projects in connectivity and energy.  

If the political vacuum in Bangladesh is filled by the anti-Indian Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Indo-Bangla relations could sour badly and the future of Indian projects could be in jeopardy. When the BNP was in power in the 1990s and 2000s, India-Bangladesh relations had touched the nadir. Bangladesh was a cockpit of tribal militants aided and abetted by Pakistan.

There is a strong demand in Bangladesh that Sheikh Hasina be extradited from India to face the 100-odd cases filed against her, including charges of murder. However, India cannot oblige Bangladesh in this matter due to its past close relations with Hasina and her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

US Stakes

The change of guard in Dhaka will have a significant impact on Indo-US relations as well. The relationship is outwardly fine, with America characterising India as a “strategic partner” against China and parading it in the world as a feather in its cap. India is part of the Indo-Pacific partnership, the QUAD.

But contradicting the US stand, New Delhi keeps flaunting its “strategic autonomy” in international relations to America’s annoyance. America’s relations with South Asian countries often clash with Indian interests. India had been blindly backing Sheikh Hasina, while the US was very critical of her authoritarian rule and imposing sanctions.

The US was so annoyed with India for its support of Russia over Ukraine that envoy Eric Garcetti publicly stated: “I know and respect that India likes its strategic autonomy. But in times of conflict, there is no such thing as strategic autonomy. We will, in crisis moments, need to know each other. I don’t care what title we put to it, but we will need to know that we are trusted friends, brothers and sisters, colleagues. The India-US relationship is not deep enough.”

While India is wondering how to recover lost ground in Bangladesh, the US should be pleased with the developments in Dhaka. It also has a stake in the growing rift between India and Bangladesh.

For the US, Bangladesh is strategically important due to its geographic location connecting South and Southeast Asia. The location makes it a focal point in the Indo-Pacific strategy of the QUAD, comprising the US, India, Japan, and Australia. 

In April 2023, Sheikh Hasina’s government published a peace and development-centric “Indo-Pacific Outlook,” which highlighted Bangladesh’s non-alignment on the issue of the Indo-Pacific. The Hasina government saw the American Indo-Pacific strategy as being anti-China and therefore not in alignment with its independent nonaligned foreign policy.

Hasina told the US that if the Indo-Pacific architecture was for trade and investment, she would be ready to support it. But the US was looking at the Indo-Pacific only as a theater to confront China militarily.

The US was wanting Bangladesh to sign two defense agreements, namely the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) and the Acquisition and Cross Services Agreement (ACSA). But Bangladesh made it known that it would not sign these agreements.

Partly in retaliation, the US kept condemning the human rights violations of the Hasina regime, especially the extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. The US sanctioned some Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) officers and even a retired army chief, Gen Aziz Ahmed.

A key factor in post-Hasina US-Bangladesh relations is Dr Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Chief Advisor to the Bangladesh President. Yunus is America’s point man in Dhaka. The US had fully backed his “Grameen (Rural) Bank” project, much to the annoyance of Hasina, who saw the bank as a den of corruption.

It is even said that the student agitators were persuaded to accept Dr Yunus as the Chief Advisor by the US and the pro-US Bangladesh army chief, General Waker-uz-Zaman.

After she was overthrown, Hasina issued a statement blaming America for her ouster and said that Washington would not have engineered her removal if she had only handed over St Martin’s Island in the Bay of Bengal to the US. The US refuted this charge.

China’s Stakes

There is apprehension in India that the Interim Government might favour the Chinese, as the pro-China BNP is now close to the power center, if not formally part of it.

But it should be noted that the Chinese presence was strong even during Hasina’s time. Although not pro-China per se, Hasina’s government had secured substantial investments from Beijing in the infrastructure sector. Between 2016 and 2022, Chinese state-owned and private companies invested nearly US$ 26 billion in Bangladesh.

In 2022, Beijing emerged as Bangladesh’s single largest FDI provider, with investments topping almost US$1 billion—a 30% increase from US$700 million in 2021. In both of these years, Chinese investments also accounted for more than 65% of the FDI registered by the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA). Besides these projects, in 2023 alone, China invested nearly US$800 million in Bangladesh.

But Hasina was not seen as Beijing’s puppet, as the Chinese had not thrown their weight around publicly.

China’s relations with the new regime are expected to be smooth, as they had been in the past when the BNP was in power. The Bangladesh army has had a preference for Chinese weapons, and this is likely to continue.

And with the Chinese will come their ally, Pakistan. That will be a red rag for India, as the Pakistanis could train and station militants in Bangladesh, as they allegedly did when the BNP was in power earlier.  

 India’s Hopes

Indeed, the prospects for India in Bangladesh look very dim. However, the situation could change in its favour if past events are any indication.

Developments in Bangladesh are difficult to predict given the volatility of the people. Their leaders also act more like quick-change artists than ideologues committed to a given line. Bangladesh can come up with surprises that upset conventional wisdom.

The nation was founded in 1971 with the active political and military involvement of India. But within four years, India’s protégé, Prime Minister-turned-President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated by elements in the military who were riding on an anti-Indian wave fuelled by a fear of Indian domination.

The anti-India chant was kept up by successive governments from 1975 to 1996. Military dictators like Gen Ziaur Rahman and Gen Hussain Muhammad Ershad; military-backed non-political caretaker governments; and governments led by the BNP were hostile to India.

Conventional wisdom would have been that Bangladesh had dissolved its marriage with India with no prospect of rapprochement. But this was proved wrong. Mujibur Rahman’s daughter, Sheikh Hasina, made a daring entry into Bangladeshi politics, revived her father’s party, the Awami League, won the 1996 elections, and restored friendly ties with India.

She came back to power in 2009 and ruled the roost till 2024 with the Indians in tow.