IAs protests raged across Bangladesh earlier this month and bodies lay in the streets, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina hastily boarded a helicopter without her political aides and without informing her senior ministers of her departure. Hours later, she landed in neighboring India, where she has remained ever since.
The protests that led to Hasina's downfall quickly escalated from student demonstrations on university campuses into a nationwide mass revolution, with hundreds of thousands of people calling for her removal from power and the restoration of democracy. Her government responded with an onslaught of violence and gunfire that left hundreds dead and thousands injured.
While Hasina's decision to flee after protesters stormed her residence on August 5 was greeted with jubilation across Bangladesh, the downfall of her government was seen as a total disaster by the New Delhi establishment.
India has long been seen as Hasina's biggest ally. She fled to India after the assassination of her father, freedom fighter Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in 1975 and spent more than six years in exile there with her husband and children before returning to Bangladesh in 1981.
Hasina's close personal ties with both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress have made Bangladesh one of India's closest and staunchest regional ally. At the same time, these ties have given India an important foothold in its often unfriendly neighbors and helped to keep Bangladesh out of China's hands. During her first term in office from 1996 to 2001, and after her reelection in 2009, Hasina began to exert influence over India through economic and security cooperation, including access to key waterways and allowing Indian companies lucrative trade in the country.
Instead, India not only tolerated the Bangladeshi regime becoming increasingly repressive and authoritarian, but Indian officials and ministers were accused by opponents of actively interfering in Bangladesh's internal affairs to help keep Bangladesh in power and to pressure other countries to accept elections that would return Bangladesh to power. Amid allegations of fraudWhen Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned to power in June, Hasina's visit was his first.
The non-traditional relationship between the two countries over the past 15 years has gradually become a source of unrest in Bangladesh.
Put all your eggs in one basket
“The relationship between India and Bangladesh has essentially become one between one individual and one political party,” said Shafqat Muneer, a senior research fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies.
Muneer echoed several analysts' calls for the Indian government to rethink its approach to Bangladesh in the wake of the People's Democratic Movement that toppled Hasina's government. A caretaker government led by prominent economist and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has been formed and has promised far-reaching reforms and accountability for Hasina's actions. But Yunus stressed that the government faces major challenges and that it will likely be many months before elections are possible.
“India now needs to accept that Sheikh Hasina is gone and that this is history and do a complete reset and reboot of our relations,” Muneer said. “Relationships between nations should not be subject to the ups and downs of a change in government.”
One issue that threatens to further cast a shadow over India-Bangladesh relations is Hasina's continued presence in India, where activists and political opponents are growing in their calls for her return, even though her family says it is only temporary and that no formal extradition request has yet been made from Bangladesh to bring her home.
More than 100 cases have been filed against Hasina alleging she was involved in murders and abductions, and the International Criminal Court in Bangladesh is investigating her for genocide and crimes against humanity in connection with killings during recent protests. Her government has previously denied any human rights abuses. The Bangladeshi government has also revoked the diplomatic passport she used to travel to India.
This week, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), directly called on India to extradite Hasina, claiming that she was using her safe haven in India to thwart Bangladesh's interim government and pro-democracy movement.
“We urge you to legally hand her over to the government of Bangladesh,” Alamgir said. “The people of this country have decided to try her. Let her face trial.”
Ali Riaz, a political scientist at Illinois State University who specializes in Bangladesh, said India also had to deal with the embarrassment of “serious intelligence failures” that meant it was blindsided by the collapse of Hasina's government and unprepared for major regional setbacks and the current surge in anti-India sentiment in Bangladesh.
“India has had a very short-sighted policy towards Bangladesh of placing all its trust in Prime Minister Hasina and her party, instead of building a nation-to-nation relationship,” Riaz said. “As a result, India is now stuck in a situation of its own making.”
Weeks after the collapse of Hasina's government, the Modi government's response has made little mention of the new government's push for democratic reforms, instead expressing “deep concern” about the insecurity and threats facing the Hindu minority.
This was reiterated in an official statement released by Prime Minister Modi after his phone call with US President Joe Biden this week. The US announcement of the meeting did not mention Bangladesh, but the Indian side said the two leaders discussed the need for “early normalisation” and law and order.
The remarks were not well received across the border. “We're not trying to bring back normalcy,” one Bangladeshi commentator said. “We're trying to bring back democracy.”
