Key Findings
- India’s “Hasina Doctrine”—managing Bangladesh through a pliant allied regime—collapsed with her departure on August 5, 2024
- New Delhi’s post-revolution approach (harboring fugitives, media warfare, diplomatic pressure) is accelerating exactly what India claims to fear: Bangladesh’s pivot to China and other partners
- Bangladesh’s interim government has summoned India’s High Commissioner five times; India has responded with visa restrictions and provocative statements
- International analysts recommend India shift from treating Bangladesh as a “junior client” to recognizing it as “an equal partner”
- The February 2026 elections offer a reset opportunity—but only if India abandons its current posture
The End of an Era
For fifteen years, from 2009 to 2024, India enjoyed what analysts called a “golden era” in Bangladesh relations. Sheikh Hasina’s government aligned closely with New Delhi’s interests: granting transit rights, suppressing anti-India sentiment, hosting Indian investment, and maintaining security cooperation that some described as intelligence integration.
This arrangement served India’s strategic interests—containing China’s influence, securing the northeastern states’ connectivity, and maintaining a reliable partner on a 4,096-kilometer border. It served Hasina’s interests too: Indian support provided regime security against domestic opposition.
What it did not serve was Bangladesh’s democratic development or sovereign interests. The arrangement required suppressing legitimate Bangladeshi concerns about water sharing, trade imbalances, and border incidents. It required treating criticism of India as sedition. It required, ultimately, the systematic dismantling of democratic institutions to maintain a leader whose popular legitimacy had evaporated.
On August 5, 2024, this arrangement collapsed. The “Hasina Doctrine” died with her departure.
What Was the Hasina Doctrine?
The Hasina Doctrine, as analysts termed it, rested on several pillars:
- Political alignment: Hasina’s Awami League positioned as India’s natural ally
- Security cooperation: Deep intelligence integration, border coordination
- Economic access: Transit rights, infrastructure partnerships, market access
- Narrative control: Suppression of anti-India sentiment in Bangladeshi media and politics
- Regime security: Implicit Indian backing for Hasina’s increasingly authoritarian rule
This was not partnership between equals—it was clientelism dressed as friendship.
India’s Post-Revolution Posture
Rather than adapt to new realities, India’s response to the July Revolution has been to double down on failed approaches. The posture has three components:
Sanctuary for Fugitives
Sheikh Hasina resides in India despite Bangladesh’s extradition requests and her conviction by the International Crimes Tribunal. Awami League leaders operate from Kolkata. Accused perpetrators of political violence—including those allegedly responsible for Shaheed Osman Hadi’s assassination—reportedly fled to India.
This sanctuary policy sends an unmistakable message: India will protect those who served its interests regardless of their crimes in Bangladesh. It makes constructive bilateral engagement nearly impossible while that message stands.
Media Warfare
Indian media has unleashed what fact-checkers document as a systematic misinformation campaign. Rumor Scanner identified 72 Indian media outlets publishing 137 fake reports about Bangladesh in 2024. Claims of “Hindu genocide,” “Islamist takeover,” and “Taliban-style rule” circulate despite being debunked by BBC Verify and other international organizations.
This campaign poisons public opinion in both countries, making diplomatic resolution of real issues harder while generating domestic political benefits for BJP.
Diplomatic Pressure
Rather than engage constructively with Bangladesh’s interim government, India has:
- Reduced visa issuance from 8,000 daily to approximately 1,500
- Withdrawn consular personnel citing “security concerns”
- Issued statements that Dhaka termed “interference in internal affairs”
- Summoned Bangladesh’s High Commissioner to protest statements by Bangladeshi leaders
Bangladesh has summoned India’s High Commissioner five times. The relationship has deteriorated to levels not seen in decades.
The Strategic Paradox
India’s current approach creates what analysts call a strategic paradox: every action intended to pressure Bangladesh accelerates the outcomes India most fears.
| Indian Action | Intended Effect | Actual Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Harboring Hasina | Maintain leverage | Hardens anti-India sentiment |
| Media warfare | Delegitimize interim government | Erodes India’s credibility in Bangladesh |
| Visa restrictions | Economic pressure | Damages Indian businesses, medical tourism |
| Provocative statements | Demonstrate resolve | Pushes Bangladesh toward alternative partners |
If India’s strategic concern is Chinese influence in Bangladesh, its current approach is counterproductive. Every misinformation campaign, every denied visa, every refused extradition makes Chinese partnership more attractive to Bangladeshi policymakers.
The International Crisis Group frames it directly: by treating Bangladesh as a “junior client rather than a neighbor deserving of equal respect,” India is “accelerating exactly what Indian strategists claim to fear.”
The China Factor
China is already Bangladesh’s largest trading partner. Beijing has invested heavily in infrastructure—ports, power plants, bridges—without the political conditions India attaches to its engagement.
India’s current posture makes the contrast starker: one neighbor meddles in internal politics, harbors fugitives, and runs propaganda campaigns. The other builds infrastructure and avoids political commentary. For Bangladeshi policymakers calculating long-term partnerships, the comparison is unflattering to India.
What Bangladeshis Actually Want
Lost in Indian strategic calculations is what the Bangladeshi public actually desires from the relationship. Survey data and public discourse suggest:
Not hostility: Most Bangladeshis do not seek conflict with India. They share cultural ties, economic connections, and a long border that requires cooperation.
Respect and equality: What Bangladeshis reject is treatment as a subordinate. The demand is for a relationship between sovereign equals, not between patron and client.
Non-interference: Bangladeshis expect India to respect their domestic political processes—not to harbor their former leaders, host opposition operations from Kolkata, or run propaganda campaigns through media proxies.
Reciprocity: Trade, water sharing, border management—all should reflect mutual benefit rather than Indian advantage enforced by power asymmetry.
These are not radical demands. They are the baseline expectations any nation has of its neighbors. India’s failure to meet them reflects not Bangladeshi unreasonableness but Indian overreach.
The Path Not Taken
An alternative Indian approach was available from August 2024 onward:
Acknowledge the revolution’s legitimacy: Rather than treating the July Revolution as an “Islamist coup,” India could have recognized it as a democratic uprising against authoritarian rule—which is how most of the world saw it.
Engage the interim government: Rather than treating Dr. Yunus with suspicion, India could have built relations with a Nobel laureate whom the international community respects.
Cooperate on accountability: Rather than harboring accused criminals, India could have supported Bangladesh’s transitional justice process—building goodwill while demonstrating commitment to rule of law.
Address legitimate concerns constructively: Rather than media warfare over minority issues, India could have worked with Bangladesh on genuine protection mechanisms—accepting that most post-revolution violence was political rather than communal.
Reset the relationship: Rather than clinging to the Hasina Doctrine, India could have welcomed the opportunity to build a new relationship with broader Bangladeshi society—not just one faction.
This path was not taken. The question is whether it remains available.
The February 2026 Opportunity
Bangladesh’s elections, scheduled for February 12, 2026, offer both countries a potential reset. Analysts at the International Crisis Group suggest India has entered “an informal understanding” with the BNP and interim government to normalize relations post-election.
If this is accurate, it would represent a belated recognition that the Hasina Doctrine is finished. A BNP government would not offer the same degree of alignment as Hasina—but it could offer something more sustainable: a working relationship between governments that both enjoy domestic legitimacy.
For this reset to succeed, India must:
- Stop the media warfare: Fact-checked misinformation campaigns accomplish nothing except hardening Bangladeshi opinion
- Address the sanctuary issue: Continued harboring of fugitives makes normalization impossible
- Restore normal visa operations: The current restrictions harm Indian interests as much as Bangladeshi ones
- Accept electoral outcomes: Whatever government Bangladeshis elect must be treated as a legitimate partner
For Bangladesh, the reset requires:
- Distinguish rhetoric from policy: Reactive nationalist statements may satisfy domestic audiences but complicate diplomacy
- Engage on genuine issues: Minority protection, border management, and trade disputes require good-faith negotiation
- Maintain strategic diversification: Partnership with India should not preclude partnerships with others
The Bottom Line
The Hasina Doctrine is dead. India’s fifteen-year strategy of managing Bangladesh through a pliant allied regime collapsed on August 5, 2024, and it cannot be resurrected.
New Delhi faces a choice: adapt to a Bangladesh that will chart its own course, or continue policies that accelerate that course away from India. The current approach—sanctuary for fugitives, media warfare, diplomatic pressure—is achieving the opposite of its intended effects.
The February 2026 elections offer an opportunity for reset. But seizing it requires India to abandon the expectation of a client-state relationship and embrace the more modest but sustainable goal of partnership between equals.
As one analyst put it: “By treating its neighbor as an equal partner rather than a junior client, India could turn the current crisis into an opportunity.” The question is whether New Delhi can learn this lesson before it loses Bangladesh entirely.
This Delta Dispatch represents the analysis of the Inqilab Delta Forum research team.
Sources: International Crisis Group, The Diplomat, Eurasia Review, The Business Standard (Bangladesh), and regional policy analysis. Data current as of December 2025.