BANGLADESH AT THE BRINK

Dr Tajamul Islam (Research Scholar)

The Making of a Crisis

The crisis unfolding in Bangladesh is not the product of a sudden rupture; it is the outcome of a slow but deliberate unravelling of political legitimacy, institutional authority, and regional strategic coherence. To read the present turbulence merely through the prism of episodic violence or leadership change is to mistake symptoms for causes. Bangladesh today stands at a point where the erosion of sovereignty is occurring not through overt occupation or military defeat, but through the hollowing out of political consent. This distinction is crucial, because regimes can survive instability, but states rarely survive sustained illegitimacy.

For over a decade, Sheikh Hasina’s government functioned as a stabilizing, if increasingly authoritarian, anchor in Bangladesh’s political system. Her rule was marked by a paradox: while democratic pluralism narrowed internally, state capacity and regional predictability expanded externally. For India in particular, Hasina’s Bangladesh represented a strategic constant-decisive action against insurgent groups, resistance to Islamist capture of the state, and insulation from Pakistan’s long-standing attempts to re-enter Bangladesh’s security architecture. This stability, however, came at the cost of growing domestic disaffection, elite fatigue, and a perception, carefully amplified by external actors, that political continuity had hardened into political stagnation.

The removal of Sheikh Hasina did not emerge organically from a consolidated democratic process; it emerged from a convergence of street mobilisation, elite defection, and international legitimisation of a transition that lacked a clear constitutional endpoint. The interim political arrangement that followed was presented as a corrective – an ethical reset aimed at restoring balance and neutrality. Yet neutrality in politics is often a fiction, and in transitional contexts, it frequently becomes a cover for power exercised without accountability. The elevation of a technocratic moral authority at the helm of the state may have soothed international anxieties, but it did little to address the core problem: the absence of a renewed popular mandate.

This legitimacy deficit became the defining condition of post-Hasina Bangladesh. A state that governs without rooted consent inevitably governs defensively. Policy becomes reactive, security institutions lose clarity of command, and political actors begin to operate with an eye not toward governance but survival. It is under such conditions that ideological boundaries blur and strategic red lines soften. The gradual recalibration of Bangladesh’s internal security posture – marked by selective tolerance of radical networks and the reopening of informal channels with Pakistani agencies – did not occur as a dramatic policy shift. It unfolded quietly, incrementally, and plausibly deniably. That is precisely what made it dangerous.

The consequences of this drift surfaced violently with the killing of Dipu Dass in Mymensingh. The significance of this act lies not only in its brutality but in what it revealed about the state’s incapacity to assert authority. Political violence against minorities has historically served as an early-warning signal in Bangladesh’s political cycles, indicating not merely social breakdown but ideological reorientation. The official condemnation that followed was procedurally correct but substantively inadequate. Condemnation without deterrence communicates weakness; weakness invites repetition. At that moment, the Bangladeshi state revealed itself as present in form but absent in force.

India’s response, heightened border alerts in West Bengal and the North-East, must be read against this backdrop. This was not an overreaction to a single incident but a strategic response to a pattern. Instability in Bangladesh has never remained confined within its borders. The geography of the eastern subcontinent ensures that political disorder spills outward, activating dormant networks, reviving insurgent pathways, and unsettling fragile social equilibria. What concerned New Delhi was not only the violence itself, but the growing sense that Dhaka was losing the capacity, or the will, to contain it.

It is at this juncture that the reported death of Sharif Osman Hadi acquires decisive political meaning. As the convenor of Inqilab Moncho and a prominent figure in the agitation that led to Hasina’s fall, Hadi symbolised the disruptive energy of the transition. His role was instrumental during mobilisation but ambiguous afterward. Transitional politics often devour their own architects, because agitation creates unity against a target, not coherence after its removal. The elimination, sudden and unexplained, of such a figure destabilises the very coalition that enabled regime change, exposing the fragility of the post-transition order.

Speculation regarding ISI involvement in Hadi’s death cannot be dismissed as routine paranoia, nor should it be elevated to established fact. Its importance lies elsewhere: in the strategic plausibility it carries within South Asian political memory. Pakistan’s deep state has historically viewed Bangladesh not as a sovereign equal but as a contested space, one whose ideological orientation could either constrain or complement India’s regional dominance. Whenever Bangladesh’s leadership weakens, Islamabad’s interest predictably intensifies. The return of ambiguity, factionalism, and political elimination fits an old pattern of proxy reactivation rather than a new conspiracy.

More importantly, Hadi’s death intensified the crisis of legitimacy already haunting the interim regime. Political silence followed by administrative inertia reinforced the impression that power in Bangladesh had become opaque and unaccountable. In such environments, violence ceases to be an aberration and becomes a method- used not only by extremists but by competing political factions seeking advantage in an uncertain order. This is how states slip from instability into managed chaos, where no single actor governs decisively, but multiple actors sabotage selectively.

For India, these developments have sharpened an already complex strategic dilemma. The question is no longer whether Bangladesh is unstable; it is whether that instability is being structurally externalised. The weakening of Dhaka’s authority creates openings not only for domestic radicals but for external agencies skilled in exploiting political vacuums. The eastern frontier, long stabilised through cooperation with Hasina’s government, now appears exposed to ideological seepage and security disruption.

At the heart of India’s predicament lies the unresolved question of Sheikh Hasina’s political future. Calls for her repatriation are not expressions of personal loyalty but reflections of strategic anxiety. Her rule represented a known quantity in an uncertain region. Yet restoring a familiar figure cannot, by itself, repair institutional erosion. The deeper issue is whether Bangladesh can reconstruct legitimacy without relapsing into authoritarian consolidation or proxy vulnerability. India must tread carefully: overt interference would be counterproductive, but strategic disengagement would be irresponsible.

What Bangladesh is experiencing, therefore, is not merely a transition but a test: of whether a state can survive the removal of a dominant leader without surrendering coherence to invisible forces. And what India faces is not merely a diplomatic challenge but a regional reckoning: how to respond when a neighbouring state’s internal illegitimacy begins to externalise insecurity.

Externalisation of Instability and India’s Strategic Limits

What transforms Bangladesh’s current turmoil from a domestic political crisis into a regional security concern is the manner in which internal illegitimacy is being externalised. States experiencing legitimacy deficits often attempt to compensate through symbolic diplomacy or moral posturing, but when those gestures fail to restore authority, the vacuum invites actors whose interests lie in prolonging uncertainty rather than resolving it. In South Asia, this process has historically taken the form of proxy engagement, ideological seepage, and calibrated destabilisation. Bangladesh’s present trajectory exhibits all three elements with unsettling clarity.

The speculation surrounding Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence must therefore be located within a broader strategic logic rather than treated as an isolated allegation. The ISI’s historical engagement with Bangladesh has never been aimed at direct control; its objective has consistently been strategic dilution- weakening Bangladesh’s capacity to function as a stable, secular, and India-aligned state. This is achieved not by overt alliances but by cultivating ambiguity: encouraging factionalism, amplifying radical narratives, and exploiting transitional uncertainty. In such a framework, political deaths acquire instrumental value, not necessarily as acts of orchestration but as accelerants of fragmentation. The death of Sharif Osman Hadi fits this pattern insofar as it deepens mistrust within the post-Hasina coalition and destabilises the very forces that claimed moral authority during the transition.

Crucially, the danger lies less in proving external involvement than in the permissive conditions that make such involvement plausible. A confident state with consolidated legitimacy renders proxy interference costly and ineffective. A state governing through interim arrangements and moral symbolism does the opposite – it lowers the threshold of intervention. Bangladesh’s inability to produce credible, transparent explanations for political violence reinforces the perception that power is operating beyond institutional scrutiny. Once that perception takes hold, it becomes self-reinforcing, delegitimising even sincere acts of governance.

This permissiveness is particularly visible in the state’s handling of ideological radicalisation. Rather than confronting extremist mobilisation decisively, the interim regime has oscillated between selective enforcement and rhetorical condemnation. Such inconsistency signals not tolerance but uncertainty. Radical groups thrive not merely in environments of repression or freedom, but in environments of confusion. The weakening of secular political confidence, combined with the targeting of minorities and dissenters, suggests that Bangladesh’s ideological centre is eroding. For India, this erosion matters not because of abstract normative commitments, but because ideological drift has historically preceded security spillovers.

India’s eastern security architecture has always depended on a stable Bangladesh acting as a buffer rather than a conduit. The dismantling of insurgent networks during Sheikh Hasina’s tenure was not a by-product of goodwill but a function of political will backed by sovereign authority. That authority is now contested. The result is not immediate chaos but strategic uncertainty- a condition far more difficult to manage. Borders can be sealed, patrols intensified, and intelligence agencies mobilised, but none of these measures can substitute for a reliable partner state across the frontier.

New Delhi’s response reflects an acute awareness of this dilemma. Diplomatic restraint, border vigilance, and enhanced intelligence coordination indicate a strategy of containment rather than engagement. Yet containment, by its very nature, is reactive. It addresses consequences without shaping causes. The risk for India is that prolonged reactivity will gradually normalise instability, lowering the threshold at which disruption is tolerated. Strategic patience, when stretched too far, becomes strategic inertia.

The question of Sheikh Hasina’s repatriation thus occupies an ambiguous but central position in India’s calculus. Her continued absence symbolises the unresolved nature of Bangladesh’s political transition. While India cannot be seen as engineering leadership outcomes, it also cannot ignore the structural vacuum left behind. The problem is not Hasina as an individual, but the absence of a political actor capable of reasserting state authority without surrendering it to radical or external pressures. Until such an actor emerges, Bangladesh’s interim order will remain vulnerable to manipulation.

At the same time, India must resist the temptation of personality-centric stability. South Asia’s political history offers repeated warnings against equating strong leaders with strong states. The deeper crisis in Bangladesh is institutional: the erosion of trust in electoral processes, the hollowing out of political parties, and the substitution of moral symbolism for constitutional consolidation. Without addressing these structural deficiencies, any return to stability will be temporary and contingent.

India’s strategic options are therefore constrained but not non-existent. The first imperative is clarity – privately, not publicly – about red lines. Bangladesh must be made aware that tolerance of anti-India activity, whether by omission or design, will carry costs. These costs need not be coercive or punitive; they can take the form of recalibrated cooperation, diplomatic pressure, and selective disengagement. The objective is deterrence, not domination.

The second imperative is engagement beyond the state. Bangladesh’s civil society, intellectual traditions, and secular political currents have not disappeared; they are simply overshadowed. India’s long-term interest lies in supporting the conditions under which these forces can reassert themselves organically. This requires patience, discretion, and an understanding that influence is most effective when it is invisible. The alternative – ceding the narrative space to radical or proxy actors – would be a strategic failure of lasting consequence.

Ultimately, the crisis in Bangladesh reveals a deeper truth about transitional politics in postcolonial states. Regime displacement without institutional reconstruction does not produce democracy; it produces vulnerability. When legitimacy is suspended rather than renewed, sovereignty becomes porous. Bangladesh is now confronting this reality, and the consequences are rippling outward.

For India, the lesson is stark. The stability of its eastern frontier cannot be outsourced to fences or alerts alone. It depends on the political health of its neighbours. Bangladesh’s current drift is not irreversible, but it is time-sensitive. Every unresolved political death, every ambiguous act of governance, and every unchallenged radical narrative pushes the state further from consolidation and closer to strategic exposure.

The moment therefore demands neither alarmism nor complacency, but sober recognition. Bangladesh stands at a crossroads between institutional recovery and managed disorder. India, as its most affected neighbour, must decide whether it will merely respond to outcomes or quietly shape conditions. In South Asia, history suggests that those who mistake restraint for wisdom often discover too late that instability, once normalised, refuses to remain contained.