The gaffitti on the structure where Sheikh Mujibur’s huge idol once stood. Image credit: South Asia Journal archives.
In the latest episode of The J-Z Show, Jon Danilowicz and Zafar Sobhan tackle an uncertain, if not treacherous, landscape marked by political convulsions, generational uprisings, regional unease, and a changing balance of power in South Asia. Anchored in the multiple decades of Jon Danilowicz’s diplomatic experience in Bangladesh and Pakistan, Bangladesh’s post-Hasina crossroads, and the uncertain geometry of Bangladesh–India–Pakistan relations as they take shape, is both familiar and strangely unfamiliar to the J-Z Show hosts as South Asia’s longstanding assumptions give way and new centers of power emerge.
Bangladesh is a fulcrum of today’s geopolitical volatility. A violent rupture of the political order seems imminent. The verdict, and Sheikh Hasina’s death sentence in absentia, as well as the Awami League’s subsequent ban in Bangladesh, have produced a regional power vacuum whose implications for India are destabilizing at best and even potentially existential at worst. There has been little surprise, particularly in South Asia, about the trial that both BBC, Al Jazeera, and The Financial Times experts have called historic but also destabilizing to Bangladesh, as a country post-authoritarian but at a point of no return. In India, where over the past 15 years tremendous political capital and significant economic resources have been expended to preserve and prop up Hasina, the verdict was both shocking and deeply unsettling.
But this story did not begin in 2024. The tragedy and the tension have been building for years, driven not only by domestic authoritarianism but also by the expanding tentacles of the Indian state inside Bangladesh’s political, security, and cultural spheres. What we now see is not merely the fall of a leader; we see the unraveling of a strategy that New Delhi once assumed was ironclad.
Sowing the Seeds of Discord
For fifteen years, India tightened its grip on Bangladesh, both seen and unseen. Hasina opened the gates to India, as India had never been in the region before. Bangladeshi intelligence organs became uncannily redundant as both countries increased cooperation at the expense of coordination. Cultural diplomacy, India’s longstanding and highly effective instrument, seeped into academia, the media, and the general narrative. Festivals, cultural institutes, and even K-pop concerts became entry points for a veneer of India as a civilizational patron.
Yet behind this well-worn cloak of soft power lies a more complex truth. As New Delhi lost sway in Colombo, Kathmandu, and Malé, Hasina became India’s most dependable regional interlocutor, Bangladesh as reliable a piece of real estate for Indian regional policy as there was. To millions of Bangladeshis, especially the youth, the past fifteen years have felt less like a partnership of equals and more like an occupation.
A growing perception was that Indian influence no longer stopped at the overtly diplomatic and began to manifest itself in internal affairs: in policing, intelligence sharing, the timing of elections, vote-rigging, and shaping public opinion. Perceptions of interference have become so widespread that it has become a non-partisan grievance for ordinary Bangladeshis who may dislike BNP and Khaleda Zia just as much as anyone else in Dhaka.
This anger is precisely why India’s calculus is so desperately out of tune with popular sentiment. Perceptions that Indian cultural outfits, especially ISKCON, have found receptive ears among the politically impressionable segments of Bangladesh’s Hindu population may be exaggerated in New Delhi, but it is deeply felt and believed in Dhaka. It is not the organizations per se, most of which really do foster genuine cultural and religious exchange, but their perceived closeness to New Delhi’s geopolitical agenda that rankles. Bangladeshis are fiercely patriotic and know their own mind, and the legacy of 1971 means they are not susceptible to feelings of dependency.
Hasina’s Fall and India’s Shock
Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal decision to sentence Sheikh Hasina to death has unnerved New Delhi more than most recent events. India had endorsed Hasina not because of shared ideology but because she offered a measure of predictability. She extended transit corridors, offered counterterrorism cooperation, and enabled border stability, while providing a domestic political environment in which New Delhi’s favored policies would continue to make gains with little friction. In return, India offered international legitimacy while turning a blind eye to the deepening democratic deficit.
The July–August street agitation, led by Generation Z students who had seen their job prospects vanish and democratic space crushed, was the first step towards upending this order. The United Nations estimates that approximately 1,400 people were killed during the crackdown ordered by the regime in its final days. This bloodshed changed public attitudes, and Hasina’s flight to India further reinforced the popular view that the partnership between Dhaka and New Delhi had become a one-way street.
As Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus heads the interim administration and prepares the ground for elections in February, India faces an awkward question: How to respond to an election in Bangladesh from which the Awami League has been excluded?
The extradition of Sheikh Hasina
The extradition of Sheikh Hasina at the request of Bangladesh to serve her death sentence by the Bangladesh court will open a new chapter in Bangladesh-India relations. Bangladesh armed forces brought her to India with the Indian authorities’ consent; still, the Awami League politician and her party have been living under the protection of New Delhi and managed to stoke political unrest in Bangladesh, assuredly with Indian consent. Therefore, Hasina is a regular reminder of India’s apparent encroachment on Bangladeshi soil. India’s refusal to extradite the country’s leader, despite Dhaka’s request, is no secret, as Hasina may become a political card in future games with Bangladesh. New Delhi, in this situation, is not in a hurry and will wait until after Bangladesh’s elections to make any decision. New Delhi is interested in finding out the political and economic dynamics and directions in Bangladesh after the elections. The future of the region, including India, will depend on it. In this regard, India has long used Bangladesh’s political dynamics as a significant lever. This approach is an extension of India’s Chanakyan neighborly policy. India looks at its neighbors as irritants and has never seen Bangladesh as an equal.
In this situation, the extradition of Sheikh Hasina could become a litmus test of relations between Dhaka and New Delhi. On the one hand, New Delhi’s denial of Hasina’s extradition to Bangladesh will aggravate Bangladeshis’ perception that India seeks to control Bangladesh by continuing political turmoil in the country. Hasina’s network and political collaborators still exist even though her aura is gone. India also risks further tarnishing its image in the eyes of the people of Bangladesh as a guarantor of a person sentenced for crimes against humanity. On the other hand, if New Delhi extradites Hasina, the curtain of mistrust between the countries may finally be raised, allowing Bangladesh and India to form a new neighborly relationship based on equality, mutual respect, and support. At the moment, New Delhi is not even ready to give an official comment on the situation, which is a sign that India’s strategy is quite balanced.
An Election Without the Awami League — India’s Dilemma
For the first time in five decades, Bangladesh is on the cusp of an election in which the country’s traditionally dominant party is proscribed. For India, that’s not just a political convulsion; it’s a strategic earthquake. The Awami League was New Delhi’s most reliable partner but also its most glaring liability in Bangladesh. Even among secular, centrist Bangladeshis, the perception that the party operated as India’s preferred proxy gained traction over time. The more India embraced the Awami League, the more anti-Indian sentiment expanded.
If India rejects the upcoming elections, it risks alienating the vast majority of Bangladeshis who see the end of the authoritarian era as a national liberation moment. Suppose India supports the elections, or even quietly accepts them. In that case, it must confront the loss of its strongest regional ally and negotiate afresh with a political landscape it did not engineer and cannot control.
New Delhi’s silence so far is telling. It insists only on “free and fair elections,” a slogan that allows flexibility but avoids commitment. Behind closed doors, Indian policymakers know that opposing the election would inflame Bangladeshi nationalism in a way not seen since 1971. Supporting it would mean accepting that their long-term strategy has collapsed.
The Regional Stakes
If India mishandles this moment, the consequences will reverberate across South Asia. A collapse in Bangladesh-India relations would weaken India’s regional leadership, empower competitors, and hasten the fragmentation that is already afoot in its neighborhood. Bangladesh’s geo-economics and demographic heft are too significant for India to ignore. Losing goodwill there would isolate India diplomatically, weaken its narrative of benevolent regional leadership, and signal to smaller neighbors that India’s alliances come at the cost of sovereignty.
Yet this crisis also reveals an opportunity. Bangladeshis who have consistently demanded sovereignty, dignity, and democratic accountability do not oppose cooperation with India. They oppose dominance. If India can understand this difference, recalibrate its strategy, and engage the broad spectrum of Bangladeshi society rather than relying on a single political party or community, the relationship could be reset on a firmer footing.
A Future Beyond Suspicion
Jon Danilowicz and Zafar Sobhan zero in on one key point in their chat: South Asia cannot advance on rivalry alone. It’s South Asians themselves, above all, a region-wide cohort of restless, politically conscious Gen Z citizens, who will no longer accept indignity, impunity, or lack of economic opportunity. These citizens will not countenance governments that function as proxies to outside powers. The new generation is why the July Charter, the uprising, and now Hasina’s trial matter. The young people of Bangladesh finally feel that they have been heard. Their rebellion was not just political but existential.
If Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives are to build a peaceful South Asia, they must reject the politics of interference and embrace the politics of partnership. India cannot lead the region by dominating it. Bangladesh cannot build a stable democracy by succumbing to external pressure. And Pakistan cannot indefinitely benefit from regional volatility.
Conclusion
The tables have turned on India. Bangladesh is finally ready to break India’s decades-old spell of silence. A new era of politics that is young, civic, and anti-autocratic is taking shape, and India is going to be the real test of this new era. An election without the Awami League will see whether India is going to stoop low to continue its old relationship or if it can handle the reality that it cannot roll back 170 million Bangladeshis through backdoor diplomacy. The South Asian region awaits whether India will learn to tread this fine line as a big brother or as a good neighbor.
Only then can the region move toward a future where cooperation triumphs over suspicion, and where shared prosperity replaces geopolitical maneuvering as the foundation of peace.