In the report Preventing a Sunset in the East: India-Bangladesh Ties After Hasina, Bashir Ali Abbas (Senior Research Associate, CSDR) examines how the removal of Sheikh Hasina in August 2024 triggered a sharp political rupture that is now spilling into all major areas of bilateral cooperation. The central argument is that India–Bangladesh ties are not collapsing because of technical disputes but because of a deep political trust deficit created by Bangladesh’s Interim Government and its search for new external partners. Unless India recalibrates its diplomacy, short-term tensions risk becoming a long-term strategic setback.
The report shows that cooperation continues to exist on paper across borders, rivers, trade, and connectivity, but these linkages are increasingly being used as pressure points. Bangladesh’s Interim Government has adopted a more confrontational posture toward India, while signalling openness to Pakistan and China. India, in contrast, has responded cautiously, relying on existing frameworks rather than proactive political engagement.
On border management, routine issues such as fencing, smuggling, and local clashes have escalated into diplomatic disputes. Incidents along the West Bengal and Meghalaya borders have heightened public scrutiny and hardened positions on both sides. Illegal migration and Rohingya movements further complicate the issue, making border cooperation politically sensitive in India’s eastern states.
Water sharing has emerged as a major source of anxiety. The unresolved Teesta agreement and the upcoming review of the Ganges Water Treaty in 2026 are now framed in Dhaka as tests of Indian intent. India’s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan in 2025 has reinforced Bangladeshi fears that water arrangements can be used coercively, even though technical cooperation mechanisms remain intact.
Connectivity is another pressure point. India has invested heavily over the past decade in rail, road, and port connectivity through Bangladesh to access its Northeast. These projects remain operational, but Bangladesh’s growing engagement with Chinese infrastructure financing, including port and industrial projects, has reduced India’s strategic comfort and increased its dependence on alternative routes.
Trade and people-to-people ties have deteriorated quickly. Bilateral trade, which had crossed $12 billion annually, has been hit by reciprocal restrictions on textiles, transshipment, and port access. Medical visas and routine travel have declined sharply, weakening one of the strongest stabilisers of the relationship and pushing Bangladeshi demand toward China and Southeast Asia.
The report also highlights Bangladesh’s broader geopolitical reorientation. Renewed engagement with Pakistan, including military and intelligence contacts, and deeper economic ties with China have intensified Indian concerns about strategic encirclement along its eastern flank. These moves are driven less by ideology and more by the Interim Government’s need for external backing and domestic legitimacy.
Domestic politics in Bangladesh are central to the crisis. The sidelining of the Awami League, legal action against former leaders, the army’s balancing role, and preparations for elections in early 2026 have created a volatile environment. Sheikh Hasina’s presence in India and Dhaka’s demand for her extradition have become symbolic flashpoints that poison bilateral dialogue.
The report concludes that India–Bangladesh relations are now driven more by Bangladesh’s internal political calculations than by long-term strategic convergence. While India retains substantial economic and geographic leverage, dependence on earlier political alignments has become untenable. The author argues that New Delhi must expand engagement beyond a single political constituency, place greater emphasis on sustained political dialogue alongside technical cooperation, and rely on discreet diplomacy to stop functional disagreements from solidifying into structural estrangement. To this end, the report calls for urgent “bleeding valve” diplomacy: deeper Track II channels, a wider set of interlocutors beyond the Awami League, and carefully calibrated de-escalatory steps to keep sectoral disputes from becoming permanent fault lines. Effective stabilisation, the author suggests, will depend on aligning bilateral initiatives with Bangladesh’s evolving domestic political landscape while preserving India’s core policy autonomy.