Hannah Ellis-Petersen :
It was earlier this month, as protests swept Bangladesh and bodies lay on the streets, that prime minister Sheikh Hasina hastily boarded a helicopter.
She was unaccompanied by any political aides and did not tell any of her senior ministers she was leaving. In a matter of hours, she touched down in neighbouring India, where she has been ever since.
The protests that led to Hasina’s downfall had quickly escalated from student demonstrations on campuses to a nationwide mass revolution, with hundreds of thousands calling for her removal and the return of democracy.
Hasina’s government responded with an onslaught of violence and bullets, leaving hundreds dead and thousands injured.
Hasina’s decision to flee on 5 August after protesters stormed her residence was greeted with jubilation across Bangladesh but in the corridors of power in New Delhi, the collapse of Hasina’s regime was seen as nothing short of a disaster.
India has long been seen as Hasina’s greatest ally. She was given refuge in the country once before, in 1975, after her father, the freedom fighter Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated and she stayed in exile in India for over six years, along with her husband and children, before returning to Bangladesh in 1981.
Hasina’s close personal ties with both the BJP and Congress parties in New Delhi helped Bangladesh become India’s closest and most loyal regional ally.
At the same time it gave India a crucial foothold in their often unfriendly neighbourhood and kept Bangladesh away from China’s clutches. Both in her first term from 1996 to 2001 and then again when she was re-elected in 2009 onwards, Hasina began to grant India influence through economic and security cooperation, including access to crucial waterways and allowing Indian businesses to do lucrative deals in the country.
In return, India not only turned a blind eye as her regime became increasingly oppressive and autocratic, but Indian officials and ministers were also accused by the international community of actively intervening in Bangladesh’s affairs to help keep her in office, as well as pressuring other countries to accept her leadership.
According to diplomatic sources, India used its close relationship with the US to ease pressure on Hasina before the election in early 2024. In the months in the run-up to the election, the US ambassador to Bangladesh, Peter Haas, and the US assistant secretary of state for south Asia, Donald Lu, began a concerted campaign to try to ensure the polls were free and fair.
However, after intervention by India, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, reportedly told Haas and Lu to “knock it off with Bangladesh”, dealing a blow to opposition parties that had hoped for US support. Hasina was easily returned to power amid widespread allegations of rigging.
“The Indo-Bangladesh relationship essentially became a relationship with one individual and one party,” said Shafqat Munir, a senior fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies.
In a view echoed by several analysts, Munir called on New Delhi to review its approach to Bangladesh in the wake of the people’s democratic movement that brought down Hasina. An interim government, led by the leading economist and Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus, is now in place, promising widespread reforms and accountability for the actions of Hasina’s government.
Nonetheless, Yunus has emphasised it faces monumental challenges and it is likely to be months before elections are possible.
“There is now a need for India to accept that Sheikh Hasina is gone, she is history, and the relationship has to be completely reset and rebooted,” said Munir. “Relationships between countries cannot be hostage to the vicissitudes of changing governments.”
One issue threatening to cast a further shadow over the India-Bangladesh relationship is the ongoing presence of Hasina in India. Though her family say it is only temporary and there has yet to be an official extradition request from Bangladesh for her return, there are growing calls from activists and political opponents for her to be brought back.
More than 100 cases alleging the former prime minister played a role in murder and abduction have been filed against Hasina and Bangladesh’s international crimes tribunal is investigating her on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in connection with the killings that took place during the recent protests.
Hasina’s government had previously denied any human rights abuses. The Bangladesh government has also revoked the diplomatic passport that Hasina used to travel to India.
This week, the Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) leader, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, made a direct plea to India to send Hasina back, and alleged that Hasina was using her safe haven in the country to attempt to thwart the interim government and democratic movement in Bangladesh.
“It is our call to you that you should hand her over to the government of Bangladesh in a legal way,” said Alamgir. “The people of this country have given the decision for her trial. Let her face that trial.”
Ali Riaz, a political scientist specialising in Bangladesh at Illinois State University, said India was also having to grapple with the embarrassment of a “serious intelligence failure” that meant the collapse of Hasina’s regime caught it off guard and left it unprepared for the significant regional setback and the rising anti-India sentiment now rife in Bangladesh.
“India pursued a very myopic policy with Bangladesh by putting all their eggs in one basket with Hasina and her party, instead of having a state-to-state relationship,” said Riaz. “As a result, India is now in a precarious situation of its own making.”
In the weeks since the collapse of Hasina’s regime, the Modi government’s response to events has made little reference to the push for democratic reform by the new regime and has instead expressed “deep concern” at the instability and the threats faced by the Hindu minority.
This was emphasised again this week in an official statement released by Modi after a phone conversation with the US president, Joe Biden. While the US readout of the interaction made no mention of Bangladesh, the Indian side said the leaders had discussed the need for the “early restoration of normalcy” and law and order.
The comments were poorly received over the border. “We’re not trying to restore normalcy,” said one Bangladeshi commentator. “We’re trying to reclaim democracy.”
(Hannah Ellis-Petersen is the Guardian’s South Asia correspondent. Twitter @HannahEP)