In the sweltering summer of 2024, Bangladesh erupted in a student-led uprising that toppled the long-entrenched Awami League government of Sheikh Hasina. What began as protests against job quotas quickly morphed into a broader revolution, forcing Hasina to flee to India on August 5, 2024.
The installation of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus as chief adviser of an interim government marked not just a political pivot but a seismic shift in Dhaka’s foreign policy. Once a close ally of New Delhi—grateful for India’s pivotal role in its 1971 liberation war—Bangladesh has since veered sharply toward anti-India rhetoric, fostering an environment rife with hostility toward its western neighbor.
This transformation has been exacerbated by the resurgence of Islamist elements, economic grievances, and the opportunistic infiltration of foreign intelligence agencies, turning the nation into a geopolitical tinderbox. By October 2025, incidents ranging from border skirmishes to the hosting of anti-India firebrands like Zakir Naik underscore a deepening rift, with Bangladesh emerging as a proxy battleground for Pakistan’s ISI, China’s strategic ambitions, and even Western interests.
This article traces the arc of this radical shift, drawing on historical precedents, recent events, and intelligence assessments to explain how Bangladesh—sandwiched between India’s Northeast and the Bay of Bengal—has become both an anti-India stronghold and a nexus for covert operations.
Historical Context: From Brotherhood to Unease
India-Bangladesh relations were forged in the fires of the 1971 Liberation War, where Indian forces intervened decisively against Pakistani atrocities, leading to Bangladesh’s independence. The “eternal friendship” treaty signed in 1972 symbolized this bond, with India providing economic aid, infrastructure support, and security cooperation. Under Hasina, who assumed power in 2009, ties deepened:
India invested in Bangladesh’s power sector, signed land boundary agreements in 2015, and cracked down on anti-India insurgents using Bangladeshi soil.
Yet, cracks appeared early. Water-sharing disputes over the Teesta River festered, with India prioritizing domestic politics over bilateral concessions. Border killings by India’s Border Security Force (BSF) fueled resentment, as did perceptions of Indian meddling in Bangladeshi politics. Hasina’s regime, accused of authoritarianism, leaned heavily on India for legitimacy—allowing RAW (India’s external intelligence agency) unchecked access and suppressing Islamist groups like Jamaat-e-Islami, which harbored pro-Pakistan sympathies.
This alignment bred accusations of Bangladesh as an “Indian vassal state,” a narrative amplified by opposition forces and foreign actors.
By 2024, economic stagnation, youth unemployment, and Hasina’s crackdowns had alienated the masses. The quota protests ignited latent grievances, including anti-India fervor, as demonstrators chanted slogans decrying “Indian interference.”
Hasina’s flight to India—perceived as asylum from a “big brother”—crystallized these sentiments, transforming a domestic revolt into a nationalist backlash against perceived Indian overreach.
The 2024 Uprising and Immediate Fallout
The July-August 2024 protests were no organic spasm; intelligence reports linked them to orchestration by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Chinese proxies, aiming to oust Hasina and install a pliable regime.
As chaos engulfed Dhaka, anti-India violence surged: Indian flags were burned, the Bangladesh-India friendship monument vandalized, and Hindu minorities—often conflated with Indian interests—targeted in reprisal attacks.
Over 200 Hindus were reportedly assaulted in the initial weeks, with temples desecrated in a wave of “retaliatory justice” against Hasina’s pro-India tilt.
Yunus’s interim government, backed by student leaders and Islamist factions, quickly pivoted. In September 2024, Dhaka expelled Indian diplomats accused of spying, while Yunus publicly criticized India’s “hegemonic” influence.
By early 2025, Bangladesh’s military hosted Pakistani delegations, signaling a thaw with Islamabad frozen since 1971.
This “post-Hasina fallout” has seen bilateral trade—still surging to $16 billion in 2025 despite boycotts—mask deeper animosities, with Bangladeshi ports like Chattogram redirecting cargo from Indian routes.
Rise of Anti-India Sentiment
Under Yunus, anti-India rhetoric has permeated state and society. Public discourse frames India as an existential threat, echoing 1970s separatist maps that claim India’s Northeast (Assam, Tripura, etc.) as “Greater Bangladesh.”
In October 2025, Yunus gifted Pakistan’s General Sahir Shamshad Mirza a book, *The Art of Triumph*, depicting Northeast India as Bangladeshi territory—a provocative nod to Rawalpindi’s irredentist playbook.
This gesture, amid Yunus’s meetings with Pakistani intelligence, has been decried in New Delhi as “backdoor endorsement” of anti-India lines.
Street-level hostility manifests in radicalization drives. Bangladesh’s approval of Zakir Naik’s November-December 2025 tour—despite his Indian charges for hate speech and terror financing—signals state tolerance for anti-India preachers.
Naik’s events, expected to draw thousands, risk inciting border unrest, with Indian agencies warning of “venom-spewing” against Hindus.
Meanwhile, disinformation campaigns—fueled by social media—portray India as the puppeteer behind Hasina’s regime, amplifying calls for “sovereignty” that mask Islamist agendas.
Economic levers are weaponized too. Yunus’s government has stalled Teesta water-sharing talks, reviving 1970s disputes, while border crossings by Bangladeshis into India’s Northeast have spiked, linked to ISI-backed NGOs smuggling arms and radicals.=
Indian officials report a 30% rise in illegal migrations since August 2024, often funneled through Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar.
Diplomatic and Economic Tensions
Despite the vitriol, pragmatism persists: India-Bangladesh trade hit $18 billion in FY 2025, driven by essentials like yarn and pharmaceuticals.
Yet, this masks fragility. Yunus’s overtures to Beijing—signing $5 billion in Belt and Road deals—bypass Indian infrastructure pacts, while Pakistan’s re-entry via direct flights and visa waivers erodes New Delhi’s leverage.
Diplomatic salvos abound. In June 2025, Bangladesh accused India of “state-sponsored terrorism” by allegedly backing separatists in Chattogram for a “Bangabhumi” state—a claim rooted in fringe Hindu nationalist rhetoric but amplified by Pakistani media.
India retaliated by tightening visa regimes and exposing 30 alleged “Banga Sena” training camps in Bangladesh.
These exchanges, coupled with Yunus’s UN speeches decrying Indian “hegemony,” have plummeted relations to a post-1975 low.
Infiltration by Foreign Spy Agencies
Bangladesh’s turmoil has vacuumed in global spooks, making it a “hotbed” for espionage. Pakistan’s ISI, dormant under Hasina, roared back post-uprising. In January 2025, ISI chief Lt. Gen. Nadeem Anjum visited Dhaka, inking an intelligence-sharing pact with Yunus’s regime to target “Indian threats.”
By October 2025, ISI operatives were embedded in Rohingya camps, smuggling arms to Northeast insurgents via porous borders.
Fake Indian currency and small arms traced to Chittagong ports fund groups like ULFA, reviving 1990s tactics.
China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) exploits economic ties, embedding agents in BRI projects like the Payra Port. Beijing views Bangladesh as a “gateway to the Bay of Bengal,” countering India’s Andaman bases.
Leaked cables reveal MSS funding Jamaat-e-Islami to stoke anti-India unrest, with $100 million in “aid” masking covert ops.
Even the U.S. CIA lurks in the shadows. Leaked International Republican Institute (IRI) files suggest American NGOs fueled the 2024 protests for a “power shift,” aiming to install a pro-West bulwark against Chinese influence.
CIA assets, posing as aid workers in Cox’s Bazar, coordinate with Turkish MIT to arm Rohingya militants, destabilizing Myanmar’s junta—a Chinese ally.
This multi-agency scrum—ISI for terror, MSS for economics, CIA for regime tweaks—renders Dhaka a den of shadows, where Hasina-era RAW nests now clash with rivals.
Pakistan and China’s Axis in Bangladesh
The ISI-MSS nexus forms the axis of mischief. Pakistan, economically tethered to China via CPEC, uses Bangladesh as a “second front” against India.
Joint ops include training camps in Sylhet for Kashmiri militants, with ISI smuggling meth and guns through Golden Triangle routes to fund Northeast separatism.
China’s $1 billion arms deals with Dhaka—submarines and frigates—bolster this, while Beijing’s veto of UN Rohingya resolutions buys Dhaka’s silence on Uyghur issues.
Yunus’s regime, per intelligence briefs, greenlights this axis for survival, purging pro-India officers from DGFI and NSI—Bangladesh’s spy agencies—replacing them with ISI sympathizers.
The result: a Bangladesh Army increasingly Pakistanized, hosting Naik and echoing Rawalpindi’s Kashmir narrative.
Implications for India and Regional Security
For India, the stakes are existential. Bangladesh’s anti-India turn threatens the Siliguri Corridor (“Chicken’s Neck”), vital for Northeast connectivity.
ISI-fueled radicalization could ignite Manipur-like clashes, with Rohingya influxes straining Assam and Tripura.
Economically, diverted trade routes hobble India’s Act East Policy, while espionage erodes border security.
Regionally, this emboldens the China-Pakistan axis, potentially sparking a Buddhist-Islamist proxy war in Myanmar.
The U.S., playing both sides, risks a South Asian flashpoint, as seen in Jeffrey Sachs’s warnings of CIA-orchestrated “regime changes” from Colombo to Dhaka.
Conclusion
Bangladesh’s metamorphosis from India’s steadfast partner to a cauldron of anti-India fervor and spy intrigue stems from Hasina’s fall, Yunus’s realignments, and foreign meddling. While Bangladeshis frame this as reclaiming sovereignty from “Indian dominance.
Although the reality is grimmer: a nation pawned in great-power games, with ISI daggers at India’s throat and Chinese strings pulling Dhaka’s purse. As February 2026 elections loom, India must recalibrate—bolstering Northeast defenses, courting moderate Bangladeshi voices, and exposing the ISI-MSS web—lest this “eternal friendship” dissolves into enduring enmity. The Bay of Bengal’s waters run deep, but Bangladesh’s currents now flow perilously against the tide.
