The Fall of Shiekh Hasina’s Regime: A Handiwork of Geopolitical Machinations

Modi 3.0 has its task cut out for it. More than the development and progress, the government’s greatest challenge is to insulate India from regional and global implosions. The rock-solid political stability of the past decade has put the country on a growth trajectory. The regime change in Bangladesh has brought to the fore, fresh challenges for India. The ongoing unrest is bound to spill over to India. The foundational foreign policy doctrine of the Modi government of “Neighbourhood First” is tenuously hanging by a thread. The doctrine which underscores the importance of a stable and friendly neighbourhood for steady economic growth is under stress now.

South Asia going through dire straits is an understatement at least with respect to India. Countries in India’s immediate neighbourhood are lost in a morass with the only exception being Bangladesh. But the seemingly moderate Muslim country with a stable regime since 2009 came down crumbling after the protestors stormed into the Prime Minister’s official residence ‘Ganabhaban’ forcing her to resign and flee the country within 45 minutes. She wasn’t allowed to broadcast an address to the nation by the army which was divided into two factions. By Sunday evening, the Armed Forces expressed their unwillingness to control students' “March to Dhaka” protest on Monday.

On Monday morning students breached the security cordon following which the situation quickly escalated forcing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee the country. Within hours chaos descended in Bangladesh, protestors occupied parliament, plundered the PM’s house, burnt down Awami League (AL) headquarters in Dhaka, lynched AL leaders and carried out targeted attacks on Hindu minorities and their temples¹.

Vowing to restore peace and stability soon, Bangladesh’s Chief of Army, General Waqar-uz-Zaman announced the formation of an interim government including all major political stakeholders except the Awami League. As per the latest news reports, Nobel Laureate Muhammud Yunus has been nominated as the chief advisor of the interim government. After a meeting with Chiefs of Army, Navy and Airforce along with opposition parties including Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami party, Bangladesh President Shahabuddin announced the immediate release of Hasina’s arch-rival Khaleda Zia with immediate effect.

Fleeing Bangladesh, Hasina reached New Delhi, an instance reminiscent of a similar plight nearly five decades ago when she sought refuge in India after the brutal assassination of her father Shiekh Mujibur Rahman. Following a military coup, 18 members of Hasina’s family were murdered on August 15, 1975. With the military at the helm now after 49 years, there is a sense of trepidation even in India.

How did things come to such a passe in Bangladesh? The success story of Bangladesh started to unravel under the twin impact of Covid and the Ukraine war. The economic crisis has become more pronounced since 2022 as the country scrambled with depleting foreign reserves, rising unemployment, high inflation, and declining domestic consumption. Bangladesh even approached the IMF in 2023 as its debt crossed $100 billion. Economic hurdles bred discontent towards the political regime. If economic distress is at the root of Hasina’s unceremonious ouster and people’s discontent then, Pakistan which is on the verge of default and tethering continues to be stable. So, the economic slump certainly is not at the centre of the current political crisis in Bangladesh.

A larger geopolitical game of external interference steadily built on the internal fissures within Bangladesh has seeded an informal mutiny. This gathered pace since 2021. In December 2021 on the eve of Human Rights Day, the US imposed sanctions on Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Batallion (RAB)¹ over the killing of a councillor in a drug crackdown and extrajudicial executions since 2009. Alongside the US began to befriend Hasina’s political rival BNP. Backed by the US, the BNP held one of the largest rallies in Dhaka on December 10^th 2022 despite the government’s objections over the choice of the venue. The protest rolled out the 10-point list of demands including the constitution of the caretaker government during elections.

Days after the protests, the US ambassador to Bangladesh, Victor Haas attempted to visit the house of the BNP official, an alleged victim of enforced disappearance, but had to cut short the plans due to security reasons. The US embassy subsequently raised concerns about the safety of its diplomats. But Bangladesh's Home Minister dismissed rumours of security lapses. Slowly an undertone of hostility began to envelop the bilateral ties.

Casting aspersions on Bangladesh's democracy, Washington left Bangladesh out of the Summit for Democracy meetings both in 2021 and 2023 though it had Pakistan on board. The US refused to endorse the electoral verdict of 2014, 2019 and 2024 when the opposition BNP and its ally Jamaat-e-Islami boycotted the elections.

The US which has been highly critical of the fairness of elections in Bangladesh expressed apprehensions about the democratic backsliding in Dhaka. But it never raised any alarm over overt military interference in Pakistan elections. Rather, Washington actively collaborated with Pakistan’s military regimes for all strategic purposes.

US-Bangladesh friction was deeply reflected in the tumbling ranking of Bangladesh in the Democracy Index and Freedom in World Index. The US even pressed India ahead of the G20 summit to persuade Hasina to make concessions for the opposition parties. But Hasina has set a precondition of renunciation of violence for any kind of talks. India explicitly hinted at its disinterest in wading into the domestic affairs of Bangladesh during the 2+2 talks.

Meanwhile, Victoria Nuland, a renowned organiser of Colour Revolutions made frequent visits to Bangladesh to explore domestic fault lines hobnobbed with rival political parties. In May 2023, the US announced a new visa policy for Bangladesh to restrict visas to Bangladesh officials complicit in subverting the electoral process to ensure free and fair elections³.

The reasons cited for the new visa policy were the growing authoritarian tendency of the Hasina regime, fraudulent non-inclusive elections, and preferential treatment of the ruling administration by the civilian administration⁴.  Clearly, there was a geopolitical angle to Washington’s machinations. Bangladesh’s growing defence and economic ties with China, refusal to walk out of BRI and Dhaka’s indifference to join the Quad for the fear of damaging ties with China have further widened the rift between the US and Bangladesh.

In pursuit of independent foreign policy, Hasina refused to cede ground to both the US and China. Though a member of BRI, Hasina has been cautious in approving Chinese investments in the country. Cognisant of the India-China adversarial ties, Hasina had been circumspect in lending greater leeway to Beijing. Given Hasina’s reticent approach, Beijing pledged only $100 million against the request for $5 billion during her State visit last month. An upset Hasina immediately announced her preference to award the Teesta conservation and development project to India.

In May 2024, Hasina openly alleged a “white man’s plot” to carve out a Christian state from parts of Bangladesh, Myanmar and India. With her admission, Hasina inadvertently exposed the external factors trying to create unrest in India’s North East region conforming to the worst fears of a “containment strategy” in work. Standing up to the big powers and countering Washington with her outspoken statements, Hasina has riled the US administration. History has always been a witness to the fate of leaders who defied the West. A similar fate unfolded for Hasina.

 The US orchestration was more than evident in fomenting domestic unrest. The reinstatement of 30% quotas for the families of freedom fighters taking the combined reservation to 56% in government jobs sparked off a massive backlash from students and has proved to be the final nail in the coffin. The protests provided a platform for all the right-wing Islamist forces, radical extremist groups, vested interests and prominent jihadi forces to come together to topple Hasina’s regime. This agenda became amply clear as students refused to call off protestors even after the Supreme Court revoked the reservations.

Hasina’s remarks about student protestors as “Razakars”, a term for those who collaborated with Pakistan in 1971, deepened a mistrust and escalated the situation. The ouster of Hasina had all the hallmarks of an orchestrated regime change written all over it. Backing the street verdict that dethroned an elected government, the US State Department calling for an end to violence “welcomed the interim government and urged that any transition be conducted in accordance with Bangladesh’s laws”⁵.

The US has now endorsed an interim government comprising of the principal opposition- BNP whose chairman Tariq Rahman is accused of launching grenade attacks and supplying arms and ammunition to ULFA separatists. BNP is in turn an active supporter of Jamaat-e-Islami, a pro-Pakistan radical group involved in indoctrinating people and advocates Sharia Law, and the Hezafat-e-Islam with a central agenda of creating an Islamic State in Bangladesh⁶. Instructively the anti-India BNP, Jamaat and its student wing Islamic Chhatra Shibir (ICS) and Hezafat as per some intelligence reports were backed by Pakistan’s ISI and China, with China providing the financial support.

Daniel Markey, geopolitical analyst at the United States Institute of Peace sharing elucidating US perspective on the Bangladesh election said, “Overall, many US officials—including top members of the Biden administration—appreciate that a less democratically—oriented South Asia will be a more difficult region for the United States to operate”⁶.

In its bid to democratise nations, the US has fiddled with political dispensations through the Arab Spring in 2011, the Ukrainian Orange Revolution (Maidan uprising) in 2014. Bangladesh’s political fallout, scripted from the US’s regime change toolkit is the latest addition to this ignominious list. Hasina’s regime wasn’t perfect but her democratic temperament makes her a safer bet than the radicalised Islamist political stakeholders of Bangladesh. Having narrowly circumvented similar orchestrations, India is now closely monitoring the situation that heaped uneasy turbulence in its neighbourhood.

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