Bangladesh has been shaken by violent demonstrations since December 2025 when Sharif Osman Hadi, a well-known youth leader and a fierce opponent of India, died. Although the catalyst that triggered the situation was his sad assassination death, the riot has soon evolved to be a bigger outcry of anti-India sentiment. This is not a single occurrence but a culmination of dissatisfactions due to the long practicing hegemonic influence in the region by India. To most Bangladeshi, the Indian political and economic policies as well as their border policies have been an epitome of intrusion into the sovereignty of the country.
India’s Overbearing Influence
The issue of India in South Asian region has always been marked by its efforts to establish its dominance in the region, and Bangladesh could not be left out. The political and economic policies of India towards Bangladesh will tend to be unequal. Bangladesh has been economically coerced by its giant neighbor who has the upper hand with resources like water and the trade routes of its neighbors, causing it to be dependent on it and as a result, nothing to frustrate the Bangladesh sovereignty.
Water issues: Among the biggest complaints that Bangladesh has raised regarding India is the issue that has existed between the two countries over the years and is the sharing of common rivers such as the Teesta and the Ganges. India has severally vetoed agreements on fair water distribution, as Bangladesh is in dire need of water in farms. A 2019 research by the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People states that Indian dominion of its water resources has resulted to devastating droughts and famine in the northern parts of Bangladesh where Millions of lives have been affected.
Economic Dependence: Bangladesh has been economically exploited by its economic allies, India, through an extremely unequal balance of trade with India as the major trading partner. The trade deficit between Bangladesh and India was USD 4.59 billion July 2023-June 2024. The tariffs that India imposes on the goods of Bangladesh and unequal treaties make this even worse as Bangladesh is economically utilized by India, something that the people of Bangladesh see as an exploitation by India.
India’s Border Security Practices and Political Interference
The policies of border security of India have also been a contributing factor to the resentment of Bangladesh. Indian Border Security Forces (BSF) has been alleged to kill and violate human rights through extrajudicial murders along 4096km long border between the two nations. Human Rights Watch reports that over a thousand two hundred people have been killed since 2000 by the Indian forces of Bangladesh and in very unpleasant situations. This has caused scarring of the border communities and has caused anti India sentiment.
Moreover, India has a record of interfering in the political activities of Bangladesh. It is likely that since the Liberation War of 1971, India has been instrumental in deciding the political future of the country towards its interest and decomposition of the ones that does not. The latest manifestation of this was the exile of Noruhine Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the year 2024, who was a former close crony of India. India did not recognize her overthrow and instead assisted in the interim government of Muhammad Yunus, and was considered an effort to dictate to Bangladesh on her political course.
India’s Regional Hegemony and Its Impact on Bangladesh
India’s approach to regional politics is heavily focused on maintaining control over its neighbors, and Bangladesh has been frequently in the cross fire. In the event of the death of Hadi, just as many people in Bangladesh regarded the same as an internal political issue, the presence of India involved in backing the political elites in Bangladesh has given the impression that there is external interference. Hadi, who would have become the challenge to the establishment, had long criticised the Indian policies especially on its contribution to the political instability of Bangladesh.
The growing regional power of India has sounded alarm not only in Bangladesh but also in South Asia. According to many political analysts, the dominance of India is now posing a challenge to the regional sovereignty of other smaller states. India has tried to managed to establish the status of a regional hegemon by creating dependency through trade, aid as well as military alliances at the expense of losing its strategic allies such as Bangladesh. The nationalistic feelings of Bangladesh which are manifested by the followers of Hadi are a direct consequence of economic and political bullying of India.
Violence and Escalation: A Deepening Crisis
The current protests in Bangladesh are not merely a response to the murders of Hadi but evidence of the general disappointment of the policy of India. Protesters have invaded Indian diplomatic embassy, confronted security agencies, demanding that India desist with interfering in the internal matters of Bangladesh. The condition is taking a very rapid turn with dozens of journalists being hurt in the violence as the media is being assaulted and suppressed. (Reuters, 2025)
It is symptomatic violence that portrays much larger problem. Failure to resolve the genuine grievances of Bangladesh as outlined by India (killing along the border of Bangladesh, water rights as well as sovereignty as an entity) has driven the region to instability. However, rather than contributing to cooperation, the politics of Indian regional security and foreign policy towards the country contributed to the political polarization of Bangladesh by making it incapable of moving on the peace front.
A Call for Rethinking Regional Strategy
The world community needs to note that regional supremacy of India has worked against it. The present policy of India towards Bangladesh, in which it exercises its economic and political influence to manipulate its smaller neighbors, is a formula to instability in the South Asian region in the long run. In case India wants to be regarded as an authentic regional partner, it will have to forget about its hegemonic mentality and be ready to interact with its neighbors based on equality, respect, and mutual advantage.
Bangladesh should be given the opportunity to develop its sovereign course of action without being overly interfered with, similar to other minor South Asian countries. The international community should help Bangladesh enjoy its right to self-determination and make the bullying actions of India what they are; a threat against regional peace and security.
Moving Beyond Hegemony
This has not only caused India and Bangladesh to become estranged though it has also strengthened a story of Indian imperialism in Bangladesh. As long as India is not willing to appreciate the need of having a fair relationship and honoring the sovereignty of Bangladesh, the region remains tension-prone and unstable. The future of Bangladesh and along with South Asia lies in the dismantling of the stranglehold of India and commencement of new and autonomous forms of relations that are not based on dominance but respect and cooperation.
I categorically and unequivocally repudiate Nirma Khalil’s bald-faced distortion of reality throughout her column, which asserts that Bangladesh’s unrest is primarily the consequence of so-called “India’s hegemonic policies.” Bangladesh has never lived under Indian hegemony, and to suggest otherwise is to willfully falsify history. Such reductionist and partisan rhetoric not only misrepresents the nation’s complex political dynamics, it recklessly scapegoats a neighboring state while deliberately obscuring the far more insidious truth: that the American deep state—led by the CIA and operating in collusion with Pakistan’s most extremist networks—found eager collaborators within Bangladesh itself. Chief among them were Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the Jamaati–Shibir nexus—the ideological heirs of 1971—the BNP deeply entrenched within the Dhaka cantonment, and a motley alliance of far-right fundamentalists repackaged for what many analysts now describe as the CIA’s “Model 2024” experiment. Acting in concert, these forces dismantled the government of Bangladesh’s most successful Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, and supplanted it with a puppet administration bereft of legitimacy, vision, and moral authority.
Her portrayal of India as the architect of Bangladesh’s domestic unrest is a narrative not grounded in nuanced analysis but in simplistic geopolitical myth-making that serves neither truth nor constructive dialogue.
Blaming India for every challenge Bangladesh faces is intellectually lazy and geopolitically toxic. It erases agency within Bangladesh, ignores credible evidence of multiple intersecting causes of instability, and fuels regressive nationalism rather than promoting sober reflection on how to heal and strengthen Bangladesh’s own institutions and society. Equating legitimate critique of foreign policy with conspiracy undermines responsible discourse and does a disservice to readers seeking clarity — not caricature.
In an era when accurate, evidence-based commentary is indispensable, to peddle such sweeping assertions without nuance or substantiation is not merely an error of judgment — it is a breach of intellectual integrity. Opinions should illuminate, not inflame; they should inform, not mislead.
–Anwar A. Khan,
a direct witness of the brutal birth of Bangladesh from a very close proximity in 1971 and a frontline Freedom Fighter of the 1971 war field to establish Bangladesh.
Nimra Khalil is a Pakistan-based geopolitical analyst and opinion writer:)) . Her research and commentary explore international relations ( AKA PAK ISI NARRATIVE As seen in this propaganda article ), security strategy, and the shifting balance of power in an increasingly multipolar world ( STATEMENT COPIED FROM S JAISHANKERS STATEMENTS, with particular attention to South Asia ( This article proves that she has Zero understanding of south Asia affairs)