13 August 2024

India Walks On Thin Ice In Bangladesh – Analysis

P. K. Balachandran

India’s relationship with Bangladesh touched the nadir this month when its trusted friend in Dhaka, Sheikh Hasina, quit the Prime Ministership and fled to India unable to face the wrath of her people who were denied basic democratic rights during her 15-year rule.

This was the second time that the India-Bangladesh relationship had touched the nadir. The first was in August 1975, when Hasina’s father and Father of the Nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated by a group of junior military officers aggrieved by Mujib’s dictatorship, his inability to shore up a crashing economy, and his alleged servitude to India, which had helped him establish Bangladesh.

From 1975 till 1996, when Mujib’s daughter Sheikh Hasina came to power as an elected Prime Minister for the first time, Bangladesh was in the grip of an anti-Indian sentiment, despite India’s direct role in establishing Bangladesh.

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