In the hours before Sheikh Hasina fled Gonobhaban, her official residence in Dhaka, on 5 August, Bangladeshi security forces killed scores of protesters who had joined a huge march to the capital demanding an end to her autocratic rule. Around the same time, it has since been reported, Hasina had pressured the army chief to enforce a curfew using deadly force, which would have meant the military joining the bloodbath. The army chief refused. The prime minister’s desperate hold on power finally slipped when security chiefs warned that the advancing protesters would reach Gonobhaban within an hour and they doubted their ability to contain the crowd. Speculation that India, her strongest international ally, would intervene in her favour proved unfounded, and Hasina was left at the mercy of the military, which ultimately facilitated her escape across the border. She wound up at a safe house in Delhi, trying but failing to gain asylum in the United Kingdom. All told, the...

In the run-up to Bangladesh’s general election in January 2014, New Delhi took the unusual step of sending a top diplomat from its external affairs ministry to Dhaka to persuade General Hussain Muhammaed Ershad, the country’s former military ruler, to participate in the polls. Big questions had been raised over the fairness of the election. The incumbent government was led by Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League, and the leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) had been placed under virtual house arrest, with police and roadblocks around her house in Dhaka. The BNP and other opposition parties were threatening to boycott the election. Ershad, the head of the Jatiya Party, was perceived as a potential kingmaker, able to bring to power whichever of Bangladesh’s two main parties he supported, but he was also threatening to withdraw from the election.  After a decade of Modi’s reign in India, people in Bangladesh are angry at their government cosying up to a Hindutva regime ...

The just-concluded visit by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India, too, has been described by officials in both the countries as a success that will further cement friendly ties between the two neighbours. However, a good number of observers in Bangladesh, view the outcome fett short of the expectations.  According to them, the seven MOUs signed during the visit were mostly on routine cooperation. The most significant MOU signed was the one regarding sharing of Kushiyara river water, which was agreed upon at the Joint River Commission meeting a week before.  After reading the 33-point joint statement issued after the bilateral talks and the two leaders’ meeting, one conclusion that, I think, exasperated and saddened every conscious citizen was the use of the word “satisfaction,” despite failing to bring down border killings to zero. Item 10 of the joint statement says, “Noting with satisfaction that the number of deaths due to incidents along the border has significantly reduc...

  The violent protests in Bangladesh over a visit by the leader of the county’s most favoured neighbour India, which resulted in the deaths of   at least 14 supporters ,   was an outcome which neither the host nor the guest wanted.  The occasion of the visit was a particularly auspicious one for Bangladesh which rightly prides itself on its independence gained through a nine-month long armed struggle. It was also not unexpected for there to be anything other than high level participation from India in not only the launching of the Golden Jubilee of independence but also the conclusion of a year-long celebration of the birth centenary of the founding leader of the nation, Sheikh Mujibar Rahman. India’s moral, political and military support in Bangladesh’s liberation war meant that any deviation from such participation would have definitely raised eyebrows about the state of the relationship between the two countries. This goodwill visit will inevitably be remembered f...