Jayanta Roy Chowdhury | As Bangladesh Set To Vote Thursday, New Delhi Going To Face Old Dilemma
At stake is not merely the outcome of an election, but the nature of authority that will manifest itself. Bangladesh’s transition since the August 2024 regime change has of course unfolded in an extremely chaotic fashion
As Dhaka's streets witness demonstrations, violence, labour unrest and boycott calls, ahead of elections to the Bangladesh Parliament on Thursday, creating a crisis of confidence all around, New Delhi finds itself confronting a recurring dilemma in its neighbourhood.
How should India respond when democratic process, public consent and political stability fall out of alignment or are less than orderly?
At stake is not merely the outcome of an election, but the nature of authority that will manifest itself. Bangladesh’s transition since the August 2024 regime change has of course unfolded in an extremely chaotic fashion. The democracy deficit in Sheikh Hasina’s time has deepened, and certainly not been reduced.
What has emerged is a governing arrangement whose mandate appears derived from mobilisation by fringe forces rather than the slow, legitimising grind of electoral consent. Mobocracy rather than democracy has been seen more often on the streets of Dhaka in the last 18 months.
For India, which shares with Bangladesh not only a long border but a dense web of economic, security and cultural ties, the uncertainty is consequential.
New Delhi’s strategic instinct has long been pragmatic rather than ideological. India has historically dealt with governments in Dhaka across the political spectrum, recognising that neighbourhood diplomacy requires engagement with whoever holds power rather than whoever inspires comfort.
Yet pragmatism has its limits -- India has obviously not been happy when its interests were taken for a ride in the 1980s and 1990s by Dhaka joining hands with Pakistan to back insurgent groups from the Northeast. Nor was New Delhi amused when Islamic militant groups were trained and funded through Bangladesh for strikes within India.
However, Raisina Hill does understand it must give a chance to whoever is voted to power in Thursday’s elections, regardless of past history. Most actors have promised good behaviour to Indian representatives, both in New Delhi and in Dhaka.
The question now confronting Indian policymakers is whether the current turbulence will give rise to an elected government capable of exercising authority beyond the streets; and whether such a government, if it emerges at all, will have both legitimacy and the power to endure.
After all, the banning of a party, Awami League, that has never polled less than 25 per cent of the popular vote, is considered by some sections to be undermining the concept of an inclusive election. A referendum without a constitution-making body for which the state is campaigning for a yes, is also seen by many to be violative of the spirit of a free or fair electoral process.
The Awami League’s exclusion from the electoral field has sharply narrowed Bangladesh’s political funnel. This is not the sidelining of a marginal actor but the removal of one of the country’s foundational parties from competitive politics.
The resulting contest risks becoming less representative and more polarised, dominated by forces whose rivalry is shaped as much by past alliances as by present opportunism. In such a compressed political space, ideological minorities can acquire outsized influence, particularly as they are already embedded within the machinery of the state.
There is also the danger that the results may well not bring any clear majority for any of the players and the spiral of violence and intimidation that is being witnessed will deprive the polls of much-needed legitimacy.
Periods of political flux in Bangladesh have historically coincided with the revival of extremist networks, especially those that thrive in institutional ambiguity. The containment of militancy achieved over the past decade was not accidental; it was the product of a strong state with a clear chain of command and a political leadership willing to absorb the costs of enforcement.
That equilibrium now looks fragile and the promises made both by Jamaat and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the two major players in this election, may well be difficult for them to keep especially if fundamentalists keep pressing for discord with India.
The regional context only sharpens the anxiety. Armed Rohingya camps along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border have already added a combustible layer to an already volatile frontier. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s long-standing interest in exploiting instability in India’s eastern neighbourhood has not disappeared. In such moments, uncertainty itself becomes an invitation: for non-state actors, intelligence agencies and ideological movements seeking relevance through disruption.
Yet the danger for India lies not only in what it fears, but in how it responds. New Delhi has often stumbled in its neighbourhood by allowing moral postures to harden into diplomatic constraints. An excessive focus on human-rights signalling, however well-intentioned, can shrink room for manoeuvre and provoke nationalist backlash in societies already sensitive to external pressure.
Equally limiting is the habit of sorting neighbouring political actors into simplistic categories of friendliness or hostility toward India. Such labels obscure a basic truth: political forces, especially in times of upheaval, are driven less by alignment than by survival.
Bangladesh’s politics are also changing demographically. A new generation of voters -- born after the country’s foundational trauma -- does not necessarily carry the emotional inheritance of the liberation struggle.
The old binaries that once structured electoral narratives are losing their hold, replaced by more fluid, and unpredictable, motivations. This generational shift adds another layer of uncertainty to an already unstable moment.
Democratic legitimacy, political stability and the containment of militancy are all outcomes India has a stake in. However, none can be imposed from across the border, they have to be managed from within by willing partners.
For now, New Delhi’s task is not to engineer outcomes but to manage exposure. That means calibrating expectations, resisting the urge to moralise, and focusing on the protection of core interests: especially security spillovers that don’t respect national boundaries. In South Asia, patience is often mistaken for passivity. In moments like this, it is more accurately understood as strategy.
The writer is a senior journalist and Bangladesh watcher
