Mujib Mashal and Saif Hasnat
Jan 11, 2025

It began with messy political finger pointing, before quickly escalating into diplomatic and trade fallout. Then, over the past week, two nations turned their spat into what could amount to a sports boycott of each other. Relations between India and its neighbor Bangladesh, which share one of the world’s largest land borders and deep cultural ties, have been in a spiral for more than a year. Ties began unraveling after the 2024 overthrow of Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s oppressive leader who had strong support from New Delhi. She was ousted by a
protest movement and fled to India, which has since been criticized by Bangladesh’s interim government and the
protesters for refusing to hand her over to face justice at home.

New Delhi has in turn protested hostile statements by parties in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, and incidents of violence against Bangladesh’s Hindu minority. It suspended its visa operations in the Bangladeshi city of
Chattogram last month after mobs targeted its mission there. Bangladesh reciprocated by pausing visa
operations for Indians after its mission in New Delhi faced tense protests from right-wing Hindu groups. Protests in India from the Hindu right also led to its national cricket body stopping the participation of a Bangladeshi player in the country’s cash-rich Indian Premier League. In reaction, Bangladesh announced that
its team would not travel to India next month for the cricket World Cup, and it asked the game’s international
governing board to move its matches to a neutral venue. The prospect of diplomatic efforts to reduce tensions are\ complicated by domestic politics in both countries, as the acrimony has become a major rallying point in imminent elections on both sides of the border. For New Delhi, the struggle with its eastern neighbor is
part of a larger challenge of responding to intense political churn in its neighborhood as it seeks to establish
itself as a major global power. In recent years, South Asia has seen several popular uprisings and changes of government, forcing Indian policymakers back to the drawing board for strategies in a sphere where China is
also jostling for influence. For Dhaka, the chaotic vacuum after Ms. Hasina’s fall, with law enforcement in tatters and extremist forces unchecked, has unearthed a deep identity crisis. India long held a favored status in Bangladesh since it helped it in the war of independence in 1971, when Bangladesh split from Pakistan. In recent decades, Indian.

leaders sought to deepen the bonds by expanding economic and trade ties with the country of 170 million people. Over the past few years, Bangladesh had sent its goods through Indian ports per the terms of a transshipment agreement, until India recently discontinued it. But as Ms. Hasina monopolized the legacy of that independence war for her party during her 15-year rule, she grew increasingly brutal in crushing her opposition to remain in power. A frustrated younger generation in Bangladesh saw India as the key enabler of human-rights abuses under Ms. Hasina, who ran a widespread campaign of jailings and disappearances of dissenting voices. Her crackdown on protests that ultimately toppled her left around 1,400 people dead.
“Aligning so closely with an increasingly unpopular ruler amplified anti-India sentiment in Bangladesh and left India poorly positioned when a mass uprising forced Hasina from power,” the International Crisis Group said in a recent analysis. Bangladesh has set parliamentary elections in February and effectively banned Ms. Hasina’s party from........

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