“Bangladesh: Indian Response Should Be Containment, Not Engagement”, For Pol India, December 22, 2025
“From an intelligence and policy perspective, the current trajectory of relations with Bangladesh requires a sober reassessment. This is not a moment for emotive diplomacy or reassurance driven by habit. It is a moment that demands clarity of interest and discipline of response. When hostility becomes structured, preformative, and politically useful on the other side, engagement ceases to stabilise. It becomes a vulnerability.
Why Engagement No Longer Works
For more than a decade, India invested in deep engagement with Bangladesh. Borders remained open during political stress. Indian hospitals absorbed cross border medical demand. Transit facilities expanded. Development assistance continued across political cycles. The assumption was that proximity and material interdependence would moderate behaviour and anchor goodwill.
That assumption no longer holds. When antagonism toward India becomes a mobilising narrative domestically and a signalling device externally, engagement stops producing stability. Instead, it provides leverage to actors who benefit from portraying India as both indispensable and adversarial. From a policy standpoint, this is the point where diminishing returns turn negative…..”
Read full article at forpolindia.com
