Editorial

Few port cities occupy as advantageous a position as Chittagong: situated where the Bay of Bengal narrows toward Myanmar, at the confluence of overland trade routes across South Asia and maritime corridors extending toward China and Southeast Asia. This geographic endowment has long outpaced the infrastructure built to exploit it. This year’s national budget signals Dhaka’s intent to finally close that gap.
Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury outlined the framework during a visit to Chittagong: a 600-acre economic zone on the Karnaphuli’s southern bank, a substantially expanded airport designed for serious cargo capacity, a dedicated Chinese economic zone, and a rail corridor intended to materially reduce Dhaka-Chittagong transit time. Taken alongside the Matarbari deep-sea port, already the most consequential coastal infrastructure undertaking in the country’s history, these initiatives are designed to reposition Chittagong from a transit point for goods into a logistics hub in its own right.
Matarbari’s depth capacity is the linchpin. It can accommodate vessels too large for Chittagong’s existing port, precisely the class of ships that render a Bay of Bengal stopover commercially viable on China-Indian Ocean shipping lanes, rather than a theoretical proposition.
This is what lends substance to discussions of a China-Myanmar-Bangladesh economic corridor. Lieutenant General Mohammad Mahfuzur Rahman (Retd) characterizes it as a form of strategic leverage previously unavailable to Bangladesh, a route linking China’s Yunnan province through Myanmar to Chittagong Port that could substantially compress the roughly two-week sea transit currently required to reach Chinese markets. Given that China already ranks among Bangladesh’s principal trading partners, the underlying commercial logic is far from speculative.
Economists frame the opportunity in structural terms. Dr Mohammad Lutfor Rahman of Jahangirnagar University observes that efficient transport infrastructure and streamlined customs procedures are decisive factors in how multinational manufacturers select a production base, positioning Bangladesh as an increasingly competitive option for firms serving both South and Southeast Asian markets. His colleague, Md Rashidul Islam Rusel, extends the argument further: corridor access could open ASEAN markets to Bangladeshi exporters, with tariff advantages and more effective deployment of the country’s labor capacity.
The minister was candid that this is not a near-term transformation, with measurable economic momentum unlikely before the third or fourth year of implementation, a timeline consistent with the scale of the undertaking rather than a deficiency in planning.
What remains constant is the geography itself. Chittagong has always occupied precisely the position a regional trade hub requires. Bangladesh is now constructing the port capacity, rail infrastructure, and economic zones necessary to convert that positional advantage into realized economic weight, ensuring the country features in this decade’s corridor discussions as an active architect of the route, not merely a location it happens to pass through.

There is a legal vocabulary for what happens along the India-Bangladesh frontier, and it is worth using precisely, because precision is what the debate keeps losing. When a state’s agents kill unarmed civilians outside a recognized theatre of conflict, the applicable standard under international human rights law is not self-defense as commonly understood in domestic criminal codes, but necessity and proportionality — force must be the last available option, and even then, calibrated to the threat actually posed. Nine Bangladeshis shot dead by India’s Border Security Force since January do not fit comfortably inside that standard, whatever language the BSF’s after-action reports use. Two died in Brahmanbaria’s Kasba upazila on May 8, one near Coachbehar on May 15, one more in Moulvibazar’s Kulaura upazila on June 12, a death that arrived one day after the two countries’ border forces had concluded four days of talks in New Delhi ostensibly aimed at preventing exactly this outcome.
What makes the pattern analytically significant, rather than merely tragic, is its persistence across changes in government on both sides of the border. Ain o Salish Kendra’s figures; 34 killed in 2025, 30 in 2024, 31 in 2023; span an interim technocratic administration in Dhaka and an elected one, a period in which Bangladesh’s foreign policy establishment shifted from unelected caretakers to a BNP government that campaigned explicitly on ending border killings. The continuity of the underlying practice, indifferent to who occupies Ganabhaban, suggests something closer to institutional doctrine on the Indian side than incidental excess. That doctrine found unusually candid articulation this year in a reported internal BSF communique, dated March 26, instructing field units to assess deploying snakes and crocodiles into riverine gaps where physical fencing has proven impractical, a proposal a former BSF director general himself dismissed as unable to distinguish nationality from intent, but one whose existence in writing indicates a security apparatus contemplating lethality as an engineering problem rather than a legal one.
The push-in question sits adjacent to this but is doctrinally distinct: it is a matter of state responsibility for the treatment of persons within a state’s jurisdiction, and of the customary prohibition on the forcible transfer of individuals across an international boundary absent due process. Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed’s disclosure to parliament on June 17, 2,369 people pushed across since August 2024, the overwhelming majority processed through Bangladeshi police stations rather than returned through any bilateral mechanism, describes a practice that treats an international border less as a demarcation of sovereignty than as a discretionary outlet for a domestic policy problem, namely West Bengal’s post-election “detect, delete, deport” campaign against alleged undocumented residents. That Rohingya and Myanmar nationals have been included among those pushed only sharpens the point: the border is being used to externalize a burden that international law generally assigns to the state where displaced persons are found, not to whichever neighbor happens to share a fence line. Bangladesh, notably, has continued to accept and process every individual verified as its own national through established channels, even as the volume of unverified transfers has grown.
The diplomatic record shows Bangladesh availing itself of every available instrument, the 57th BGB-BSF director general conference, parliamentary statements, a formal summons of India’s deputy high commissioner over a separate incident involving a prime ministerial adviser detained at Delhi airport, without yet securing the one outcome that would indicate the relationship is being taken seriously on both sides: a compensation mechanism for victims’ families, which Ahmed confirmed does not exist, and a verifiable reduction in fatalities, which the data does not show. The absence of the customary joint press conference at the June conference’s conclusion was a minor procedural detail, but diplomatic minutiae of that kind tend to register the actual temperature of a relationship more honestly than its communiqués do.
None of this is incidental to a bilateral friendship the size and history of the one Dhaka and New Delhi claim to share. A shared border exceeding four thousand kilometers, nearly a fifth of it still unfenced by necessity rather than choice, is either governed by mutual restraint or it is governed by whichever side holds the greater capacity for unilateral action and for the residents of Kurigram, Chapainawabganj, and Brahmanbaria, the answer to that question is being decided empirically, one border pillar at a time, rather than in any conference room.

The Palashbari controversy invites us to confront a fundamental distinction that holds pluralistic societies together: the difference between a constitutional right to practice religion today and an empirical claim to historical continuity yesterday. North Bengal is not a blank slate waiting for a singular identity to be etched upon it; it is a complex, deeply layered palimpsest where every epoch has left a distinct material footprint. To understand this region’s religious evolution, one must look to the soil; to epigraphy, numismatics, and stratigraphy rather than the volatile arena of social media or contemporary polemics. When we subject North Bengal to rigorous historical and archaeological audit, a clear, chronological pattern emerges that directly challenges the premise of retrofitting modern architectural ambitions with ancient lineage.
The earliest, most physically imposing layer of North Bengal’s identity is unassailably Buddhist. The sheer scale of excavated complexes; the massive urban fortifications of Mahasthangarh, the sprawling monasteries of Bhasu Vihara, Sitakot Vihara, Gokul Medh, and Bihar Dhap, reveals an ancient landscape that was once a premier global powerhouse of Buddhist education and philosophy. This material reality, heavily documented by medieval travelers like Xuanzang and embodied by intellectual giants like Atish Dipankar during the Pala Dynasty, forms the bedrock of the region’s historical consciousness. When Hindu traditions later expanded following the gradual decline of Buddhism, they did not manifest as a monolith. The archaeological and documentary record demonstrates that the sacred geography of North Bengal became predominantly defined by Shakta, Shaiva, and Krishna-Vaishnava traditions.
The major regional pilgrimage sites tell this specific story. The Bhabanipur Shaktipeeth stands as a monumental testament to Goddess Bhavani, while the architectural marvel of the Kantajew Temple and the venerable Govinda Bhita site represent high-water marks of Vaishnava and Krishna worship. Conspicuously absent from this dense archaeological grid is any evidence characterizing the Gaibandha-Bogura-Rangpur corridor as a historically significant epicenter of Ram worship. While individual devotion or household practice undoubtedly existed across various communities over the centuries, it never formed a defining, institutionalized feature of North Bengal’s public heritage. To assert otherwise in the present day is to conflate personal devotion with regional history.
This complex landscape shifted again from the thirteenth century onward with the gradual, structural arrival of Islam. Facilitated by the expansion of the Bengal Sultanate and the Mughal Empire, the influence of Sufi saints, and agrarian transformations, Islam became the faith of the region’s majority. Critically, North Bengal’s Islamic heritag, exemplified by the architectural brilliance of the Sura, Chihilghazi, and Nayabad mosques in Dinajpur, the Mithapukur Mosque in Rangpur, and the Jamalpur Shahi Mosque in Gaibandha, functions differently than its Buddhist predecessor. While the Buddhist monasteries survive as excavated ruins, the region’s Islamic monuments exist as a living, breathing cultural continuum seamlessly integrated into the daily social and spiritual life of the populace. A final, distinct layer was added much later during the colonial era with the late eighteenth-century arrival of Christian missions, marked by the founding of the Dinajpur Baptist Mission Church in 1796.
Acknowledging this multi-layered history does not diminish the constitutional liberties of present-day communities. Under the laws of Bangladesh, every religious group enjoys the undeniable legal right to establish places of worship. If a community wishes to construct a modern monument or a statue in Palashbari, it may do so, provided it navigates the transparent, secular mechanisms of the state, including clear land title, zoning compliance, public safety protocols, and funding transparency. However, problems arise when modern construction seeks validation by misrepresenting local history. A mosque built today does not prove that Islam stood on that exact acre for a millennium; a statue erected tomorrow does not transform a historically Shakta or Buddhist landscape into an ancient center of Ram worship. When we allow unverified narratives to masquerade as historical continuity, we invite social polarization and erode the integrity of our shared past.
To prevent controversies like Palashbari from fracturing into communal tension, the state and its academic institutions must transition from a reactive posture to a proactive strategy of cultural preservation and public education. The Department of Archaeology, in tandem with research universities, should construct a digital regional heritage atlas to catalog every verified site, detailing its exact construction period and archaeological findings. Furthermore, field research must be expanded into insufficiently explored pockets of Gaibandha and Palashbari to fully map their cultural evolution. Living assets and excavated ruins alike require enhanced conservation, and our educational frameworks must evolve to teach the history of Bengal not as a series of sudden, fractured disruptions, but as a rich, unbroken process of civilizational evolution. Ultimately, the Palashbari controversy should be resolved through the rule of law and the clarity of evidence, preserving both public harmony and historical integrity.

There are moments in diplomacy when the destination itself becomes the message. When a newly elected prime minister chooses Beijing for one of his earliest official visits, the significance extends well beyond protocol or ceremony. The itinerary, the meetings, the agreements under negotiation and the level of reception together communicate a broader strategic intent.

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s visit to China represents such a moment. It reflects a government seeking to deepen economic partnerships while pursuing a foreign policy shaped increasingly by Bangladesh’s own national interests. More than a routine bilateral engagement, the visit suggests that Dhaka is positioning itself to engage major powers with greater confidence and strategic flexibility.

International observers have focused on the practical outcomes expected from the visit. Reuters highlighted Bangladesh’s efforts to attract investment, create employment and diversify its external economic partnerships. Reports indicate that between 15 and 17 bilateral instruments—including memorandums of understanding, agreements, action plans and protocols—are expected to be signed, covering sectors such as infrastructure, energy, industrial development and river management, including the long-discussed Teesta project.

Yet the broader significance of the visit extends beyond the number of agreements. It reflects Bangladesh’s effort to strengthen ties with China while maintaining constructive relations with other regional and global partners. Rather than signaling alignment with any single power, the visit points to a more balanced and interest-driven foreign policy.

Chinese media have also attached considerable importance to the visit. Commentaries in the Global Times argued that Bangladesh should continue pursuing a “Bangladesh First” approach based on its own national priorities. The publication also noted that Bangladesh-China relations have been elevated to a Comprehensive Strategic Cooperative Partnership, underscoring Beijing’s intention to deepen long-term cooperation.

The same publication rejected suggestions that closer Bangladesh-China relations should be viewed through the lens of regional rivalry, arguing that bilateral cooperation is intended to serve mutual development rather than target any third country. Regardless of how such commentary is interpreted, it illustrates the broader geopolitical attention surrounding the visit.

The ceremonial aspects of the visit also reflected its importance. Prime Minister Tarique Rahman received a formal state welcome in Beijing, including an official reception, guard of honour and meetings with China’s highest political leadership. His schedule includes separate meetings with Premier Li Qiang and President Xi Jinping—an indication of the importance Beijing attaches to relations with Bangladesh.

Economically, the visit comes at a time when both countries are seeking to expand cooperation. Bangladesh hopes to attract greater Chinese investment in manufacturing, industrial zones, infrastructure, renewable energy and technology. The Chinese Economic and Industrial Zone in Chattogram, along with discussions on trade expansion and regional connectivity, reflects this broader agenda.

Defence cooperation has also emerged as an area of discussion. For Bangladesh, diversifying partnerships in defence, technology and industrial capability aligns with a broader objective of strengthening national capacity while maintaining strategic autonomy.

Importantly, the visit should not be viewed as a departure from Bangladesh’s relationships with India, the United States, the Gulf states or other international partners. Rather, it reflects an effort to engage all major partners based on mutual benefit and national priorities.

An interest-based foreign policy requires balancing multiple relationships while preserving policy independence. Such an approach demands institutional capacity, consistent diplomacy and the ability to manage competing expectations from larger powers.

In that context, Tarique Rahman’s visit to Beijing may represent an early indication of a foreign policy framework that seeks broader partnerships without exclusive alignment. Whether that approach succeeds will depend not only on the agreements signed during this visit but also on how effectively Bangladesh translates diplomatic engagement into long-term economic growth, technological advancement and strategic resilience.

Ultimately, the importance of the visit lies not only in its immediate outcomes but in the direction it suggests: a Bangladesh seeking to engage the world with greater confidence, pursuing partnerships that advance its own development priorities while maintaining constructive relations across an increasingly complex international landscape.

Geography is not a choice. Bangladesh and India will share a border long after every current government has passed into history. The question, therefore, has never been whether relations will exist, it is what kind of relations they will be. Built on mutual respect and sovereign equality, or sustained through asymmetry, political favoritism, and the slow accumulation of distrust? That is the question the current crisis forces both countries to answer honestly.
The origins of this crisis are not difficult to trace. Between 2009 and 2024, Bangladesh-India relations reached their warmest point since independence. Security cooperation deepened, trade expanded, connectivity improved, and India secured strategic access to its northeastern states through Bangladeshi territory. On paper, the relationship looked like a regional model. Beneath the surface, it was something more complicated.
Throughout those fifteen years, Bangladesh experienced serious democratic deterioration. Elections were contested, political opponents were silenced, enforced disappearances became a documented pattern, and press freedom eroded systematically. Western governments and international human rights organizations raised consistent objections. India, with equal consistency, either stayed silent or continued its warm engagement regardless. The message this sent to ordinary Bangladeshis was not ambiguous: New Delhi valued a friendly government in Dhaka more than it valued the democratic rights of the Bangladeshi people. Whether or not that reading fully captures India’s calculations, it became a political reality. When the mass uprising of August 2024 removed Sheikh Hasina from power, that accumulated perception did not dissolve. It hardened.
In diplomacy, perception is rarely a secondary concern. It is often the only one that matters.
No single-issue captures India’s dilemma more sharply than the continued presence of Sheikh Hasina on Indian soil. A state retains the sovereign right to grant shelter to foreign political figures, that principle is not in dispute. What is in dispute is the line between humanitarian shelter and implicit political endorsement, a line India has conspicuously refused to draw. The Bangladeshi people, through a popular uprising whose scale cannot be credibly dismissed, rejected a government. When the principal figure of that government was permitted to remain in India while continuing to make political statements, a significant portion of the Bangladeshi public reached a logical conclusion: that India had not accepted the new political reality, and that the Awami League remained its preferred interlocutor in Dhaka. India could have adopted a clearer, more transparent posture on this question. It chose not to. That choice carries consequences.
India is, by every meaningful measure, the dominant power in South Asia. Its economy, military capacity, and regional influence dwarf those of its neighbors. But disproportionate power generates disproportionate responsibility. When tensions arise between a stronger and a weaker state, the expectation of greater restraint and diplomatic maturity falls naturally on the more powerful party. This is not sentiment; it is the foundation of any sustainable regional order. A regional power that uses its weight to pressure rather than reassure its neighbors does not produce stability. It produces resentment.
The political transition of August 2024 gave India a clear opportunity: to demonstrate, convincingly, that its relationship was with Bangladesh as a nation and not with any particular political party. India did not take that opportunity. Influential sections of Indian media and political commentary produced a sustained narrative portraying Bangladesh as unstable, hostile to minorities, and approaching state failure. Many of these claims were later shown to be exaggerated or factually false. Yet they shaped public opinion in both countries, and the damage to Bangladeshi trust was real. Simultaneously, social media discourse in India filled with references to military operations and aggressive scenarios directed at Bangladesh. These were not official government positions. But states are judged not only by what their governments formally declare, they are also judged by what their political culture tolerates and amplifies.
Border conduct has added another layer of tension. Bangladesh has formally raised complaints about push-in operations, instances where individuals were transferred across the frontier outside established diplomatic and verification procedures. Both countries possess functioning bilateral mechanisms for handling such matters. When those mechanisms are bypassed in favor of unilateral, informal action, it does not read as routine border management. It reads as political pressure. Many Bangladeshis have drawn precisely that conclusion.
Then there is the question of military signaling. Every state has the right to develop its defense capabilities, India’s sovereign right in this regard is unquestioned. But military posture also functions as a political language, and context determines meaning. Bangladesh has never made a territorial claim against India. It has never adopted an aggressive military stance. It has not joined any alliance directed against Indian interests. On the contrary, it has cooperated with India on security matters across successive governments. When security framing and military messaging intensify specifically toward a neighbor that poses no military threat, during a period of political strain, the message being communicated is not reassurance. A mature regional power should make its neighbors feel secure, not anxious.
Bangladesh today is pursuing a diversified foreign policy, strengthening relations with China, Malaysia, Türkiye, the Gulf states, Japan, and Europe. This is not anti-India policy. It is sovereignty in practice. India itself maintains concurrent relationships with the United States, Russia, and France without treating this as a contradiction. Bangladesh deserves the same latitude. A confident Bangladesh pursuing its interests through multiple partnerships is ultimately a more stable and reliable neighbor than one kept dependent and resentful.
India’s deepest strategic error, however, may be simpler than any of this. It treated the Awami League and Bangladesh as if they were the same thing. No political party, however long in power, is coterminous with a nation. Bangladesh existed before the Awami League and will continue long after it. By investing its political capital so completely in one electoral force, India created distance between itself and a large, diverse, and politically conscious society. That is the distance it is now struggling to close, from a position of diminished trust.
Bangladesh is not without its own responsibilities. Minority communities must be protected, not as a concession to external pressure, but as a constitutional and moral obligation. The rule of law must be upheld without exception. Foreign policy must be grounded in realistic national interest rather than reactive emotion. Political sentiment is not a substitute for strategic thinking. These obligations belong to Bangladesh regardless of what India does or does not do.
But responsibility in this relationship is not equally distributed. India’s sustained alignment with the previous government, its handling of the Hasina question, its border conduct, its tolerance of hostile narratives, and its position as the dominant regional power. all of this places the heavier burden of repair at New Delhi’s door.
What Bangladesh asks of India is not charity. It is recognition. Recognition that the Bangladesh of 2026 is not the Bangladesh of 2023. That its people made a sovereign political choice which deserves respect. That a relationship worth having must be founded on equality rather than managed through leverage.
Geography cannot be renegotiated. Diplomatic behavior can. And in the present moment, the first meaningful step toward rebuilding trust must come from India, not because Bangladesh is without fault, but because the country with the greater power and the longer record of consequential choices carries the greater obligation to move first.

Relations between neighboring countries work best when they are built on restraint, not assertion. For Bangladesh, the real issue is not whether India calls it a friend, but whether India’s behavior matches the standards of friendship. That question matters because trust in diplomacy is shaped far more by conduct than by vocabulary.
Bangladesh has consistently avoided hostility toward India. It has not claimed Indian territory, nor has it sought to project power across the border. Its position has been straightforward: peaceful coexistence, practical cooperation, and respect for sovereignty. In that context, any perception of pressure, asymmetry, or political interference naturally draws scrutiny.
A sovereign state has every right to defend itself. If India expands its military capacity or deepens its strategic partnerships, that is its prerogative. Bangladesh is no different. It may strengthen its own defense systems, choose its own suppliers, and build security ties according to its own national interests. Sovereignty is not a favor granted by neighbors; it is a constitutional reality.
The same applies to foreign policy. Bangladesh is not obliged to seek validation for its choices, whether in defense, diplomacy, trade, or technology. Its relationships with China, the United States, Türkiye, Japan, Pakistan, the European Union, Gulf states, or any other partner should be guided by one principle alone: Bangladesh’s national interest.
What troubles many Bangladeshis is not engagement itself, but the appearance of hierarchy. When a larger state expects deference while treating its own strategic moves as normal, the result is not confidence but resentment. Friendship cannot survive if one side assumes the role of instructor and the other is expected to remain compliant.
Border management has also become a sensitive issue. Allegations of push-ins, if true, are not minor administrative concerns. They carry human consequences and diplomatic weight. Such matters require transparent legal and diplomatic procedure, not actions that create the impression of unilateral control.
There is also growing discomfort over the use of Bangladesh’s internal issues, especially minority concerns, as a lever in external politics. The protection of minorities in Bangladesh is an internal responsibility of the Bangladeshi state. Raising such issues in good faith is one thing; using them to influence domestic politics is another.
Bangladesh today is not a country without leverage. Its economy has expanded, its strategic location matters, and its regional importance is increasing. That reality should encourage confidence, not dependence. A mature foreign policy must reflect that confidence by remaining independent, balanced, and firmly anchored in national interest.
Bangladesh is open to friendship with India. It is open to friendship with everyone. But friendship, to be meaningful, must be mutual. It cannot rest on pressure, imbalance, or assumptions of entitlement. If India wants to be seen as a genuine partner, it will need to demonstrate that it understands a simple truth: sovereign nations do not seek approval for being sovereign.