Bangladesh-Pakistan Thaw Putting The Heat On India

2025-04-23 06:22:05

(MENAFN- Asia Times) The virtual geopolitical map of South Asia is essentially being redrawn-not with sweeping declarations, but with quiet, deliberate strokes.

For decades, the bond between India and Bangladesh stood as a testament to shared history and hard-won liberation. But that solidarity, once assumed unshakable, is beginning to fray.

At the center of this shift stands Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, now leading Bangladesh's interim government. Under his watch, Dhaka is looking past the familiar embrace of New Delhi and extending a cautious hand toward an unlikely partner: Islamabad.

This is no mere diplomatic nicety. When Yunus met Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the margins of the D-8 Summit in Egypt last year, it was the first public thaw in a long-frozen relationship.

That moment, barely noticed beyond foreign ministry press rooms, has since gathered momentum. The outreach to Beijing that followed -underscored by Yunus's high-profile visit and rumors of Chinese infrastructure creeping dangerously close to India's northeastern frontier-has only deepened New Delhi's unease.

For many of the Bangladeshis who grew up in the shadow of 1971, the image of a national leader shaking hands with a Pakistani counterpart is jarring. The Liberation War, marked by genocide and trauma, is not just a historical event-it is a national memory burned deep and bitterly into the Bangladeshi psyche.

Under the previous Bangladeshi leader, Sheikh Hasina, rapprochement with Pakistan was a red line.

Bangladesh, however, is signaling that it no longer views its foreign policy through a single lens. In a region where alliances are shifting and influence is up for grabs, Dhaka is playing a more unpredictable game.

And for India, long accustomed to viewing its neighbor as a diplomatic constant, the message is clear: nothing in South Asia is immutable-not even the past.

Overt exchanges, public summits

What's most revealing about the recent flurry of Bangladesh-Pakistan diplomatic and intelligence exchanges is not their substance but their stagecraft.

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