Can India Ignore Bangladesh's Violent Unravelling Under Yunus's Watch?

Bangladesh is once again engulfed in violence. Political leaders are being shot in the streets, minorities lynched on the basis of rumours, newsrooms attacked, and the authority of the state visibly eroding. What is unfolding is not sporadic unrest or isolated lawlessness. It is a systemic breakdown, and for India, it is not a distant crisis but an immediate strategic concern.

Muhammad Yunus was installed as interim leader with international goodwill and lofty expectations. He was meant to steady Bangladesh after the removal of Sheikh Hasina and guide the country towards democratic renewal. Instead, under his watch, Islamist forces have surged, political violence has normalised, and the promise of a “reset” has curdled into instability.

A Political Experiment Gone Wrong

The chaos gripping Bangladesh today is not accidental. It is the predictable outcome of a political experiment that dismantled an existing power structure without building a viable replacement. The ouster of Sheikh Hasina in August 2024 did not usher in reconciliation or reform. It created a vacuum, and that vacuum has been filled by violence, radicalism, and a ruthless struggle for power.

In December alone, Bangladesh witnessed a string of targeted assassinations. Sharif Osman Hadi, a student leader who emerged during last year’s so-called July uprising, was shot dead in Dhaka at close range by motorcycle-borne gunmen. Days later, Md Motaleb Sikder, a senior labour leader of the Citizens Party, was shot in the head in Khulna. These were not impulsive crimes. They were professional hits, executed with precision and followed by clean escapes, unmistakable signs of organised political violence returning to Bangladesh’s streets.

Hadi’s killing proved particularly incendiary. Though he was no mass leader, he had become a prominent media figure after Hasina’s fall, the product of a political vacuum rather than grassroots legitimacy. Like many outfits born out of the July protests, his influence was amplified on television and social media, but thin on the ground. Still, his assassination ignited unrest nationwide.

The Islamist Surge

Following Hasina’s removal, Bangladesh’s political balance tilted sharply to the right. The Awami League, which still commands the loyalty of a significant portion of the electorate — was pushed entirely out of the political system. Into that void stepped Islamist forces that had been waiting patiently for years.

Jamaat-e-Islami did not merely benefit from Hasina’s fall; it claims to have engineered it. Its student wing swept university elections. Its leaders gained unprecedented media space. Its narratives became mainstream. Other protest-era outfits, including those aligned with Yunus’s Citizens Party, were relegated to junior roles, visible on screens, irrelevant on the streets.

Yunus was expected to manage this transition and contain extremist ambitions. Instead, under his stewardship, Islamist forces have been emboldened rather than restrained.

The signs are impossible to ignore. Islamist mobs roaming freely. ISIS and Al-Qaeda flags reappearing. Extremists released en masse from prisons. Secular cultural institutions such as Chhayanot and Udichi attacked. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s residence vandalised once again, with clear ideological intent.

A Lynching That Changed Everything

The depth of Bangladesh’s descent was laid bare with the lynching of Dipu Chandra Das, a 27-year-old Hindu garment worker. Accused, solely on rumour, of insulting Islam, Dipu was beaten to death by a mob. His body was stripped, tied to a tree, flogged even after death, set on fire, and then burned again on a highway as crowds chanted religious slogans and blocked traffic.

This was not spontaneous rage. It was performative violence, a message to minorities, to dissenters, and to the state itself. A declaration that the monopoly of violence no longer rests with the government.

Yunus’s response followed a now-familiar pattern: arrests after the fact, condemnatory statements on social media, and little else. Seven people were detained. No deterrence followed. Authority remained absent. Fear lingered.

Denial and Disintegration

The lynching did not occur in isolation. It took place amid nationwide turmoil after Hadi’s assassination. Protests spiralled into riots. Government buildings were vandalised. Newspaper offices attacked. Streets burned. Almost immediately, India was dragged into the narrative.

Unsubstantiated claims flooded social media alleging that Indian “sharpshooters” were involved or that the killer had fled across the border. None of it was proven. All of it was amplified. India became a convenient scapegoat, a familiar tactic to mask internal fractures and consolidate Islamist support.

In reality, the circumstances of Hadi’s killing point to regime infighting. The accused shooter had links cutting across factions and was reportedly released despite serious charges, emblematic of a system where political favourites walk free while opponents languish in jail.

Rather than confront these realities, the Yunus administration has chosen denial. Denial of rising extremism. Denial of Islamist capture. Denial even as journalists are harassed, arrested, and physically attacked by mobs emboldened by political silence.

Editors who once faced pressure from intelligence agencies under Hasina now face something arguably worse: public trials by mob, online witch-hunts, and attacks on newsrooms while police look on. This is not democracy being reborn. It is the state losing control.

A Regional Chessboard - And India’s Dilemma

ly, the stakes are high. Bangladesh is no longer just Dhaka’s problem. The United States is invested. China and Russia are watching. Turkey and Pakistan are exerting ideological and strategic influence. The country has become part of a crowded and volatile regional chessboard.

There is also an uncomfortable truth that cannot be ignored. Sheikh Hasina made serious mistakes. She believed Islamism could be managed, accommodated, co-opted, contained. Jamaat was never dismantled, only driven underground. Hefazat was indulged. Madrassas proliferated. When the system cracked, those forces surged back stronger.

But Yunus’s failure is of a different kind. Where Hasina ruled with coercion, Yunus governs with hesitation. Where Hasina suppressed, Yunus appeases. Where Hasina controlled, Yunus denies. And in today’s Bangladesh, denial is fatal.

For decades, India approached Bangladesh with goodwill and restraint — believing that cooperation would produce stability and protect minorities. That belief has collapsed.

Bangladesh today shares uncomfortable ideological continuities with Pakistan. Political Islam runs deep. Dhaka was the birthplace of the Muslim League. Bengal witnessed some of the bloodiest communal violence before Partition. These undercurrents never disappeared after 1971.

The biggest victims of this trajectory have been Hindus, systematically dispossessed, demographically eroded, persecuted under Islamist regimes and ignored under so-called liberal ones. For many, there is only one refuge: India.

Time for Hard Choices

India can no longer afford illusions. Bangladesh’s contradictions will not be resolved by diplomacy alone. Yunus’s government is not a stabilising force; it is presiding over fragmentation.

New Delhi must harden its borders. Instability in Bangladesh directly affects India’s Northeast, through infiltration, radicalisation, and smuggling. These are not theoretical threats but operational realities.

India must apply calibrated pressure, not reckless intervention or public grandstanding, but firm messaging, reduced indulgence, and a clear red line on minority safety. It must also prepare for prolonged instability. Elections alone will not fix Bangladesh, especially when major parties are excluded and Islamist forces are poised to emerge stronger.

Expanded humanitarian and legal frameworks for persecuted minorities are no longer optional moral debates. They are strategic necessities.

Above all, India must recognise this moment for what it is: a warning. Yunus’s Bangladesh is not drifting. It is unravelling. And history shows that when states unravel on India’s borders, the costs are never contained.

Bangladesh is burning. The only question now is whether India will continue to watch from the sidelines, or finally act with clarity, realism, and resolve.

- Ends