Jaideep Saikia
On 7 April 2025, I had written an article in The Sentinel titled “Action Station—India.” In the write-up, which was directed at course-correcting India’s ambivalent stance towards a belligerent Bangladesh, I had put forward a set of pointed recommendations. Indeed, I had been calling for decisive Indian action ever since the day Sheikh Hasina was ousted from power on 5 August 2024.
One of the recommendations was to engineer regular tirades by Sheikh Hasina—from her present station in Delhi—against Yunus and his evil clique. Such diatribes should increase in frequency by the day, I had suggested. It must be made the “Indian way” to utilise a friend to mercilessly and continually browbeat and embarrass a contemptuous regime in present-day Dhaka. But India is “governed” by a few éminences grises who were against antagonising the illegitimate Yunus regime that had been propped up by the United States. In fact, the last 15 months have been great education for me. The Indian state’s inability to comprehend its own backyard was one of the most important lessons that was learnt. It was particularly interesting because India had intervened in 1971 and was responsible for the creation of Bangladesh. Yet, when it came to outright support for a friend and political party that is patently pro-India (recall how Sheikh Hasina handed over the entire ULFA and NDFB leadership to India and acted against the anti-India Islamists!), New Delhi was shying away. Why? Was it because it felt that aspects would straighten themselves up in Dhaka on their own? Or, was it because of a complacency (which is now being regretted) that Yunus and his cabal would sooner or later correct their posture and play ball with India? Indeed, Indian conceit is one of the reasons for its undoing in South Asia.
It was also incomprehensible to me as to how the ouster of a close ally was permitted. The reason, it is now known, is that India had no idea about what was brewing in Bangladesh. But the fact that Sheikh Hasina was provided immediate “asylum” also points to the fact that India was actually helpless in the face of the onslaught that led the so-called “July Warriors” to overthrow Sheikh Hasina. But nothing was done to correct the oversight. As aforesaid, it, ineffectually, hoped that the internal contradictions of Bangladesh would throw up a situation which would pave the way for a pro-India status quo. Sheikh Hasina was dispensable—New Delhi felt she could not be ignored and that Dhaka would eventually be forced to do business with India. In fact, it had not reckoned that Yunus had powerful puppeteers, and that was precisely why Modi met Yunus in Bangkok on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC Summit and had sent Vikram Misri to meet Yunus on 9 December 2024 over India’s concerns about the minority Hindu population. The problem with New Delhi is that it measures all its neighbours with the same yardstick when, in effect, they are very different from country to country.
Furthermore, Indian mandarins in Raisina Road are so full of themselves that they have neither the patience nor the humility to listen to suggestions made from deprived and lowly observers of the near-abroad, especially if they emanate from the periphery of the country. Instead, they have been actually known for their deep disdain for such advice. They know so much about Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, and, of course, the Northeast that they could be less bothered by advice from the hinterlands.
But I have a right to be proud. I am an Indian. What is more, the last 15 months have proven me correct! India has been intimidated by a country that it had shed blood for its independence from, a plundering Pakistan. Bangladesh has now become an irreverent add-on to a sinister erstwhile western wing and an equally menacing United States. It has outrageously maimed, raped and killed Hindus in full global view in order to embarrass India.
But, gratefully, of late, New Delhi seems to have finally comprehended the imperative of some of the recommendations.
On 23 January 2026, Sheikh Hasina, speaking via an audiorecorded message to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in New Delhi, described the current state of Bangladesh as an “age of terror, lawlessness and democratic exile.” Hasina spoke about the crisis as an existential battle, calling on her supporters to “overthrow the foreign-serving puppet regime” and restore the nation’s constitution. She constantly branded the illegitimate Yunus as a “murderous fascist”, “usurer”, “money launderer”, and “power-hungry traitor”. Bangladesh was reportedly “surprised” and “shocked” by the way Sheikh Hasina spoke. Now, that was necessary and enterprising business! I wonder why it took so long for New Delhi to comprehend the necessity of such a course of action.
I have no reason to pat myself on my own back, but I have been, column after column, penning waypoints by which India could have stolen a march over the mockery from former East Pakistan since August 2024. Indeed, I was speaking to a friend on 24 January 2026 about the modus operandi of the atrocities that are being systematically committed on the Hindus. The pogroms were being engineered in an extremely calibrated manner. The Islamists are showcasing their deep anti-India ire by agonising India over a slow, tortuous fire. They have not, deliberately, gone on a single rampage against the Hindu population of Bangladesh. A crafty move! They are selectively targeting one Hindu every day and subjecting him to a dismaying end. The motivation? Let Hindu India suffer painfully, day after day, as its brethren helplessly, and in full view of the world, die an excruciating dog’s death. Also, such “isolated” action would not attract the attention of the human rights watchdogs of the world. In any event, much of the planning for the anti-India actions is being devised in a far-off workstation in Langley, Fairfax County, Virginia, where dubious dualities of the ISI-CIA are working overtime to both humiliate and provoke India.
It is primarily the Hindu menfolk of Bangladesh that are being targeted. The Islamist objective is to annihilate only the male Hindu population. The plan for the Hindu womenfolk, as was the case during an earlier anti-India regime’s design, is ‘jane maaris na, ijjat maar’ (don’t kill them, rape their women). Incidentally, I am quoting from Bimal Pramanik & Mihir Sinha Roy’s “The Recent Plight of Minorities in Bangladesh”, 28 January 2002, mentioned on pages 111 and 114 from my edited book “Bangladesh: Treading the Taliban Trail”, Vision Books, 2006.
But, even as the decibels by which Sheikh Hasina has begun to showcase that both India and the Awami League mean business should grow, India must at once reinstate Sheikh Hasina and her elected government as a “Government in Exile”, unless, of course, the Awami League is allowed to contest the elections. Indeed, the “Seat of Government” can be moved to Agartala/Kolkata, as was the case with the erstwhile Mujibnagar Government in Exile in 1971. If the Dalai Lama can be permitted to oversee a similar “Government in Exile” in Dharamshala, then there is both logic and precedence in such a show of Indian national strength. There are a plethora of Awami Leaguers and pro-India executives/intelligence/legislators that had left Bangladesh after the immoral fall of August 2024. These Hasina loyalists can be made to rally behind her even as she heads the “Government in Exile”. Former Bangladesh Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud’s recent statement that between 50 and nearly 60 per cent of Bangladeshis still support the Awami League and its alliance partners is corroborative of what I have been stating so far.
The overarching and spirited speech of Sheikh Hasina would overwhelm the warrens and marshes of Bangladesh, reaching and inspiring every Awami League supporter currently in hiding or in a state of disarray inside the country. It is high time that India embarked upon a decisive regime change exercise. There is no time for “strategic patience”.
Indeed, such a step was part of my 7 April 2025 recommendation. It is quite simple really. Yes, it will take guts. But everyone around the world at this time seems to be in a mood to flex their muscles. So-called superpowers are kidnapping foreign heads of state in the middle of the night, planning takeovers of countries and imposing unholy tariffs. Why not India?
If the head of the Research & Analysis Wing can put together a team of strategists and work out a Bangladesh “Government in Exile” with Sheikh Hasina as its head, the world will wonder at India’s boldness, not to speak of the shivers that will crawl down Yunus’ decrepit, octogenarian spine. There must be no delay in mounting such a course of action.
(Jaideep Saikia is a universally acclaimed conflict theorist and bestselling author. He can be reached at jdpsaikia@gmail.com.)