In the first three months following the ouster of Sheikh Hasina Wazed’s Awami League government on August 5 this year, there was some ambiguity — at least in the minds of Bangladesh-watchers in India and in the West — over the nature of the transformation.

At one level, the ouster seemed like an old-fashioned, military-inspired change of government which would lead to a makeover in the top echelons of the Establishment, but nothing more profound. At least this is what a section of the Dhaka elite tried to peddle to their secular friends in Delhi’s anti-Narendra Modi ecosystem, and with a measure of success. The change was attributed to the excesses of the Wazed government, not least of which was the repeated hanky-panky in the parliamentary elections of 2014, 2018 and 2024. It was also assumed that the first flush of the popular uprising would see a blast of anti-India posturing since the ousted Awami League regime was known for its special relationship with India regardless of which party was in power.

The alternative suggestion, articulated forcefully by many retired diplomats who had served in Dhaka, was that what happened in Dhaka was a veritable regime change. There were always two broad ideological currents in Bangladesh. The first, identified with the Awami League, banked on the legacy of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the Liberation War of 1971. However, beginning with the junior officers’ coup in 1975 until the return of the Awami League in 2009, Bangladesh experienced a counter-revolution. It is not that the 1971 legacy was jettisoned. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party formed by Ziaur Rahman always made a big show of stressing its founder’s role in the first broadcast announcing the formation of Bangladesh from the radio station in Chittagong in March 1971. It is just that electoral compulsions prompted the BNP to enter into alliances with a swathe of Islamist parties, some of which were fanatically opposed to the secession from Pakistan. On her part, Wazed and her government reinforced the fault lines by awarding capital punishment to the killers of Bangabandhu and those who participated in the horrible massacres of intellectuals on the eve of the fall of Dhaka to the Indian army in December 1971. Those sent to the gallows included the head of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, Professor Ghulam Azam.

It is important to keep in mind Bangladesh’s turbulent, 53-year history to fully understand the happenings in the country since August 5.

First, despite the Wazed government’s patchy attempts to maintain cordial relations with the Islamist religious bodies, the Awami League was always perceived to be secular and inimical to those forces that opposed the 1971 liberation. The single-minded determination with which the Wazed government prosecuted and awarded capital punishment to the leaders of the Razakars was aimed at signalling that there was no place for the Islamists in Bangladesh. This, in turn, explains the ferocity with which the students from the madrasas joined the anti-Wazed stir. It also explains the absolute ruthlessness with which Awami League leaders and their supporters have been dealt with after the regime change. Criminal cases have been filed against nearly 194,000 Awami League members and almost every member of Parliament and other elected officials have been incarcerated. Their properties have been vandalised and destroyed. Although it hasn’t repudiated Bangabandhu’s status as the Father of the Nation, monuments to him have been destroyed.

Nominally, the student movement is at the forefront of this political cleansing, but it is clear that the persecution of the Awami League has the blessings of the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami. It is still unclear which political tendency — the Razakar lobby or the soft Islamists in the BNP — has the upper hand, but it is clear that a version of the counter-revolution now stands victorious in Bangladesh.

Second, the drift towards reviving the idea of Bangladesh as an Islamic Republic has involved the resurrection of the minority question. From 1947 to the collapse of East Pakistan, there has been a systematic attempt to force the substantial Hindu minority out of the country. The Pakistani authorities always believed that the people of East Pakistan were insufficiently Muslim because of the soft power exercised by the Hindus. Ethnic cleansing has always been an important feature of the bid to create an Islamist enclave in Bangladesh. The majority of the refugees who fled to India after the Pakistani army’s crackdown in 1971 were Hindus, most of whom never returned to their homes. The formation of Bangladesh improved matters only marginally and the 1990s saw another big exodus to India. According to a November 2024 report of the Commonwealth All Party Parliamentary Group, “The 2022 Census of Bangladesh, put the number of Hindus in Bangladesh at 13.1 million out of total 165.1 million population, thus constituting 7.95% of the population, which is a considerable drop from well over 20% at the time of independence.”

The recent assault on Hindu religious bodies and the targeting of ISKCON by the interim government are only consequences of the belief among supporters of the regime that Hindus had become too consequential and assertive in the 15 years of Awami League rule. The attack on Hindus is also a proxy attack on India which, supporters of the regime feel, has bled Bangladesh dry.

However, there have been two complications. First, India has more or less sealed the border with Bangladesh and stopped issuing visas to anyone apart from those needing medical treatment. This has meant that the earlier alternative available to Bangladeshi Hindus to migrate to India is on hold. Second, and more worrying for the Islamist hotheads, the Hindu community has made it clear it will not suffer the persecution meekly. Over the past month, Hindu organisations have protested all over the world and the image of the chief advisor, Muhammed Yunus, has taken a battering globally. The Modi government has reacted sharply to the attacks on Hindus and their religious practices but it has not yet reacted to the desecration of the Indian flag in different parts of Bangladesh. Neither has it acted on suggestions that it imposes an economic blockade on Bangladesh for the simple reason that this will allow the Yunus regime to milk international sympathy.

The existence of a hostile regime on its eastern borders presents India with an intolerable situation. In the long run, it cannot allow Bangladesh to become a citadel of radical Islamism because that will have an impact on West Bengal where the Muslim community leaders are openly inimical to Hindus on the other side. The longer this situation persists, the more the strategic balance will tilt against India. Something will have to give way soon.