Bangladeshis who were born before the partition of 1947 were Indian. For example, my parents were born (British) Indian and died Bangladeshi and were Pakistani in between. Likewise, there are millions of Bangladeshis who are still alive and were born when the entire subcontinent was known as (British) India. They have lived under three flags and have embraced three nationalities—(British) Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi. That is to say, India is not geographically and spiritually far removed from the people of Bangladesh.
But what instilled a sense of horror in Bangladeshis that may have given them reasons to dislike the Indian establishment and for which anti-Indianism is associated with them?
In order to understand the recent surge of so-called anti-Indian views among Bangladeshis, we need to examine the misrule that shipwrecked their country for over a decade on successive Indian governments' watch.
For fifteen and a half years from early 2009 to August 5, 2024, Bangladeshis were crumbling under the juggernaut of Sheikh Hasina's fearsome and self-serving regime. Under Hasina's mafia-style fascist rule, they lost their right to life and death with dignity. Occurrences of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances became the main instrument of the Hasina administration to rule Bangladesh and to keep its population under subjugation. Family members of many victims didn't even have the opportunity to observe funeral rites for the dead. Nor were they able to properly mourn their loved ones or accord them a dignified burial. There were many instances where government forces killed citizens and concealed the dead bodies, and bereaved family members were given an opportunity to receive the remains of the deceased only after agreeing to say in public that their loved ones died of heart attacks, strokes, or other health complications.
Detailed information about the existence of a network of secret torture centres, called Aynaghar or the House of Mirrors (ghost houses), that government forces set up across Bangladesh under Hasina's leadership is now emerging. We are gradually grasping the fuller extent of post-mortem drowning or dead body dumping cases orchestrated by the regime.
On the economic side, financial institutions, including Bangladesh's central bank, were plundered and ruling party high-ups and their cronies siphoned off money to purchase expensive properties in foreign destinations and/or to deposit into their offshore bank accounts. People were forced to pay high prices for food items and other necessities in order to satisfy the greed of those in power. In the name of megaprojects, ministers and their subordinates and henchmen fattened their pockets.
All these and many other instances of human rights violations, corrupt practices and financial crimes continued unabated because the regime didn't need public support to cling to power. It hardly practiced even a modicum of democracy. It ruled through a combination of repression and fake/nocturnal elections one after another, and any form of dissent was met with violence, persecution, custodial torture or death in police custody.
It is common knowledge in Bangladesh and beyond that the Hasina regime remained in power undemocratically for such a long time almost solely through India's covert and overt support. As, in his 2024 book Pathways of Autocratisation, Ali Riaz argues that "Bangladesh's autocratisation process" under Hasina was "influenced by the overall global political situation, but… accentuated, perhaps succeeded, because of its neighbour India's unqualified support for" her since 2009 (pg 62). Unfortunately, India's patronization of autocracy in Bangladesh is often given an innocuous label—a strategy to maintain "a stable regional political system" even if to the detriment of Bangladesh.
