Ouster of Sheikh Hasina shakes India’s strategic balance in the neighbourhood
A full-fledged crisis has been lobbed in India’s court, with the ouster of PM Sheikh Hasina earlier this week. India’s already troubled neighbourhood has now three countries under the firm grip of the armed forces. Pakistan, Myanmar and now Bangladesh, are now the army-ruled troika, on a slippery slope of getting too close to China. Out of the two, it was Bangladesh which has been the crown jewel of India’s neighbourhood first policy, having had a visibly pro-India government for the past decade and half. Pakistan has been China’s proxy state acting against Indian interests, while Myanmar due to the army rule, has also slipped closer to China. Meanwhile, a pro-China ( read anti-India) leader in the Maldives, a not-too-Delhi-friendly regime in Nepal, presents Indian diplomacy as one of its biggest challenges in recent history.
Former PM Sheikh Hasina, despite her dictatorial governance style, enjoyed bipartisan support in India. She used her relations with Narendra Modi and the opposition leaders in India, to come out heavily on extremist forces operating on Bangladeshi soil against India’s interests.