Why New Delhi backed Sheikh Hasina – and botched its Bangladesh policy

SHEIKH HASINA WAZED ruled Bangladesh with an iron fist for 15 years. In August this year she fled for her life to New Delhi, and the world was treated to images of a Gen-Z revolution in Bangladesh. Young men and women stood defiant in the driving monsoon rain. Protesters shook hands with armed soldiers atop armoured personnel carriers. And students managed traffic on the streets of Dhaka in the anarchy that followed the revolution.

Although it was clear what sort of government Hasina ran in Bangladesh, nobody imagined that it would collapse so quickly or so dramatically. Like the last Shah of Iran, she had acquired a reputation for stability and development; her allies at home and abroad had invested heavily in her continued rule, chief among them the Government of India. So her fall, hurried flight and subsequent replacement by an interim government of her opponents constitute a major setback for the foreign policy of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government and its backers.