Bangladesh leader threatens to 'cut off India's seven sisters': How Dhaka’s rhetoric revives old fears for Northeast | Explained

A Border Security Force (BSF) official stands in front of the gates of the India-Bangladesh international border in Petrapole, India, October 16, 2024. REUTERS/Sahiba Chawdhary

Bangladesh’s domestic political discourse has taken a sharply confrontational turn against India, with senior leaders openly invoking threats that revive memories of Dhaka’s past role as a rear base for insurgency in India’s Northeast.

On Monday, Hasnat Abdullah, a prominent leader of Bangladesh’s National Citizen Party, issued a provocative warning that Dhaka could once again provide shelter to forces hostile to India, including separatist outfits, with the explicit aim of cutting off the country’s northeastern region from the mainland.

Addressing a gathering at Dhaka’s Central Shaheed Minar, Abdullah directly referred to India’s northeastern states, commonly known as the “seven sisters”.

“We will shelter separatist and anti-India forces and then we will sever the seven sisters from India," he said, triggering loud applause from sections of the crowd.

The remark is significant given the geography of the region. Four of the seven states -- Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram -- share a long and porous land border with Bangladesh, making stability and cooperation critical for India’s internal security.

Echoes of a troubled past

Abdullah’s comments have raised alarms in New Delhi because they echo a period when Bangladesh was repeatedly accused of allowing insurgent and extremist groups targeting India to operate from its soil.

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Indian security agencies documented how several separatist outfits from the Northeast used Bangladesh as a sanctuary, transit corridor, and logistics hub. Militants routinely crossed the border to evade Indian forces, regrouped in Bangladesh, and returned for attacks.

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Tripura was among the worst affected. Groups such as the National Liberation Front of Tripura and the All Tripura Tiger Force were linked to camps, handlers and supply networks based across the border. Indian officials said weapons training, arms procurement, and shelter were facilitated from Bangladeshi territory.

The problem was not limited to ethnic insurgencies. Islamist extremist organisations with a regional footprint also found space in Bangladesh. Groups like Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and later Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh were flagged by Indian agencies for running cross-border radicalisation and logistics networks that impacted eastern India.

This trajectory was reversed after Sheikh Hasina returned to power in 2009. Her government launched a sustained crackdown on anti-India insurgent groups, dismantled camps, and handed over several wanted militants, leading to a sharp improvement in bilateral security cooperation.

Pressure on institutions at home

Abdullah’s speech also targeted Bangladesh’s own institutions. He lashed out at the Election Commission, calling it “spineless", and accused it of downplaying violence against electoral candidate Osman Hadi by describing the attack as an “isolated" incident.

His remarks reflect growing political radicalisation within Bangladesh at a time when the country is navigating a fragile internal transition.

Strategic drift towards China and Pakistan

The renewed anti-India rhetoric has coincided with Dhaka’s visible strategic drift under interim leader Muhammad Yunus, who has been accused of pulling Bangladesh closer to China and Pakistan while hardening positions against India.

Earlier this year, Yunus sparked controversy by describing India’s Northeast as “landlocked" while pitching Bangladesh as a strategic gateway to China, a remark that was widely seen in New Delhi as an attempt to undermine India’s territorial and strategic interests.

Yunus has also been criticised for presiding over a recalibration of Bangladesh’s foreign policy that aligns more closely with Islamabad, reviving concerns in India about Dhaka once again being used as a proxy platform to exert pressure on its eastern flank.

Against this backdrop, Hasnat Abdullah’s threat to “shelter separatist and anti-India forces" has been viewed not as a stray provocation but as part of a broader pattern of escalating hostility.

For India, the remarks revive uncomfortable memories of a time when instability in Bangladesh directly fuelled violence in the Northeast, and they underscore growing anxieties about Dhaka’s political direction and its implications for regional security.