Once celebrated across the world as the face of microfinance and poverty alleviation, Muhammad Yunus today stands as a figure of mounting controversy in South Asia. His rise from banker to Nobel Peace Prize winner once represented the triumph of social enterprise and human dignity. But in the new Bangladesh that has emerged after Sheikh Hasina’s ouster, Yunus has transformed into something far more unsettling for India: a political leader who appears determined to rewrite Dhaka’s foreign policy in alignment with Pakistan and China, while steadily injecting anti-India sentiment into his rhetoric and symbolism. His carefully constructed image as a humanitarian now conceals a stark geopolitical ambition that threatens to destabilise the balance of power in the region.
A gift that revealed a hostile mindset
The episode that most vividly captured this transformation was Yunus’s meeting with Pakistan’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, earlier this year. During that meeting, Yunus presented the general with a coffee-table book titled Art of Triumph – Graffiti of Bangladesh’s New Dawn. On its cover was an artistic rendition of South Asia that included India’s entire Northeast within Bangladesh’s boundaries. For India, this was no innocent flourish of art. It was a brazen provocation that questioned India’s territorial sovereignty and hinted at the dangerous “Greater Bangladesh” fantasy long cultivated by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies and Islamist groups.
That the head of Bangladesh’s interim government would present such an image to a senior Pakistani general was no accident. It symbolised a deliberate ideological alignment. It was a message that Dhaka’s new leadership sees its future not with India, which stood by Bangladesh since its liberation in 1971, but with the very country that once sought to annihilate it.
Words that expose intent
Yunus’ remarks during his visit to China earlier this year had already exposed his intentions. In Beijing, he described India’s northeastern states as “landlocked” and declared that Bangladesh is “the only guardian of the ocean for the region.” The choice of words was deliberate and condescending. It implied that India’s Northeast, long a theatre of insurgency and sensitive identity politics, is dependent on Bangladesh for maritime access and regional integration. The statement reduced India’s strategic geography to a subordinate position while elevating Dhaka as the supposed regional gatekeeper.
What makes this rhetoric alarming is that it mirrors the talking points propagated by both Pakistan and China. Islamabad has consistently argued that India’s Northeast is a vulnerable corridor that can be strategically isolated, while Beijing has sought to use its Belt and Road projects to extend influence into the same geography. Yunus’ public remarks, therefore, cannot be dismissed as naive diplomacy. They reflect a deliberate political alignment designed to serve the strategic narratives of India’s rivals.
The collapse of a stable partnership
Under Sheikh Hasina, India and Bangladesh enjoyed one of the most constructive partnerships in South Asia. Hasina’s government worked closely with New Delhi on counterterrorism, border security, and trade. Her administration eliminated safe havens for anti-India insurgent groups and strengthened economic integration between the two countries. In return, India extended generous credit lines, invested in infrastructure, and opened its markets to Bangladeshi goods.
That equilibrium has disintegrated since Hasina’s fall. With Yunus at the helm, Dhaka has adopted a posture of open hostility and quiet disengagement. Key trade arrangements that benefited India’s northeastern states have been suspended or delayed. Imports of Indian yarn and jute have faced new barriers. Cross-border energy projects have slowed. Security coordination, once the backbone of bilateral relations, has withered. Intelligence-sharing has weakened, and the tone of Bangladesh’s foreign policy has shifted from cooperation to condescension.
This regression is not accidental. It reflects Yunus’ ideological ambition to dismantle the Hasina-era closeness with India and replace it with an identity rooted in pan-Islamic solidarity and anti-India rhetoric. For New Delhi, this shift represents a fundamental threat to the regional balance of power that India spent decades building.
The Pakistan connection returns
Perhaps the most disturbing development under Yunus has been the re-emergence of Pakistan’s deep state in Dhaka. According to credible reports, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, has re-established a presence in Bangladesh through the Pakistani High Commission. Under Sheikh Hasina, such operations were closely monitored and often curtailed. Under Yunus, they have quietly resurfaced under the guise of intelligence cooperation.
The purpose of this renewed ISI activity is clear: to reassert influence over Bangladesh’s political and religious landscape, to rebuild networks that can operate along India’s eastern border, and to revive ideological links between Bangladeshi Islamists and Pakistani radicals. It is the same playbook that Islamabad used in the 1980s and 1990s when it used Bangladeshi territory to supply arms and propaganda to insurgent groups in India’s Northeast.
The signs of this revival are already visible. A known associate of Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, recently toured northern Bangladesh, including Rajshahi and Lalmonirhat. He delivered speeches filled with anti-India venom, calling for the “liberation of Kashmir” and warning that India would face a united Muslim front if it continued its current policies. The Yunus government did not condemn or restrict his activities. The silence was deafening.
An emerging Islamabad–Dhaka–Beijing axis
Beyond ideology, Yunus’ Bangladesh is also realigning itself economically and militarily. Pakistan has offered Dhaka access to the Karachi Port for trade with China and Central Asia. This may appear to be an economic offer, but it is strategically calculated. The move positions Bangladesh within an emerging triangle of cooperation among Islamabad, Dhaka, and Beijing. Together, these three capitals could create a network of ports, trade routes, and intelligence exchanges that encircle India’s eastern and southern flanks.
China, already deeply entrenched in Bangladesh’s infrastructure through the Padma Bridge Rail Link and the Payra Port projects, finds in Yunus a willing partner. Pakistan, in turn, sees in him an opportunity to reinsert itself into South Asian geopolitics through a proxy that carries the credibility of a Nobel laureate. India, for its part, faces the possibility of its eastern neighbourhood becoming an extension of the China-Pakistan corridor—a nightmare scenario for New Delhi’s strategic planners.
The dangerous ideological convergence
Yunus’ policies are not just geopolitical; they are ideological. His administration has presided over a resurgence of intolerance that mirrors Pakistan’s sectarian politics. Bangladesh’s Ahmadiyya Muslim community, long protected under Hasina’s government, is now facing systematic persecution. Radical clerics have regained political influence, often with links to Pakistan’s extremist networks. The echoes of Islamabad’s 1974 crackdown on the Ahmadis are unmistakable.
This ideological drift aligns perfectly with the strategic reorientation towards Pakistan and China. By cultivating a hardline Islamist narrative, Yunus is building a political base that thrives on hostility toward India. Such domestic radicalisation has historically served as fertile ground for cross-border infiltration and proxy conflicts. For India, the rise of such sentiments in a neighbouring country with which it shares over 4,000 kilometres of border is not merely concerning—it is an existential challenge.
The illusion of economic realignment
Economically, Yunus has chosen a path that appears self-defeating for Bangladesh but politically rewarding for his new narrative. His decision to revive trade ties with Pakistan, a country facing an economic meltdown, defies all rational logic. But it serves a symbolic purpose: it signals Bangladesh’s intent to move away from India’s economic orbit and align with a broader bloc framed around Islamic solidarity and anti-India sentiment.
At the same time, his overtures to China further isolate India. By courting Chinese investment and offering Dhaka as a potential hub for the Belt and Road Initiative, Yunus is inviting Beijing to deepen its presence on India’s eastern frontier. The combination of Chinese infrastructure, Pakistani intelligence, and Bangladeshi ideological hostility could turn the Bay of Bengal into a new theatre of competition, eroding India’s traditional dominance.
India’s strategic imperative
For India, the writing on the wall is clear. The comfort that existed under Hasina’s pro-India government is gone. Bangladesh under Muhammad Yunus is no longer a reliable partner but a potential adversary aligning with India’s two primary rivals. The implications are far-reaching. The Siliguri Corridor, India’s narrow lifeline to its northeastern states, could come under indirect pressure. The Bay of Bengal, once envisioned as a zone of cooperation, may soon host a new front of strategic rivalry.
India can no longer afford to view Yunus through the lens of his Nobel Prize or his global reputation as a reformer. The man who once spoke of peace and microcredit now speaks in symbols of division and power politics. His alliances, his silence in the face of radicalism, and his indulgence of Pakistani and Chinese overtures make clear that he has chosen confrontation over cooperation.
The laureate who became a provocateur
Muhammad Yunus’s transformation from a peace laureate to a geopolitical provocateur is a reminder that Nobel prizes do not immunise leaders from ambition or ideology. He has used his international prestige to lend legitimacy to a new axis that seeks to marginalise India in its own neighbourhood. The soft-spoken banker of old has given way to a calculating politician who treats provocation as policy.
If India continues to see Yunus as a benign reformer, it will repeat the same mistakes it once made with Pakistan’s so-called “civilian moderates,” who spoke of peace while sheltering hostility. The evidence is now overwhelming. Yunus’ government is tilting toward the very forces that once sought to break India’s territorial unity. He has become, in essence, the most dangerous kind of adversary: one who speaks the language of peace while quietly nurturing the politics of confrontation.
For New Delhi, the time for complacency is over. Bangladesh under Yunus is not a friend in transition but a neighbour in drift. India must engage firmly, recalibrate its diplomacy, and prepare for a long-term challenge that will test not just its regional policy but its strategic patience. The laureate’s halo has dimmed. Behind it stands a leader whose vision of Bangladesh rests on diminishing India’s. And that makes him not a peacemaker, but a war-monger in disguise.
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