Bangladesh at a crossroads: Between street unrest and a soft state

Bangladesh stands today at a critical inflection point. The killing of student leader Sharif Osman Hadi has triggered a surge of anger that goes far beyond the immediate crime. It has reopened unresolved tensions from the political upheavals of August 2024 and placed the country on a trajectory that, if left uncorrected, risks sliding into prolonged instability.

The choices now before Bangladesh’s interim leadership—and those who aspire to govern it next—will determine whether the country stabilises or enters a cycle of unrest from which recovery will be painful and uncertain.

Hadi was emblematic of a generation that believes it forced political change through mass mobilisation rather than institutional negotiation. His death has therefore acquired symbolic weight. The protests that followed were not merely demands for justice; they reflected a deeper anxiety that the promise of the post-2024 transition is slipping away. In such environments, anger tends to become self-sustaining. Street power acquires its own logic, often disconnected from achievable political outcomes.

More from Opinion

The interim administration under Muhammad Yunus is operating under extraordinary pressure, and it has not helped itself by relying primarily on temperance when firmer political signalling was required. Tasked with steering Bangladesh toward elections early next year, it must simultaneously preserve order, ensure credibility, and manage a fractured political landscape.

The banning of the Awami League and the absence of its leadership from the political arena have fundamentally altered the country’s equilibrium. Its effect has been to remove a stabilising pole without replacing it with an institutional alternative. The vacuum has been filled by the street—energetic, impatient, and increasingly polarised.

It is in this context that the direction Bangladesh is taking deserves careful scrutiny. There is a discernible pull toward ideological nationalism shaped by grievance and resentment, including hostility toward external actors. Such currents are emotionally powerful and politically tempting, particularly for leaders seeking short-term legitimacy.

Yet, Bangladesh’s own recent history offers a clear lesson. Its economic growth, social progress, and regional standing over the past decade were anchored not in confrontation, but in pragmatism—political stability, external engagement, and a focus on development over mobilisation.

There will inevitably come a point when the energy of the street must be channelled back into institutions. The longer that moment is deferred, the more difficult the return will be. Movements that thrive on protest often resist closure, and leaders who derive authority from the street find it hard to disengage from it without appearing to concede defeat. Delay risks pushing Bangladesh toward a state of chronic agitation, where governance becomes reactive and legitimacy remains contested.

India inevitably figures in this turbulence. Anti-India slogans and demonstrations outside Indian diplomatic premises are not unprecedented, but their recurrence in a volatile, leaderless environment is troubling. India has been careful since August 2024 to avoid becoming a participant in Bangladesh’s internal political contest. Its posture has been one of restraint, quiet diplomacy, and respect for sovereignty. That approach has denied oxygen to narratives of interference, even as it has tested domestic patience in New Delhi.

Yet, restraint does not eliminate risk. Periods of political flux create opportunities for external actors with an interest in destabilisation. Pakistan’s intelligence establishment has historically exploited precisely such moments, not by manufacturing unrest, but by amplifying it and nudging it toward targets of symbolic value.

Indian diplomatic missions, visible and politically sensitive, represent such targets. Even limited incidents involving them would have consequences far beyond their immediate scale, forcing diplomatic recalibration and internationalising Bangladesh’s internal crisis.

More concerning, though still a low-probability scenario, is the possibility of extremist or terrorist activity emanating from Bangladeshi soil and directed toward India. Decades of counter-terrorism cooperation between the two countries have kept such threats at bay. Any breach would fundamentally alter security perceptions and impose response dilemmas on both sides. Even absent state complicity, perception would dominate reality, and trust once lost would be difficult to rebuild.

This places renewed emphasis on border management. At moments like this, the India-Bangladesh border becomes not just a security line but a confidence mechanism. Disciplined posture, effective communication between border forces, and avoidance of provocative signalling are essential to prevent misunderstanding. Excessive force or visibility would be counterproductive, feeding narratives of hostility and reinforcing suspicion. The objective must be stability, not deterrence theatre.

Amid all this, one institution looms large in Bangladesh’s strategic calculus: the Bangladesh Army. Historically, it has seen itself as a professional force, conscious of the costs of overt political intervention and mindful of the nation’s past experiences with military rule. The question now is whether it can remain insulated from the pressures of prolonged unrest and polarisation.

The army’s credibility rests on its perceived neutrality and its role as a stabilising backstop rather than a political arbiter. That balance becomes harder to sustain as street agitation grows and civilian authority weakens.

If instability deepens, expectations—both domestic and external—may begin to coalesce around the military as the ultimate guarantor of order. Such expectations are corrosive. They place the institution in an impossible position, where any action or inaction risks being interpreted politically.

For Yunus, this is the moment to recognise that governing by accommodation with the street has diminishing returns. Popular anger cannot be an organising principle indefinitely.

Pragmatism, not ideological escalation, is what enabled Bangladesh’s economic and diplomatic gains over the past decade. Abandoning that path in favour of emotive nationalism risks isolating the country regionally and undermining investor confidence domestically.

For India, the task remains one of patience and vigilance. We have no interest in instability next door, nor in becoming a convenient external adversary in Bangladesh’s internal struggles. Its best course lies in continued diplomatic engagement, robust but understated security preparedness, and disciplined messaging. Any overt reaction would only validate the narratives that hostile actors seek to promote.

Bangladesh has not yet broken down, but the warning signs are visible. The decisions taken in the coming weeks—how protests are managed, how elections are prepared, how institutions assert themselves—will shape whether the country steps back from the edge or moves closer to it. History suggests that once a society crosses a certain threshold of polarisation, recovery is slow and costly.

The choice before Bangladesh is stark, even if it is not always acknowledged. The path of pragmatism could appear less dramatic, but it is the only one that ensures durable results. The alternative may offer short-term catharsis, but it leads toward uncertainty and strategic self-harm. Building national confidence towards the elections is more important than fighting street battles at a critical juncture in the nation’s history.

(The writer is the former Commander of India’s Srinagar-based Chinar Corps. Currently he is the Chancellor of the Central University of Kashmir and a member of the National Disaster Management Authority. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)