How Bangladesh is the real prisoner of geography

With the Bangladesh Nationalist Party's victory, Dhaka needs to realise it can’t push back against India indefinitely.

For starters, importing yarn from Brazil and US cotton will add three per cent to Bangladesh’s textiles production costs — it’s not a solution.

Hemmed in by 4,160 km of Indian border to the north, west and east, with Myanmar’s sliver to the south and the Bay of Bengal beyond, Bangladesh is a prisoner of geography, a prime candidate for blockade if push comes to shove for the Indian Navy.

Forget the chicken’s neck; a cut could come home to roost from the shark’s fin.

The point is that any use of terror in the Indian chicken’s neck will be met with disproportionate force and may indeed give India an excuse to annex the Buddhist Chakma Hills as well as create a buffer on the northeast corridor. Put differently, Bangladesh may just be overplaying its hand by provoking India in its Northeast. The new government must think this gambit through.

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Like its own low-lying delta, prone to waterlogging and the sudden shifts of silt-laden rivers, its foreign policy is structurally vulnerable to sudden inundations. Bangladesh needs to rethink its fiery anti-India rhetoric. One dam upstream, one trade embargo or one cricket ban, and the waters, so to say, rise.

Bangladesh’s geography dictates its economics, which in turn cements its dependence on India. The latest data underscore the point. In 2023-24, Bangladesh imported $11 billion worth of goods from India, dominated by $1 billion in electricity. Tensions over unpaid bills briefly halved Indian supply, prompting frantic payments.

Textiles amplify the bind. Ready-made garments (RMG) account for 84 per cent of exports ($43 billion in 2023-24) and over 11 per cent of GDP, employing five million, mostly women. Yet the sector’s inputs are overwhelmingly Indian: nearly 80 per cent of cotton yarn, plus vast quantities of fabric and dyes. The primary textile sector, into which Bangladesh has sunk $15 billion, meets only 80 per cent of knitwear yarn needs and 35-40 per cent for woven RMG; the rest floods in from across the border. Imports from India actually rose 2 per cent year-on-year to $2.36 billion in late 2024’s final quarter, pushing the half-year tally to $4.41 billion. Food grains follow suit: recent approvals for 700,000 tonnes of Indian rice join routine wheat and maize shipments, buffering perennial domestic shortfalls.

The important point is this dependence is structural, not cyclical. Bangladesh’s trade deficit with India yawns at $9.4 billion annually ($11 billion in imports vs $1.56 billion in exports in 2023-24, down 12 per cent). Exports languish due to poor diversification: jute, leather and pharmaceuticals make paltry contributions. The economy, once hailed as an “Asian tiger cub”, remains a one-trick pony. There is little diversification into man-made fibres, high-value apparel or non-traditional markets. Global headwinds — shrinking LDC privileges post-2026, competition from Vietnam — expose the peril. A 9 per cent annual growth rate in textiles masks fragility: 80 per cent of factories cluster in Dhaka and Chittagong, vulnerable to floods; all of the country is vulnerable to Indian naval blockades.

Geography runs deeper. Bangladesh’s 144,000 sq km is 80 per cent floodplains, where rivers shift courses overnight, waterlogging fields and redrawing maps. So too its geopolitics: India’s upstream control of shared rivers (54 transboundary, carrying 90 per cent of surface water) via the Farakka barrage or Teesta can throttle Dhaka’s agriculture if such an eventuality occurs.

This is not to say that the rise of the Jamar Islamic jihad doesn’t threaten India. It is a real and present danger. But with Bangladesh, India may choose preemption.

Pivot Elsewhere, Not So Fast

China’s Belt and Road has saddled Bangladesh with $5 billion in debt already for dubious projects like Payra port, but Beijing lacks India’s proximity for daily necessities. Pakistan? Lingering 1971 scars — unapologised genocide, $4.5 billion in claimed Bangladesh reparations, 300,000 dead — ensure lingering bitterness. The Pakistan army in Rawalpindi harbours deep-rooted contempt for Bengalis. Islam is a poor glue; recent warming is a passing flirtation. Any pivot to Pakistan remains a fantasy.

While the 176 million Bangladeshis perceive themselves as a cohesive ethnic Islamic bloc analogous to Arab identity formations, both Arab constituencies and Punjabi elites in Rawalpindi systematically marginalise this group, effectively relegating Bangladeshis to a position of ethnic nullity within broader regional hierarchies.

Back to economics, Bangladesh is finding that economic diversification, that holy grail, elusive. Efforts to boost pharma at a measly 3 per cent of exports or shipbuilding have stumbled. The textile multiplier — backward linkages beyond ready-made garments, in dyeing, logistics — is shallow; water-intensive cotton strains the Padma basin. Tech adoption, AI and e-commerce are non-existent. The country attracted just $2.3 billion in foreign investment in 2025.

For Dhaka, defiance invites deluge. For Dhaka, global tilt is not economically possible. Islamabad’s economy, shrunk by IMF strictures, offers little. China’s chequebook lacks the intimacy of overland trade. Crucially, Chinese weapon transfers or infrastructure spending have not been game-changers.

Bangladesh’s new leaders must confront the map. Put simply, no bridge bypasses the neighbour. Like the Brahmaputra’s meanders, alliances shift, but the delta endures. Dhaka’s prosperity hinges on accommodation, not antagonism. Water finds its level; so will Bangladesh.

(The writer is a senior journalist with expertise in defence. Views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of Firstpost.)