India Should Stop Asking Bangladesh to Be Grateful

India Should Stop Asking Bangladesh to Be Grateful

India should stop invoking 1971 in its dealings with Bangladesh. Gratitude that a big neighbour keeps asking for becomes resentment the small neighbour carries.

The reasoning Nations like to tell the story of their freedom as one they won themselves.

Bangladesh's freedom fighters, the Mukti Bahini, fought hard, but India struck the decisive military blow against Pakistan in 1971 and sheltered an estimated 10 million refugees. That is the history. Yet every time India recalls it as a debt, it suggests that Bangladesh's independence was India's gift.

A gift that is constantly recalled feels like ownership. Geography sharpens this. India surrounds Bangladesh on three sides along a border of about 4,097 km and Bangladesh's main rivers flow through or rise in India. When a country depends so much on one neighbour, reminders of past help sound like reminders of present power.

Mohammed Ayoob's argument is that, for these reasons, 1971 bred ambivalence in Bangladesh rather than lasting gratitude. Indian policy deepened the problem. From 2009 to 2024, India built an exceptionally close partnership with Sheikh Hasina: the 2015 Land Boundary Agreement, the acceptance of the 2014 maritime award, Maitri Setu and the Friendship Pipeline.

These were real achievements. But as her government grew more authoritarian, India's backing looked like support for her rather than for Bangladesh. When she was ousted in August 2024 and fled to India, public anger in Bangladesh turned towards New Delhi.

The strongest counter-argument The strongest case against this position is security.

Before 2009, critics of the BNP-era governments argue, Bangladesh was a sanctuary for anti-India insurgent groups such as ULFA and NDFB and the 2004 Chittagong arms haul showed how weapons could flow towards India's Northeast.

Hasina dismantled those camps. Former diplomats such as Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty argue India had no practical alternative but to back her, because the safety of its Northeast depended on it. On this view, gratitude is irrelevant; security is everything and India chose correctly.

Why the

position still holds That argument is right about what Hasina delivered. It is wrong about how long it could last. Security bought through one party lasts only as long as that party holds power. In February 2026, the BNP won 198 of 300 seats.

India now has to protect its Northeast through a government it spent fifteen years keeping at a distance. The Hasina extradition request shows the cost. Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal issued a warrant in October 2024 and the BNP government formally sought her extradition in mid-2026.

India has resisted, citing the political-offence exception in Article 21 of the 2013 extradition treaty. That legal ground may be sound. But because India is seen as Hasina's patron, even a lawful refusal reads in Dhaka as personal loyalty, not legal principle.

The fix is not to stop caring about security. It is to make security cooperation institutional, between the two states, so that it survives a change of government. Stopping the appeals to 1971 is the cheapest first step.

Generosity on shared rivers, including the Ganga treaty that expires on 12 December 2026, is the next.

For the exam: neighbourhood policy works when it is built for the country, not for whichever party governs it.