Historical Foundation: 1971 Liberation War

The bedrock of India-Bangladesh relations is the 1971 Liberation War. After the Pakistani military launched Operation Searchlight (25 March 1971) — a brutal crackdown on the Bengali population of East Pakistan — approximately 10 million refugees fled into India.

India recognised Bangladesh on 6 December 1971 and militarily intervened on 3 December 1971 following Pakistani air strikes on Indian airfields. The Indian Army, in alliance with the Mukti Bahini (Bangladesh Liberation Forces), achieved the surrender of Pakistani forces on 16 December 1971 — observed annually as Vijay Diwas in India and Victory Day in Bangladesh.

The relationship between the two countries began with deep goodwill and a Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Peace signed in March 1972 (valid for 25 years; not renewed in 1997).

Key Agreements and Frameworks

Ganga Waters Treaty, 1996

The Ganga Waters Treaty (1996) — also called the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty — was signed between India and Bangladesh for sharing of the Ganga waters at the Farakka Barrage during the dry season (January–May). The treaty has a duration of 30 years (1996–2026) and provides for a Joint Committee to monitor water flows. With the treaty set to expire in December 2026, renegotiation has become an urgent bilateral agenda item.

The Joint Committee has continued its technical meetings. The 86th met in Kolkata on 6-7 March 2025, alongside a technical meeting under the Joint Rivers Commission and after an eleven-member Bangladeshi delegation led by JRC member Mohammad Abul Hossen observed the Farakka Barrage (3-5 March 2025); reports at the time said the two sides were expected to form a joint technical committee within three months. The 90th met at New Town, Kolkata, on 22 May 2026, after a joint observation at Farakka the previous day, with the Bangladesh delegation led by JRC member Md Anwar Qadir. Neither side issued a public statement, and accounts of that meeting conflict: one Indian report said Bangladesh had proposed changes to the sharing framework to account for upstream withdrawals, which a Bangladesh JRC director denied, saying the meeting only reviewed whether the existing treaty was being implemented properly. A further round is expected in Dhaka later in 2026.

Formal renewal negotiations, however, had not begun: the Minister of State for External Affairs told the Lok Sabha in February 2026 that talks on renewal were yet to commence. No renewal agreement had been signed as of September 2026. India's position (MEA, 4 August 2026) is that renewal will be negotiated through the existing bilateral mechanisms, noting that the two countries share 54 rivers and have the Joint Rivers Commission and technical-level meetings.

Land Boundary Agreement (LBA), 2015

For decades, 162 enclaves of Indian territory were located within Bangladesh and 92 enclaves of Bangladeshi territory were within India — remnants of the Cooch Behar princely state's complex boundaries. The Land Boundary Agreement, 1974 between India and Bangladesh could not be implemented because India's 14th Constitutional Amendment (required to ratify territory transfer) was never passed.

The resolution came with the 100th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2015, passed by Parliament in May 2015, which ratified the LBA. Under the agreement:

  • India received: 51 Bangladeshi enclaves (covering 7,110 acres) within Indian mainland
  • Bangladesh received: 111 Indian enclaves (covering 17,160 acres) within Bangladeshi mainland

The enclave exchange was completed at midnight on 31 July 2015, finally resolving decades of statelessness for enclave residents.

Teesta Water-Sharing Dispute

The Teesta River originates in Sikkim, flows through West Bengal, and enters Bangladesh — a vital source of irrigation for Bangladesh's northern districts.

The proposed Teesta Water-Sharing Agreement (drafted 2011) was to allocate 42.5% to India and 37.5% to Bangladesh (with 20% reserved for river flow maintenance). However, the agreement could not be signed during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's 2011 visit to Dhaka because West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee withdrew consent at the last moment, citing inadequate water allocation for West Bengal.

The dispute remains unresolved as of September 2026, and China has become part of the story. On 29 January 2025 the Bangladesh Water Development Board extended its memorandum of understanding with China's state-owned POWERCHINA on the Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project: POWERCHINA was to prepare a concept paper by December 2025 and a feasibility study during 2026, with an early cost estimate of about USD 1 billion (The Daily Star, 18 Feb 2025). This is a study-stage arrangement, not a construction contract. The elected BNP government then took the project up with Beijing: the China-Bangladesh joint communique of 26 June 2026 says China will "provide support and help within its capacity" to the project and speed up its feasibility studies. India is concerned that a Chinese presence on the Teesta, close to the Siliguri Corridor, would give Beijing influence over a river shared with India.

Connectivity

India and Bangladesh have significantly enhanced physical connectivity:

  • Maitree Express (Friendship Express): Train service between Kolkata and Dhaka — restarted in April 2008 after a 43-year gap; runs five times a week
  • Bandhan Express: Train service between Kolkata and Khulna, launched in November 2017
  • Mitali Express: Between New Jalpaiguri (India) and Dhaka, launched in June 2022
  • Chilahati-Haldibari rail link: Restored in December 2020 — part of the historic Bengal-Assam Railway connecting pre-Partition Bengal and Assam
  • Akhaura-Agartala rail link: Completed and inaugurated in November 2023, boosting connectivity to India's Northeast
  • Maitri Setu (Friendship Bridge): 1.9 km bridge over the Feni River connecting Sabroom (Tripura, India) to Ramgarh (Bangladesh); inaugurated by PM Modi in March 2021; gives Tripura direct access to Chittagong Port (only 73 km away), transforming northeastern connectivity
  • Road and river routes: India-Bangladesh Protocol on Inland Waterways provides for movement of goods via rivers

India's strategic interest: Bangladesh provides access to India's Northeast — the so-called "chicken's neck" corridor (Siliguri Corridor) is only 22 km wide; Bangladesh connectivity reduces logistical dependence on this narrow passage. India is also, on its own account, the Bay of Bengal's principal littoral: it has the longest coastline on the bay, about 6,500 km (EAM S. Jaishankar, BIMSTEC ministerial, Bangkok, 3 April 2025), a point Delhi has made publicly whenever Dhaka has presented itself as the region's sole maritime gateway.

Economic Relations

Bangladesh has emerged as India's largest trade partner in South Asia. Key economic dimensions:

  • Trade: Bilateral trade was USD 13.71 billion in FY 2024-25, up from USD 12.91 billion in FY 2023-24 (Department of Commerce data, DGCI&S). India exported USD 11.38 billion and imported USD 2.33 billion (FY 2024-25), a deficit on Bangladesh's side that is a persistent Bangladeshi concern.
  • Major Indian exports to Bangladesh: Cotton, machinery, vehicles, chemicals
  • Major Bangladeshi exports to India: Ready-made garments, jute products
  • Power: India has been supplying electricity to Bangladesh; the Adani Power Godda plant (Jharkhand) supplies power under a long-term agreement. Power exports to Bangladesh are put at 1,160 MW per the DGCI&S trade brief.
  • Remittances: Bangladesh is a significant source of remittances to Indian border states
  • Third-country investment: China was the second-largest source of net FDI into Bangladesh in 2025, at USD 321.15 million or 18.13% of the total, behind the Netherlands at USD 544.61 million or 30.76% (Bangladesh Bank data, reported 19 June 2026)

Bangladesh's duty-free access to the Indian market (under SAFTA provisions) has been a point of bilateral progress, though non-tariff barriers remain a concern. India has extended about USD 8 billion in Lines of Credit to Bangladesh through three LoCs in the last eight years (DGCI&S trade brief), for connectivity, energy, and infrastructure projects — one of the largest LoC packages India has provided to any country.

Market access narrowed sharply in 2025. With effect from 8 April 2025, India withdrew the transshipment facility that had let Bangladeshi export cargo move through Indian land customs stations to Indian ports and airports for onward shipment to third countries, MEA citing congestion at Indian ports and airports; Bangladesh's exports to Nepal and Bhutan transiting India were not affected. On 17 May 2025, DGFT Notification No. 07/2025-26 barred imports of ready-made garments, processed food, carbonated drinks, cotton yarn waste, plastic goods and wooden furniture from Bangladesh through land ports, allowing ready-made garments to enter only through the Nhava Sheva and Kolkata seaports. Further DGFT orders (27 June and 11-12 August 2025) confined imports of jute and flax goods to Nhava Sheva seaport alone. Goods transiting India to Nepal and Bhutan were exempted throughout.

Political Developments: August 2024 and After

Sheikh Hasina's Exit (August 2024)

Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh since 2009 (and previously 1996-2001), faced a mass uprising in mid-2024 triggered by student protests against a controversial quota system for government jobs. The movement expanded into a general anti-government uprising. Following violent crackdowns in which approximately 1,400 people were killed (UN estimate; sources vary widely, with lower official counts ~300), Hasina resigned and fled to India on 5 August 2024, where she has remained since.

Muhammad Yunus Interim Government

Three days after Hasina's exit, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus (founder of Grameen Bank) was sworn in as head of an interim government on 8 August 2024. The interim government's stated priorities included political neutralisation, elections, and accountability for the crackdown.

Two decisions shaped the transition. On 11 May 2025 the interim government issued the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance and the next day banned all Awami League activities; the Election Commission then suspended the party's registration, so Hasina's party could not contest the next election. (Bangladesh's new Parliament turned the ordinance into law on 8 April 2026.) And on 5 August 2025, the anniversary of the uprising, Yunus announced that parliamentary elections would be held in February 2026, before Ramadan.

Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal sentenced Hasina to death in absentia on 17 November 2025 for crimes against humanity during the 2024 crackdown, and Dhaka has formally sought her extradition from India. India, which had closely partnered with Hasina's government on security and counter-terrorism cooperation, faces a significant diplomatic challenge.

Bangladesh-Pakistan Rapprochement

Dhaka has also reopened its relationship with Islamabad. Pakistan's Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar made a thirty-six-hour visit to Dhaka (23-24 August 2025), during which one agreement (visa exemption for diplomatic and official passport holders) and five MoUs (culture, news agencies, foreign service academies, research institutions and trade) were signed. Biman Bangladesh Airlines resumed direct Dhaka-Karachi flights on 29 January 2026, a route last operated in 2012. Defence contact has followed: Pakistan delivered a JF-17 Thunder Block III combat simulator to Bangladesh (reported 16 May 2026). No JF-17 purchase contract has been publicly signed, and reported figures of 16-24 aircraft worth USD 400-700 million are initial press estimates only, not a disclosed deal.

Reset in Relations

India-Bangladesh relations deteriorated sharply after August 2024:

  • Traditional security cooperation channels — counterterrorism, intelligence-sharing — slowed dramatically
  • Trade tensions emerged, with both sides engaged in tit-for-tat retaliatory actions
  • Attacks on Hindu minorities in Bangladesh became a flashpoint
  • India's close historical identification with the Hasina government was seen by the new dispensation as a liability

Bangladesh's 13th parliamentary election on 12 February 2026 changed the government. Of the 297 seats for which results were announced, the BNP-led alliance won 212 and the Jamaat-led alliance 77; in the Election Commission's unofficial results the BNP alone won 209 and Jamaat-e-Islami 68 (The Business Standard, 13 Feb 2026). Turnout in the election and referendum was 59.44% (Election Commission, via The Daily Star, 13 Feb 2026). A referendum on the July Charter of reforms was held the same day and was backed by 60.26% of voters (Al Jazeera, 13 Feb 2026). Tarique Rahman was sworn in as Prime Minister on 17 February 2026 by President Mohammed Shahabuddin, with 25 cabinet ministers and 24 state ministers. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri represented India, and PM Modi sent a letter inviting Rahman to visit India. His mother, former PM and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, had died on 30 December 2025 (at Evercare Hospital, Dhaka); EAM Jaishankar attended her state funeral on 31 December and handed Tarique Rahman a personal letter from PM Modi, an early Indian outreach to the BNP. The head of state changed later in the year: President Shahabuddin resigned on 24 July 2026 citing health, and on 20 August 2026 Parliament elected BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir President by 255 votes to 88, the first contested presidential vote in 35 years (Al Jazeera, 20 Aug 2026). He was sworn in on 21 August 2026 (Business Standard, 21 Aug 2026).

The reset that followed was real but partial. Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman visited New Delhi (7-9 April 2026), India resumed tourist visas (28 June 2026), and New Delhi named a political appointee, Dinesh Trivedi, as High Commissioner. But Tarique Rahman's planned August 2026 visit to India was put on hold after Hasina addressed a press event in Delhi, and Bangladesh stayed away from the BRICS summit in New Delhi in September 2026.

Rohingya Crisis and NRC Implications

The arrival of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar created a three-way tension. Bangladesh hosts approximately 1.2 million Rohingya refugees (as of September 2026), the world's largest such concentration, centred on the Kutupalong camp at Cox's Bazar, which by itself holds over 1 million; India, which hosts approximately 40,000 Rohingyas, has taken a restrictive stance.

The ongoing Myanmar civil war (post-February 2021 coup) has kept repatriation out of reach, and the Yunus interim government signalled that Bangladesh cannot indefinitely bear the burden alone. India shares Bangladesh's concern about the Myanmar situation but differs on approach: it has maintained engagement with Myanmar's military junta, while Bangladesh has been more vocal in international forums. India's National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise in Assam, and the question of alleged Bangladeshi infiltration, have periodically strained the relationship.

The Rohingya situation is where India-Bangladesh relations meet India's Myanmar policy, internal security concerns and refugee law.

Cross-paper relevance

  • GS2 (primary) — India-Bangladesh bilateral ties; Teesta water sharing; Hasina exit (August 2024); Rohingya/NRC implications; connectivity agreements; BIMSTEC
  • GS3 — Cross-border infrastructure (Agartala-Akhaura rail, Feni river bridge); energy trade; trade imbalances
  • GS4 (Ethics) — Managing transitions in partner states; refugee burden-sharing ethics; diplomatic relations after a regime change
  • Essay — "India-Bangladesh: from golden era to uncertainty"; "Water diplomacy in South Asia: the Teesta challenge"

What Changed in 2024–26

The end of the "Golden Era"

Sheikh Hasina's resignation and flight to India on 5 August 2024 closed the most productive relationship India has had with any neighbour. She was received at Hindan Air Force Base by NSA Ajit Doval, and an interim government under Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took office three days later. What ended with her was not the substance of the relationship (the Land Boundary Agreement, Maitri Setu, the Lines of Credit, the power supply and the trade all survived the transition) but the political assumption underneath it: that Dhaka's government would treat India's security concerns, particularly over northeast Indian insurgent groups, as its own.

The useful frame for an answer is structural versus conjunctural. The structural base of trade, connectivity and shared rivers held; the conjunctural layer, the governing party and its disposition towards Delhi, turned over, and the security cooperation that rested on it went with it. For the 2025–26 cycle this is the single most consequential development in India's neighbourhood, and the question it sets is what India's leverage now consists of: economic dependence, electricity supply, and the connectivity that both the Northeast and Bangladesh need.

The China tilt and the exchange of April 2025

Relations deteriorated through late 2024 and 2025 over three issues that have not gone away: Hasina's continued presence in India, attacks on Hindu minority communities after her fall, and Dhaka's tilt towards Beijing. The sharpest moment was rhetorical. On his March 2025 visit to China, Yunus called India's northeastern states "landlocked" and Bangladesh "the only guardian of the ocean", offering his country as the logistics gateway for Chinese economic reach into the region. India answered in public rather than through a formal protest: at the BIMSTEC ministerial in Bangkok on 3 April 2025, EAM Jaishankar pointed to India's own Bay of Bengal coastline and said regional cooperation "is an integrated outlook, not one subject to cherry-picking".

PM Modi and Yunus then held their first direct bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the 6th BIMSTEC Summit in Bangkok on 4 April 2025, the first face-to-face since the transition. It was read at the time as a possible thaw, but it produced no joint statement and no deliverables, and relations worsened over the months that followed. The lesson for an answer is that a meeting is not a reset: the conditions that make one durable, a settled position on Hasina and a working security channel, were absent then and remain absent now.

Trade used as leverage

Within days of Bangkok the political chill reached commerce. The withdrawal of the transshipment facility on 8 April 2025 and the DGFT orders that followed in May, June and August 2025 pushed Bangladeshi garments, processed food, jute and a list of other goods off the land ports and onto named seaports. The pattern matters more than any single order. These are non-tariff measures, imposed and reversible by executive notification rather than by treaty; they fall on exactly the land-port trade that West Bengal and the Northeast depend on; and India exempted Bangladeshi cargo transiting to Nepal and Bhutan every time, keeping its obligations to landlocked third countries visibly intact while using market access as pressure on Dhaka.

Dhaka's opening to Islamabad

Of everything that has moved since August 2024, Bangladesh's opening to Pakistan casts the longest strategic shadow. The sequence runs from the Dar visit of August 2025 through the visa exemption and the resumption of the Dhaka-Karachi route in January 2026 to the delivery of a combat simulator in May 2026, which is to say from protocol to training in under a year. A Dhaka-Islamabad defence link on India's eastern flank would reverse an assumption Indian strategy has rested on since 1971, which is why the trajectory is watched so closely. What the record shows so far, though, is exchanges and training equipment rather than a defence relationship, and the aircraft numbers in circulation remain press estimates rather than a signed contract. For an answer, the distinction between a political opening and a procurement relationship is the one to hold.

The Hasina question sets the pace

This is the hinge on which the political relationship turns. Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal, a three-member bench led by Justice Mohd Golam Mortuza Majumder, sentenced Hasina and former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal to death in absentia on 17 November 2025 for crimes against humanity during the 2024 crackdown; former IGP Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, who turned state witness, received five years, and MEA said India had "noted" the verdict. A Dhaka Special Judge's Court followed on 27 November 2025, sentencing Hasina to seven years in each of three Purbachal New Town plot-allocation corruption cases, twenty-one years in all, with five years each for her children Sajeeb Wazed Joy and Saima Wazed Putul.

Dhaka has asked for her extradition under the 2013 India-Bangladesh Extradition Treaty in December 2024, on 21 November 2025, and again on 8 April 2026 and 16 August 2026, the last time pressing India to act "expeditiously". India's answer (MEA, 17 July 2026) is that the request "is under examination" under its legal and judicial processes. The treaty's political-offence exception gives India room to decline, and Delhi has used it. The cost is political rather than legal. Hasina gave her first interviews since fleeing on 29 October 2025 and, in a July 2026 telephone interview with Reuters from Delhi, said she and senior Awami League leaders including Kamal plan to return around December 2026 and surrender to the courts (Al Jazeera, 10 Jul 2026), a stated plan rather than an event. Her virtual press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in New Delhi on 5 August 2026 was by itself enough to freeze a prime ministerial visit, which is the clearest measure of how much of the relationship her presence governs.

Minority security runs alongside it. Reports of attacks on Hindu minorities and temples continued through 2025; India summoned Bangladesh's High Commissioner twice within a week over violent incidents in December 2025, and on 26 December 2025 MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal condemned the killing of a Hindu youth and said "the unremitting hostility against minorities in Bangladesh is a matter of great concern". For India this is both a genuine concern and a domestic political constraint on how fast Delhi can move towards any government in Dhaka.

The BNP government: administrative reset, political stall

The elected BNP government reopened the working relationship quickly. Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman visited New Delhi on 7-9 April 2026 and met EAM Jaishankar on 8 April. The two readouts differ: India's MEA issued a brief statement that mentioned neither extradition nor other specifics, while Bangladesh's foreign-ministry readout records that Dhaka repeated its request for Hasina and Kamal, that Jaishankar said India would ease visas for medical and business travel in the coming weeks, and that Petroleum Minister Hardeep Puri said India would consider requests for more diesel and fertiliser "readily and favourably". The talks also produced an understanding that the two suspects in the killing of student leader Sharif Osman Hadi, Faisal Karim Masud and Alamgir Hossain, arrested in Bongaon in West Bengal, would be returned under the extradition treaty.

India followed with signals of its own. On 27 April 2026 MEA named BJP leader and former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi High Commissioner to Bangladesh, replacing career diplomat Pranay Verma; The Wire (28 Apr 2026) described him as India's first political appointee to an ambassadorial post in South Asia in over three decades, a choice that reads as an attempt to open a party-to-party channel to the BNP. Trivedi announced the resumption of tourist visa applications from 28 June 2026 at five Indian Visa Application Centres, ending a suspension that began in August 2024, and on 22 September 2026 India gave agrément to Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Asad Alam Siam as the next High Commissioner in New Delhi, replacing M Riaz Hamidullah.

The political track then stalled. A visit by PM Tarique Rahman that diplomatic sources told The Daily Star (15 Aug 2026) was likely to fall between 20 and 25 August 2026 was put on hold after the Hasina press conference, Dhaka saying the event had "vitiated" the atmosphere and that "a propitious environment needs to be created for the visit" (Al Jazeera, 23 Aug 2026). In September Bangladesh said Rahman would neither attend the BRICS summit in New Delhi (12-13 September 2026) nor send a representative, because India had invited him as the current BIMSTEC chair rather than as Prime Minister (MoS Foreign Affairs Humaiun Kobir, 10 Sep 2026), adding that it would plan a bilateral visit when circumstances permit. The asymmetry is the point for an answer: visas, envoys and fuel supplies are normalising faster than the political relationship, and protocol disputes are now carrying the weight of the unresolved Hasina question.

Continuity is visible on the border as well. The 57th DG-level conference between the Border Security Force and Border Guard Bangladesh met in New Delhi from 8 to 11 June 2026 (BSF DG Praveen Kumar; BGB DG Maj Gen Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui), with BGB protesting alleged push-ins of Indian nationals, Rohingya and Myanmar citizens into Bangladesh and killings at the border, and both sides agreeing to strengthen joint patrols and intelligence sharing, to investigate all killings and to act against those responsible. The next conference is due in Dhaka in November 2026. The institutional machinery, in other words, has kept meeting through every political rupture.

China deepens its footprint

Tarique Rahman's first overseas tour as Prime Minister began in Malaysia (21-22 June 2026), with China (22-26 June 2026) as its second leg, where he met President Xi Jinping. The fifteen-point joint communique commits China to support the Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project and to speed up its feasibility studies, backs Bangladesh's aspiration to join BRICS and its bid for SCO partner status, and records agreement to build a "China-Bangladesh community with a shared future", to explore a 2+2 diplomacy-defence dialogue, and to cooperate on Mongla Port and a Chinese Economic and Industrial Zone in Chattogram. The significant point is continuity: the elected BNP government has kept, and extended, the China track the interim government opened, so this is a settled national direction rather than a phase of the transition. Teesta, Mongla and a possible 2+2 together bring Chinese presence and planning close to the Siliguri Corridor, and the investment figures show that the political tilt is matched by capital.

Water: one dispute frozen, one clock running

The Teesta agreement, drafted in 2011, remains unsigned, blocked by an Indian domestic constraint (West Bengal's opposition under CM Mamata Banerjee) that Delhi has not been able to move in more than a decade. The consequence of that paralysis is now visible: the vacuum has been filled by China, from the interim government's extension of the POWERCHINA memorandum in January 2025 to the BNP government's joint communique of June 2026, turning what was a domestic federal problem into a strategic one on India's most vulnerable corridor. Teesta is a recurring Mains theme, and the China angle is what is new about it.

The Ganga Waters Treaty is the opposite kind of problem: not frozen but timed. It expires in December 2026, and formal renewal negotiations had not commenced as of the government's February 2026 statement to the Lok Sabha; no renewal agreement had been signed as of September 2026, and India's position (MEA, 4 August 2026) is that renewal will be handled through the existing bilateral mechanisms. What raises the stakes is that the BNP has tied the wider relationship to the outcome: before the May 2026 Joint Committee round, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, who was elected President of Bangladesh on 20 August 2026 and sworn in the next day, was reported as saying that the future of relations would depend significantly on the Ganges outcome (South Asian Herald, 20 May 2026). Of the two rivers, this is the one with a date attached.

What to watch

Four things will decide whether the relationship recovers or drifts. Whether the Ganga treaty is renewed, replaced or allowed to lapse before it expires in December 2026. Whether the Hasina question moves at all, through a return, a decision on extradition or a tacit understanding, and releases the political visit that is on hold. Whether Pakistan's presence in Dhaka stays at the level of exchanges or becomes a procurement relationship. And whether India's land-port restrictions are relaxed as the administrative reset proceeds, or harden into the settled terms of trade with the country that is also India's largest trade partner in South Asia.

UPSC angle (overall): Prelims — Ganga Waters Treaty 1996: 30-year term, expires December 2026; 54 shared rivers; Hasina convicted in absentia on 17 November 2025 (death sentence) and 27 November 2025 (twenty-one years in all); Tarique Rahman sworn in 17 February 2026; Bangladesh is the current BIMSTEC chair. Mains — trace the transition from the Yunus interim government to the elected BNP government under PM Tarique Rahman: what has normalised, what remains blocked, and how should India recalibrate its Neighbourhood First strategy towards Bangladesh?

PYQ Relevance

India-Bangladesh is a perennial Mains topic. Questions have covered: significance of the 1971 war in shaping relations; the Teesta dispute and its impact; why the LBA 2015 was a landmark; implications of the August 2024 political transition for India's neighbourhood policy; and the connectivity dimension.

Exam Strategy

Chronological anchors:

  • 1971: Liberation War — India's military intervention, Bangladesh independence
  • 1996: Ganga Waters Treaty (30-year term; expires December 2026)
  • 2008: Maitree Express restarted
  • 2015: LBA — 100th Amendment; enclave exchange completed 31 July 2015
  • 2017: Bandhan Express (Kolkata-Khulna)
  • 2022: Mitali Express (NJP-Dhaka)
  • August 2024: Hasina's exit (5 Aug); Yunus interim government (8 Aug)
  • 3–4 April 2025: Jaishankar's "cherry-picking" rebuttal (3 Apr); Modi-Yunus meeting at the 6th BIMSTEC Summit, Bangkok (4 Apr)
  • 8 April 2025: India withdraws the transshipment facility for Bangladeshi exports
  • 12 May 2025: Awami League activities banned
  • 17 May 2025: DGFT land-port restrictions on imports from Bangladesh
  • November 2025: Hasina convicted in absentia — death sentence (17 Nov) + 21 years in three plot cases (27 Nov)
  • 30 December 2025: Khaleda Zia (BNP chairperson, former PM) dies
  • 12 February 2026: Bangladesh election — BNP-led alliance 212 of 297 declared seats (BNP alone 209); turnout 59.44%
  • 17 February 2026: Tarique Rahman sworn in as PM; Om Birla represents India
  • 7–9 April 2026: Bangladesh FM Khalilur Rahman in New Delhi (met Jaishankar 8 Apr) — first high-level visit under the BNP government
  • 22 May 2026: 90th JRC meeting under the Ganga Waters Treaty, Kolkata — no decision announced
  • 22–26 June 2026: Tarique Rahman in China (second leg of a tour that began in Malaysia); Teesta support in joint communique
  • 28 June 2026: India resumes tourist visas for Bangladeshis
  • 24 July 2026: President Mohammed Shahabuddin resigns, citing health
  • August 2026: Tarique Rahman's India visit put on hold after Hasina's 5 Aug Delhi press event
  • 20–21 August 2026: Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, BNP Secretary General, elected President by Parliament 255-88 (first contested presidential vote in 35 years) and sworn in the next day
  • 12–13 September 2026: Bangladesh skips BRICS summit in New Delhi

Key strategic frame: Bangladesh under Hasina was India's most dependable SAARC/bilateral partner; the 2024 transition poses India's most complex neighbourhood recalibration since the 2015 Nepal earthquake crisis.

Cross-link: For current developments on India-Bangladesh relations, follow Ujiyari.com.

Key Terms

Teesta Water Dispute

  • Definition: The Teesta Water Dispute is the unresolved disagreement between India and Bangladesh over the equitable sharing of the lean-season flows of the transboundary Teesta River, which originates in the Sikkim Himalaya and joins the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh. A draft water-sharing treaty negotiated in 2011 remains unsigned (as of September 2026), primarily because of objections from the Indian state of West Bengal.
  • Context: The Teesta rises in the Sikkim Himalaya, flows through West Bengal for roughly 305 km, and runs about 109 km inside Bangladesh before joining the Brahmaputra river system. India and Bangladesh set up a Joint Rivers Commission (JRC) in 1972, and an ad hoc sharing arrangement was reached at its 25th meeting in 1983, but no permanent treaty was ever concluded. A draft accord was ready for signing during PM Manmohan Singh's 2011 Dhaka visit but collapsed at the last moment over opposition from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who cited the interests of the state's farmers during the dry season.
  • UPSC Relevance: This is a foundational GS2 International Relations topic that underpins questions on India's neighbourhood policy, transboundary river diplomacy, and the federal dimension of foreign policy. Because water is a State subject (Entry 17, List II) subject to Union regulation of inter-State rivers (Entry 56, List I), the dispute is a textbook example of how a state government can constrain the Centre's external commitments — a recurring Mains theme on cooperative federalism and "states as stakeholders" in foreign policy. Prelims angles include the river's geography (source, course, the Brahmaputra link) and the institutional mechanism (Joint Rivers Commission); Mains angles connect it to the India-Bangladesh relationship, the China factor, and water as a strategic resource.

Sources & Verification

Bangladesh's political transition

Sheikh Hasina: verdicts and extradition

Bilateral engagement, 2025–2026

Trade, transit and investment

Rivers: Ganga and Teesta

China and Pakistan

Border