Policy Update
Elenora Tu’u
Background:
India- Bangladesh share South Asia’s longest border, sharing landmass with over 4000 km running across states like West Bengal, Tripura, and Assam, as well as riverine porous terrain. This historical geography has enabled illegal migration, human trafficking, insurgent safe havens, and extremist networks. In the 1990s and early 2000s, concerning extremist networks such as the United Liberation Front Asom (ULFA) and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) often used Bangladeshi soil for shelter, while Bangladeshi groups like Jamaat-Ul-Mujahdeen Bangladesh (JMB) exploited Indian territories for recruitment and logistics to and from.
Since then, the political landscape has changed after 2009, when the Awami League government under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, adopting a zero-tolerance stance against terrorism, came into power. Contrastingly, New Delhi reciprocated by deepening intelligence cooperation and strengthening institutional mechanisms. As a result, counter-terrorism has emerged as one of the most successful elements of bilateral relations between the two nations.
However, critics argue that this cooperation, despite its benefits, is highly likely to be dependent on political alignment in Dhaka, and that its long-term sustainability remains uncertain.
Function:
Counterterrorism at its core refers to information sharing that is intended to,
1. Facilitate extradition and deportation of wanted militants.
2. To disrupt cross-border extremist activity by tracking networks and safe havens.
3. Also improve coordination (operational) between forces like the BSF (Border Security Force) and BGB (Border Guard Bangladesh).
4. Additionally, building capacity through forensics, training and cyber surveillance.
Looking at New Delhi’s perspective, these mechanisms are essential to securing the Northeast and ensuring stability for connectivity on projects. In contrast, on Dhaka’s side, they ensure consolidated internal security and maintain global credibility. Argumentatively, this function also attracts critics: From Bangladesh perspective, Opposition voices argue that security cooperation is disproportionately served, but in India’s strategic interests, perhaps Bangladesh bears the political costs of aligning too closely.
Progress:
So far there is little doubt that both nations’ cooperation has produced measurable results.
1. JMB Crackdowns: After the 2016 Dhaka terror, a joint intelligence disrupted several JMB cells in Assam and West Bengal.
2. Also Border Mechanisms: Where the 2011 Coordinated Border Management Plan improved coordination and reduced illegal crossings.
3. Ensuring Insurgent Networks Dismantled: This highlights ULFA leaders who were handed over to India, provoking a significant weakening of Northeast insurgencies.
4. Maintaining High Level Trust: Specific mention of Home Minister-level talks and National Security Advisor dialogues institutionalizing security as the pillar for bilateral ties between both nations.
This highlights the successes often hailed as a regional counterterrorism model. However, critics warn that the progress is heavily leader-driven and that a change in Bangladesh’s domestic politics could reverse gains when the present leader is replaced.
Impact:
Highlights of the progress impact on cooperation are notable.
1. Trust building Mechanisms: Trust building mechanisms through security collaboration have acted as a confidence-building measure, spilling over into trade and connectivity.
2. Strengthened Stability in Northeast Parts of India: Cross-border sanctuaries have been dismantled, helping facilitate peace records.
3. Economic dividend: Progress in safer borders has seen smoother transit, infrastructure and energy project progress.
4. It has also strengthened counter-radicalization, with intelligence-sharing on instances where assistance in Bangladesh in disrupting Islamist radicalisation according to reports.
However, it can be seen that the impact is contested as per progress limitations. For example, rights groups such as the Rights Watch (2020) argue that the joint counterterrorism has permitted heavy-handed crackdowns, including alleged extrajudicial killings by the RAB (Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion). This raises concerns about the ethics and legitimacy of security cooperation.
Emerging Issues:
Despite the progress and impacts of notable strides in cooperation, a few challenges complicate the picture.
1. Rohingya refugee camps: Cox’s Bazar camps have become vulnerable to militant infiltration; this raises alarms in both capitals.
2. Additionally, cyber radicalization has facilitated extremists increasingly operating online, which is beyond the reach of traditional border cooperation.
3. Also, China’s expanding role further provokes its growing strategic presence in the Bangladesh security sector, which could complicate Indo-Bangla in the long run.
4. Moreover, domestic political polarization is closely tied to the Awami League. Hence, the opposition BNP and Islamist group remain skeptical, arguing that Dhaka has/is “outsourcing sovereignty” to India.
5. Human Rights and Repression: Critics warned that counterterrorism tools are oftentimes repurposed for silencing political opposition, which undermines democratic legitimacy.
This issue does underline a fundamental debate: Is counterterrorism a cooperation that is a sustainable institutional framework, or rather a political compact vulnerable to shifts in domestic and geopolitical currents?
Way Forward:
- Institutional beyond leadership – move from leader-driven approach to forming treaties or parliamentary oversight, this ensures sustainability beyond political cycles.
- To ensure cooperation endures and retains legitimacy, both governments must address critics’ concerns while consolidating existing gains on security measures.
- Also, cyber-centric intelligence sharing creates a joint cyber cell for monitoring extremist content, propaganda, and financing.
- A rights-based approach ensures transparency mechanisms to reduce human rights criticism and prevent secularisation from feeding future radicalisation.
- Finally, a triangular cooperation framework with trusted third partners such as the EU on capacity building and balancing regional geopolitics.
In conclusion, India-Bangladesh counterterrorism cooperation is widely regarded as a regional success story, transforming a historically troubled border into a zone of collaboration against extremism. Its effectiveness in dismantling insurgent sanctuaries and curbing extremist networks is clear.
However, argumentative reading reveals deeper fragilities, one says the arrangement is politically contingent and also criticised for rights violations, and vulnerable to geopolitical shifts over time. In favour of New Delhi, this means recognising that cooperation cannot be taken for granted; hence, for Dhaka, it means ensuring security collaboration does not come at the cost of political legitimacy or sovereignty.
The way forward lies in ensuring the balance of hard security imperatives with softer approaches of legitimacy, inclusivity and institutional building. Highlighting the means of partnership maturity from a tactical compact into a sustainable approach for a regional security framework moving forward.
References:
- Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). (2022). India–Bangladesh relations. https://mea.gov.
- Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). (2022). Annual Report 2021–22. Government of India.
- Press Information Bureau (PIB). (2018). India and Bangladesh cooperate on counterterrorism. https://pib.gov.in
- Press Information Bureau (PIB). (2019). India-Bangladesh joint statement on security cooperation. https://pib.gov.in
- International Crisis Group. (2019). Building a better future for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Brussels: ICG Report
- Human Rights Watch. (2020). Bangladesh: End wave of extrajudicial killings.https://www.hrw.org
About the contributor:
Elenora Tu’u is an undergraduate student specializing in Politics and Public Policy. This article is published as part of her course work with the IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute.
Acknowledgement:
The author sincerely thanks Ms. Aasthaba Jadeja and the IMPRI team for their valuable support.
Disclaimer:
All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organization.
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