Bangladesh was born in 1971 amid extraordinary hope. Its creation followed a just war, a moral intervention, and an overwhelming popular mandate. Yet, almost from inception, the state struggled to translate liberation into durable governance.

Authoritarian Rule, Military Control

History shapes the future. Two developments in the immediate post-independence period decisively shaped the troubled political trajectory Bangladesh.

First, following his release from Pakistan on 10 January 1972, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman assumed near-total control of the new state, initially as provisional president and later as prime minister. Authority was heavily centralised around a single towering personality. Institutions, still fragile and untested, were subordinated to personal legitimacy. The consequences were predictable as weak checks and balances, politicised administration, and an over-reliance on charisma rather than process.

The second turning point was the catastrophic famine of 1974. One of the deadliest famines of the twentieth century, it claimed anywhere from tens of thousands to over a million lives, depending on estimates. More than a humanitarian disaster, it was a political rupture. The crisis hardened Mujib’s approach to governance, intensified unrest, and eroded confidence in democratic mechanisms. In response, democratic norms were steadily abandoned in favour of control.

The creation of BAKSAL in 1975, which is effectively a one-party state, marked the formal end of plural politics. Left-wing insurgencies gained momentum, and the state’s response became increasingly coercive. Repression, extra-judicial actions, and human rights violations followed, further hollowing out legitimacy.

On 15 August 1975, Mujib and most of his family were assassinated in a military coup. Bangladesh entered a prolonged period of instability that would define its political culture for decades. A series of coups followed, culminating in the rise of Bangladesh Army Chief, General Ziaur Rahman. Martial law was imposed, parliament dissolved, and politics militarised. Zia himself was assassinated in 1981.

In 1982, another army chief, Lieutenant General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, seized power in a bloodless coup and ruled until 1990. This period entrenched a recurring national pattern: civilian failure, military intervention, authoritarian consolidation, and eventual collapse followed by a return to civilian rule, only to repeat the cycle.

Power Oscillation, Civil Resistance

From 1991 onwards, Bangladesh formally returned to electoral democracy. Power oscillated between two dominant figures of Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina. Elections were held, governments changed, but governance remained secondary to personal rivalry. Institutions weakened further, society polarised, and politics became a zero-sum contest. Elections became ends in themselves rather than mechanisms for stable administration.

This long-simmering dysfunction erupted dramatically in 2024. What began as student-led protests over job quotas evolved into a broader pro-democracy movement. The state’s violent response, including the July crackdown on protesters, triggered mass civil resistance. The non-cooperation movement that followed eventually forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and leave the country.

In August 2024, an interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, an extra-constitutional yet judicially sanctioned and hastily assembled body of random people, was installed. It was another temporary solution to a familiar problem, addressing symptoms rather than causes.

Weak Institutions, Centralised Poee 

The political history of Bangladesh reveals a consistent and troubling sequence of weak institutions, centralised power, crisis-driven authoritarianism, military intervention, and temporary civilian restoration. The tragedy is not the absence of elections, but the absence of durable governance between them.

In this respect, Bangladesh is not very different from Pakistan. The key distinction lies in form rather than substance. Pakistan’s military has dominated the state directly and continuously, often with little regard for civilian supremacy. In Bangladesh, the military has intervened episodically, retreating when civilian legitimacy re-emerged, but never fully relinquishing its role as final arbiter.

India and the neighbourhood question

Has India faltered in “handling” these two neighbours? In theory, perhaps. As the dominant regional power, expectations are inevitably high. In practice, however, India’s very dominance generates suspicion in both Pakistan and Bangladesh, sharply limiting its influence. Meanwhile, the United States, with its strategic weight, and China with its economic clout, have exercised far greater leverage over Pakistan for decades. A similar dynamic applies to Bangladesh. With the exception of a brief period during Sheikh Hasina’s later tenure, India’s influence remained constrained.

That proximity to India, when it did occur, was quickly weaponised by radical elements within Bangladesh as a rallying cry. India became a convenient external villain, a narrative tool to mobilise resentment. Ironically, this contributed to Hasina’s political isolation and eventual ouster, pushing Bangladesh once again into uncertainty.

I remain open to learning what India could have done differently over the past decades. But it is equally necessary to accept an uncomfortable reality: external actors cannot substitute for internal cohesion, institutional integrity, or political maturity. Nations that fail to resolve their internal contradictions rarely find stability through external balancing.

Bangladesh’s story is not one of inevitable failure. It is a cautionary tale of how liberation without institution-building, democracy without restraint, and power without accountability can trap a nation in a cycle of hope and disappointment. Until that cycle is broken from within, no neighbour however well-intentioned can do much from without

Cycle Of Instability 

Bangladesh is set to hold a national election in February, its first since the student-led uprising that toppled long-time leader Sheikh Hasina in August 2024. Her Awami League, the country’s largest political party, has been barred from contesting.

Even if the BNP and Muhammad Yunus are able to secure a fragile consensus among their respective supporters for February elections, restoring law and order will remain a formidable challenge. Elections, in themselves, may provide only a procedural reset, not strategic stability. With institutions weakened, security structures strained, and radical forces sensing opportunity in the prevailing vacuum, Bangladesh risks slipping once again into its familiar vicious cycle of instability.

For India and the wider region, this is not merely an internal Bangladeshi concern. Prolonged instability would have direct implications for border management, internal security, migration pressures, and the strategic space available to extra-regional actors. A fractured Bangladesh is not just a governance failure; it is a strategic liability, one that history suggests cannot be wished away by elections alone.

(The author is an Indian Army veteran and a contemporary affairs commentator. The views are personal. He can be reached at  kl.viswanathan@gmail.com )