[🇮🇳] India---News & Views

Bilal9 · Jan 4, 2026

India’s Neighbourhood Diplomacy: A Catalogue of Strategic Failures

1. India touted a Neighbourhood First policy — a slogan, not a strategy. Instead of building trust, New Delhi’s approach has often been heavy-handed, ideological, and security-dominant, producing resentment rather than cooperation. Neighbours aren’t flocking to India; they’re hedging with China, Pakistan, and other powers to escape India’s shadow. The Diplomat+1

2. Bangladesh’s relationship with India is seriously strained — to the point where Bangladesh now refuses to play some ICC matches in India due to security concerns and rising tensions. Reuters
Delhi also scrapped transit facilities Bangladesh relied on for exports, disrupting trade and fueling distrust. Reuters
This is not “friendly competition” — it’s a loss of influence in a country India once dominated diplomatically.

3. Decades of conflict with Pakistan haven’t been resolved — and recent flare-ups have pushed the two nations closer to open confrontation again, with suspended treaties and closed borders instead of dialogue. AP News

4. Nepal’s politics have flipped unpredictably, with anti-India sentiment and protests erupting, forcing New Delhi to tighten border security and divert resources to crisis management. Foreign Policy
Sri Lanka, once a partial ally, has slid into debt and political instability, opening space for competitors like China to move in. PMF IAS

5. SAARC — once a platform India could steer — has been effectively dead for over a decade, frozen by India–Pakistan disputes and mistrust. Rokan's Journal
That’s a huge diplomatic embarrassment considering India’s economic clout in the region.

6. Across Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Pakistan, China’s Belt and Road influence is expanding while India’s promises of trade and connectivity go unfulfilled or stalled. Analysts argue India is losing its diplomatic initiative region-wide as neighbours pivot toward Beijing to balance against Delhi’s perceived dominance. The Diplomat+1

7. India’s focus on security — drone patrols, military exercises, ideological rhetoric — breeds suspicion among neighbours instead of trust, undercutting even the economic leverage India claims it has. The Diplomat

Summary: How Badly Has India Failed, Really?

Let’s not sugar-coat it:

India’s “Neighbourhood First” policy has largely failed. Indian National Congress
Several neighbours are actively distancing themselves. The Diplomat
Regional cooperation has collapsed into paralysed multilateralism. Rokan's Journal
China is winning influence on almost every front India claims to lead. Reddit

This isn’t a few diplomatic missteps — it’s a strategic loss of ground in India’s own backyard. Instead of shaping South Asia’s future, New Delhi is now fighting just to maintain its legacy role, while neighbours assert independence or turn to rivals.

Saif · Jan 15, 2026

India’s miscalculations and regional reset

BANGLADESH stands at a defining crossroads. With the close of Sheikh Hasina’s long and dominant political chapter, the country is entering an uncertain yet profoundly consequential phase. This transition is not merely a domestic political shift; it is embedded in the wider currents of South...

www.newagebd.net

India’s miscalculations and regional reset

BANGLADESH stands at a defining crossroads. With the close of Sheikh Hasina’s long and dominant political chapter, the country is entering an uncertain yet profoundly consequential phase. This transition is not merely a domestic political shift; it is embedded in the wider currents of South Asian geopolitics. From New Delhi to Washington, capitals are recalibrating their lenses, and India’s growing strategic unease rooted in fears of diminishing influence in Dhaka is becoming increasingly visible.

For decades, India sought to entrench itself as Bangladesh’s primary and almost exclusive political partner. In reality, however, policies articulated in the language of friendship often translated into asymmetric dependencies. On critical issues such as trade imbalances, border management, water sharing, maritime agreements and transit, Bangladeshi interests were frequently sidelined. Sheikh Hasina’s government proved to be a dependable custodian of Indian strategic priorities, but the relationship rarely rested on genuine equality. Over time, this imbalance fostered resentment among broad segments of Bangladeshi society sentiments that are now finding renewed political expression.

India’s foreign policy faces searching questions in this post-Hasina moment. New Delhi appears to have invested heavily in a single political equation, neglecting to cultivate broader and more resilient channels of engagement. This strategic short-sightedness is now evident as India’s traditional leverage in South Asia encounters mounting challenges. China, the United States, Turkey and several Middle Eastern countries are positioning themselves as alternative partners in Bangladesh’s evolving diplomatic landscape. As a result, Bangladesh is no longer a one-directional strategic space dominated by India; it has become a multi-actor arena of competition manifest in everything from medical diplomacy to people-to-people exchanges and commercial networks.

Domestically, Bangladesh’s internal transformation is amplifying these external dynamics. In the power vacuum left behind, a struggle to reconfigure the balance of authority has begun. Within the state apparatus often described as the ‘deep state’ calculations are underway. Military and civilian bureaucracies, intelligence agencies and diplomatic institutions appear engaged in quiet preparations aimed at engineering a controlled transition. Stability, or at least its appearance, remains the guiding objective. Yet a fundamental question persists: how compatible is a ‘managed transition’ with the demands of democratic renewal?

At the same time, long-suppressed opposition forces are re-emerging. The BNP and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami claim to champion the restoration of genuine popular representation. Still, scepticism remains. Have these parties truly absorbed the lessons of the past and adapted to the political language of a new generation? Or are they once again constrained by leader-centric structures and cycles of reactive politics? The BNP, in particular, now confronts a defining choice: to lead a broad-based democratic reawakening or to relapse into fragmented, personality-driven resistance.

Jamaat-e-Islami faces an even more complex dilemma. Still burdened by the unresolved legacy of 1971, the party remains politically cornered. Survival in the new context demands more than tactical repositioning; it requires a substantive shift away from rigid religion-centric politics towards civic engagement, institutional legitimacy and constitutional norms. The international environment has also changed. Across the Middle East, even religiously inspired political movements are embracing pragmatic economic agendas and flexible foreign policies. Jamaat’s future hinges on whether it can learn the grammar of contemporary politics rather than remain trapped in outdated frameworks.

On the global stage, Bangladesh’s strategic geography has become its greatest asset. The Bay of Bengal, the geo-economic significance of the Padma–Meghna–Jamuna river system and the country’s centrality to South Asian transit routes have elevated its importance as never before. This moment presents a rare opportunity to redefine external relations on the basis of equality, to assert strategic autonomy and to participate in regional politics with dignity. But such an opportunity carries a clear condition the transformation must be people-centric, democratic and institutionally grounded.

For India, this juncture demands a fundamental reassessment of its neighbourhood policy. Sustainable regional leadership cannot be built on political loyalty alone; it must rest on mutual respect and balanced interests. Viewing post-Hasina Bangladesh as an inherently ‘unreliable’ strategic space would be a serious miscalculation. The political consciousness of Bangladesh’s younger generation, its vibrant social dynamism and the unrestrained flow of information have already eroded the effectiveness of traditional influence strategies. Enduring partnerships are forged through trust, dignity and reciprocity not coercion or complacency.

Post-Hasina Bangladesh, therefore, represents more than a transfer of power. It marks a moment of psychological and diplomatic reawakening. Democratic restoration, state restructuring and administrative reforms are now being tested simultaneously. India will watch this transition with concern, China will view it as an opportunity and the United States will assess it through the prism of regional stability. Amid this triangular diplomacy, Bangladesh’s greatest strength remains its people and their evolving political consciousness.

The question, in the end, is straightforward yet profound: can this transition be shaped into a future defined by dignity rather than dependency? Bangladesh now stands before that rare historical opening. If it succeeds in reimagining its politics, foreign policy and institutions with vision and inclusivity, a new balance in South Asia may well emerge, one in which Dhaka becomes a central axis of regional politics, not a peripheral appendage of New Delhi.

Shahidul Alam Swapan is a Switzerland-based private banking financial crime specialist, columnist and poet.

Saif · 2026-01-23T20:41:28-0500

Indian forces kill 16 Maoists

Indian security forces have killed 16 Maoist rebel fighters, including a senior commander, in the eastern state of Jharkhand as authorities step up efforts to quash the long-running insurgency.

www.newagebd.net

Indian forces kill 16 Maoists
Agence France-Presse . New Delhi, India 24 January, 2026, 05:00

Indian security forces have killed 16 Maoist rebel fighters, including a senior commander, in the eastern state of Jharkhand as authorities step up efforts to quash the long-running insurgency.

More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long rebellion waged by the guerrillas, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalised indigenous people in resource-rich pockets of India.

New Delhi has launched an all-out campaign against the insurgents, also known as Naxalites after the village in the Himalayan foothills where the Maoist-inspired insurgency began nearly six decades ago, and vowed to end the rebellion by March 2026.

Since 2024, more than 500 Maoist rebels have been killed, including some of the top commanders, according to government figures.

The latest gunfight was reported from West Singhbhum district in Jharkhand state, home minister Amit Shah said in a social media post late Thursday.

One of those killed was a ‘notorious bounty-wanted Naxal Central Committee member’ named Patiram Manjhi, Shah said. He had a bounty of over $1,00,000 on his head.

‘We are committed to eradicating Naxalism, which has been synonymous with fear and terror for decades, before March 31, 2026,’ he said.

‘I once again appeal to the remaining Naxals to abandon the ideology that connects to violence, terror, and arms, and join the mainstream of development and trust.’

The Naxalite rebellion once held sway across nearly a third of the country, with an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 fighters at its peak in the mid-2000s, but it has been dramatically weakened in recent years.