Electoral calculus and diplomatic risks in anti-Bangladesh protests

Dhaka’s instability and Delhi’s electoral polarisation risk colliding in unpredictable ways

Demonstrations by Hindu fundamentalist organisations outside Bangladesh’s diplomatic missions in India have been triggered in response to the violent targeting of Hindus in Bangladesh.

The threats and attacks earlier on India’s diplomatic missions in Bangladesh that followed the death of a youth leader Osman Hadi also reflect an anti-India sentiment among some in that country, as well as the broader collapse of law and order under the Muhammad Yunus regime.

The protests by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-affiliated Hindu fundamentalist organisations in Delhi and Kolkata may be rooted in genuine concerns about the safety of the minority in Bangladesh. However, their timing, location, and political framing suggests that they are also being leveraged to influence the upcoming state elections in West Bengal. Apart from professed humanitarian concerns, their political impact cannot be ignored.

The organisations in India leading these protests — the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal, and allied Hindu organisations — are part of the Hindutva flotilla surrounding the political flagship captained by the BJP. It comes as no surprise then, that BJP leaders have been amplifying stories of Hindu victimhood in Bangladesh.

They serve the party well in bolstering the charge of ‘appeasement politics’ against the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal, and also help to keep diplomacy with Dhaka simmering in Delhi.

A formal understanding of citizenship would be that the violence against Hindu citizens of Bangladesh is entirely a domestic matter of that country. But given the chequered history of India’s Partition, communal violence across national borders is inevitably viewed through the prism of religious identity and sentiments of religious solidarity. An attack on Hindu citizens of Bangladesh and Pakistan, inevitably triggers fears about the general vulnerability of Hindus in Muslim-majority nations.

The people of the border states of Assam and West Bengal that were Partition victims along communal lines — have a deep historical memory of the event. Here, violence against Hindus in Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) resonates deeply with the local population. Religious persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh also accelerates the movement of people across borders into these states, making migration, legal or illegal, into a hot political issue. Hindu victimhood and illegal migration of Muslims have become important tropes in the electoral politics of Assam and West Bengal.

In the politics of West Bengal, the communal narrative is particularly potent as incidents of violence against Hindus in Bangladesh feeds the account that Hindus will remain insecure in any state where there is ‘appeasement politics’. The BJP is not at all averse to using such fears to its advantage, and sharing the brand rub-off of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal as global protectors of Hindus.

In the West Bengal elections of 2017 and 2021, the party already relied heavily on strategies of religious polarisation. In 2017, the BJP made an entry into West Bengal with a narrative of ‘appeasement’ against the TMC. The TMC’s policy of giving stipends to imams and supporting madrassas was seen as pandering to Muslim interests at the cost of Hindus. The Sangh parivar also experimented with Ram Navami processions, a well-worn tool of Hindutva organisations to polarise religious communities in pre- and post-Independence India.

By 2021, the BJP had also added the celebration of Hanuman Jayanti in addition to Ram Navami to its political repertoire, a festival not celebrated in West Bengal. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) were also made central to its campaign, one promising to protect Hindu refugees from Bangladesh and the other portraying Muslims as outsiders. The NRC idea did not find much support and was dropped while promising CAA implementation on ‘Day 1’ of a BJP government.

These aggressive attempts to inject identity politics into West Bengal’s political culture, till then dominated largely by class and populist narratives, paid it rich dividends. The BJP gained 77 seats in the 2021 Assembly election and a vote share of 38%. Polarisation was intense in border districts like North 24 Parganas, Cooch Bihar, and Malda. Therefore, those who see a design behind the anti-Bangladesh protests in Kolkata and Delhi by the VHP and Bajarang Dal, may not be too far from the truth.

In the BJP’s 2026 West Bengal campaign strategy, violence against Hindus in Bangladesh is likely to be a dominant strand. The West Bengal election is due in March-April 2026. As West Bengal politics operates through dominance of the street, there could be some violence during Ram Navami falling on March 26 and Hanuman Jayanti on April 2 next year.

Yet, it may be too cynical and far-fetched to say that the BJP government at the Centre will sacrifice diplomatic ties with Bangladesh to win the West Bengal elections. Bangladesh is far too strategically important for any government in New Delhi to do that. However, it is likely that the protests against Bangladesh in Delhi and Kolkata will be allowed to stay on the boil. Perhaps this is why the protestors have been allowed to gather but dispersed before they reach anywhere near enough to Bangladesh’s diplomatic missions or its diplomats to cause any damage.

While in West Bengal, BJP leaders are allowed to amplify the Hindu victimhood narrative, the Union government will continue to emphasise friendship and protect bilateral ties with Bangladesh. The message that these are ‘normal’ protests not encouraged by the Centre may be reiterated to Dhaka through backchannels as well.

Seeking an electoral payoff in West Bengal through such a strategy assumes that the street level politics can be controlled. The costs of alienating Dhaka are quite high. Delhi-Dhaka ties are already volatile and fragile. Street protests in either country may spiral out of control, if the two governments lose control over them.

If anti-India protests in Bangladesh intensify and the Yunus government is unable to control the Islamist forces, then the BJP government in India may be forced into a harsher response. The weakness of the Yunus government means that India cannot fully rely on it to contain the anti-India sentiment, and that may be the greatest infirmity in a dual strategy where domestic politics and international policy are, or allowed to be, at odds.

As the BJP’s electoral strategy gets increasingly entangled with Dhaka’s inability to control Islamist street power, the situation could spiral out of control. Domestic mobilisation by the ancillary forces of Hindutva ideology in India may then spill over into foreign policy.

Bharat Bhushan is a New Delhi-based journalist.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH)