As India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’, a calibrated missile strike targeting nine terrorist infrastructure sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the notable silence from Bangladesh’s interim government has drawn widespread regional and international scrutiny.
The operation, executed in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam massacre that claimed the lives of 26 innocent civilians, has elicited strong reactions from global powers. Washington, Beijing, and European capitals called for restraint, while Islamabad issued warnings of retaliation.
However, Dhaka’s absence from the diplomatic discourse is becoming a major talking point— particularly in light of recent incendiary comments made by retired Bangladeshi Army officer Major General (Retd) ALM Fazlur Rahman, currently serving as Mumahhad Yunus-led govt’s Chairperson of the National Independent Commission of Inquiry probing the 2009 BDR mutiny.
Just days before India’s cross-border operation, Rahman publicly suggested that Bangladesh should seize India’s northeastern states if India attacks Pakistan. The statement, condemned across Indian security circles, was viewed as dangerously provocative and sharply out of sync with South Asian diplomatic norms.
Rahman’s comments, though not endorsed officially by the Bangladeshi government, have cast a shadow over Dhaka’s neutrality. Observers believe that the interim government’s refusal to issue a statement on India’s anti-terror operation is linked to a broader strategy of appeasement, aimed at avoiding backlash from domestic factions sympathetic to Pakistan or hostile to India.
Unlike regional players such as Sri Lanka and the Maldives, who voiced concerns over the threat to regional peace and Nepal, which issued a balanced call for de-escalation, Bangladesh has remained conspicuously silent.
This diplomatic abstention is being interpreted as a calculated move. Analysts say that Dhaka is walking a tightrope, trying neither to endorse India’s anti-terror stance openly nor to antagonise Pakistan, with which it has developed warming ties in recent months.
The silence of interim Prime Minister Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace laureate known for championing humanitarian causes, has particularly puzzled observers. His failure to condemn a brutal terrorist attack or support anti-terror actions has raised questions about the domestic political compulsions shaping Dhaka’s current foreign posture.
Social scientists in Bangladesh suggest that Yunus’s silence is deliberate, influenced by the need to maintain a fragile political balance amid a volatile internal landscape, where anti-India rhetoric often surfaces among segments of the Jamaat-e-Islami and BNP camps.
This episode may indicate a larger shift in Bangladesh’s regional posture, particularly in the context of growing Chinese and Pakistani influence in Dhaka’s strategic calculus. The refusal to denounce Rahman’s remarks, combined with silence on ‘Operation Sindoor’, hints at Bangladesh’s cautious repositioning as a neutral player, or perhaps a passive partner in a more complex geopolitical alignment.
“With Bangladesh being a key neighbour and security partner, particularly in counter-terror operations and northeast border coordination, such ambivalence could impact bilateral trust. As India continues to safeguard its borders and citizens against cross-border terrorism, questions now loom over how Dhaka’s silence—and Rahman’s rhetoric—may shape future relations between the two countries,” said an official of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
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