The Biden administration pursued a two-pronged policy with India. On the one hand, he wanted to keep India under his control for strategic reasons, on the other hand, he did not accept everything from India. The Biden administration had to make many concessions while looking after India’s interests in the region. But it was also important for America to protect its interests in the region. In some cases, the Biden administration ignored India’s interests and prioritized its own interests.
Once it was thought that America looked at Bangladesh through the eyes of India. But the Biden administration backed away from this policy. Because, if we look at Bangladesh through the eyes of India, the interests of America in Bangladesh would be disturbed. For this reason, the Biden administration started making decisions regarding Bangladesh by ignoring India.
This is the view of the Biden administration in the case of Bangladesh.
Time will tell if this policy will change in Bangladesh now that Trump has been elected. If Trump goes back to the previous policy of Biden, i.e. if he goes back to seeing Bangladesh through India’s eyes, India’s interests will prevail in Bangladesh. Trump was in power from 2016 to 2020. At that time, how was the vision of the Trump administration in the case of Bangladesh? Certainly not like the Biden administration. At that time, India’s interests were protected in Bangladesh without restrictions. Trump didn’t bother about it but let India go its way.
If this same policy is adopted this time too, India’s dominance over Bangladesh can be seen as before.
However, I don’t think that India wants to force anything against the people of Bangladesh.
If they want to do something, they will also have public aspirations in mind. They may not do something overnight in Bangladesh.
There are two aspects of public aspirations in Bangladesh at the moment:
1) Super fast election
2) Elections to complete state reforms
Both sides have public aspirations.
However, the pressure will increase in favor of early elections. It is from the national level as well as from the international level. Internationally, there are strong forces against long-term unelected governments.
And if the military forces are in the field with magisterial power for a long time, civil involvement will happen. It will reduce the importance of the army. People will start seeing army as police. Such an army would not want either.
So there will be a strong demand to get out of all this with a quick election. It would not be possible for the interim government, standing on a weak foundation, to ignore those strong demands for long.
However, while India was hampered in preserving its interests in the region during the Biden administration, it may not be so hampered under Trump.
But if the Biden administration has already made progress in protecting America’s interests in Bangladesh and has already invested in fulfilling these interests, the Trump administration is less likely to back away from it. They will want to see India’s affairs by protecting it.
