Arise Bharat

Author : Lt Col Ajay Kumar (retd)

When Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus arrived in Beijing in March 2025, many dismissed his visit as routine diplomacy. But days later, his provocative comment that India’s northeastern states were “landlocked” and reliant on Bangladesh for access to the sea sparked alarm across New Delhi’s security establishment. For strategic observers, this was more than rhetoric. Dhaka was signalling its intention to recalibrate its regional posture—and it was doing so by aligning closely with China and Pakistan.

In what now appears to be a quiet but coordinated shift, Bangladesh is emerging as the third vertex in a developing China-Pakistan-Bangladesh axis—militarily discreet, ideologically convergent, and regionally disruptive. This new alignment poses a direct threat to India’s vulnerable Northeast, especially the Siliguri Corridor—the “chicken’s neck” that connects the rest of India to its eastern states.

Dhaka’s Strategic Drift: Not Just Hedging Anymore

The most visible marker of Dhaka’s eastward pivot was the announcement that Bangladesh would procure 32 JF-17 Thunder fighter jets. This joint venture of Pakistan’s Aeronautical Complex and China’s Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group is expected to replace Bangladesh’s ageing fleet and dramatically upgrade its air capabilities.

Even more concerning for India is the reported handover of two WWII-era airbases, Thakurgaon and Lalmonirhat, both near the northern Indian border, to Chinese advisors under a dual-use “training and logistics” agreement. Though Dhaka underplays this, these bases—originally constructed by the British to repel Japanese advances—are now being repurposed in a modern Chinese security framework.

Bangladesh has also acquired Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones, which Indian media reports have flown dangerously close to the international border. “This is no longer symbolic posturing,” said a retired Indian military intelligence officer. “It’s a calibrated signalling strategy meant to keep India off balance in the east.”

Pakistan’s Return to Dhaka: A Strategic Revival

On April 10, Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Amna Baloch arrived in Dhaka to hold Foreign Office Consultations with her Bangladeshi counterpart Md Jashim Uddin. The visit raised eyebrows, not least because of the historical baggage of 1971, when Pakistan’s military killed hundreds of thousands in what is now Bangladesh.

But for Islamabad, the past is secondary to the geopolitical present. Re-engaging Dhaka allows Pakistan to insert itself into an emerging regional bloc with Chinese backing. As Dr. Ananya Mukherjee of the Observer Research Foundation notes, “The China-Pakistan-Bangladesh axis allows all three countries to challenge India’s hegemony from multiple angles—geographically in the Northeast, diplomatically in South Asia, and psychologically in its own backyard.”

Why This Axis Serves Domestic Agendas

The realignment may threaten India, but it serves internal goals for each of the three players.

For Xi Jinping, the pivot is part of a grand strategy to contain India from all sides—the so-called “String of Pearls.” With inroads in Nepal, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka, Bangladesh is the missing piece in China’s eastern flank. Access to Bangladeshi airfields gives Beijing surveillance depth and potentially naval anchorage near the Bay of Bengal, advancing its Indo-Pacific ambitions.

For the Pakistan Army, the Bangladesh thaw offers a way to remain geopolitically relevant as internal dissent grows in Baluchistan, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Tapping into Islamic brotherhood rhetoric, Islamabad seeks to rekindle ties under the façade of Muslim solidarity while deepening China-backed defence cooperation.

For Muhammad Yunus, facing domestic legitimacy issues as an unelected interim leader, the axis offers economic aid, political insurance, and international visibility. Chinese infrastructure deals and defence packages help project strength and autonomy, especially ahead of the upcoming elections.

India’s Siliguri Corridor: The Pressure Point

India’s strategic vulnerability lies in its geography. The Siliguri Corridor—a mere 20 to 25 kilometres wide in places—connects the rest of India to its northeastern states. A conflict here could sever the Northeast from the mainland.

That’s why, as per Defence Security Asia, India has recently deployed the Russian-built S-400 Triumf air defence system to Siliguri. This advanced system can detect and neutralise aerial threats from hundreds of kilometres away. While a deterrent, it also reflects New Delhi’s growing anxiety.

“The Siliguri Corridor is India’s jugular,” warns Lt. Gen. S.L. Narasimhan (retd), a former member of the National Security Advisory Board. “If Dhaka joins Beijing and Islamabad in even tacit military coordination, India faces a credible multi-front challenge.”

India also risks seeing its connectivity projects—such as the India-Bangladesh inland waterway systems and the Maitri Setu bridge—weaponised or shut down if relations sour. What was once an integration gateway could become a geopolitical lever.

Southeast Asia’s Strategic Balance at Risk

The implications go beyond India. A China-aligned Bangladesh extends Beijing’s military and economic reach into the Bay of Bengal, closing the distance to the Malacca Strait and penetrating deeper into the Indo-Pacific zone of influence.

“China’s presence in Bangladesh is the final stitch in its South Asian quilt,” observes Tanvi Madan of Brookings. “It creates a de facto eastern theatre, complementing its foothold in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. For the U.S.-India-Japan-Australia Quad, this changes the strategic calculus.”

The axis also signals to smaller ASEAN states that China is building coalitions not just through ports and trade, but through military-diplomatic alignments. If left unchecked, this could diminish India’s stature as the natural anchor of the Bay of Bengal and fracture regional deterrence mechanisms built over the past two decades.

Strategic Posture for an Eastern Front: Responding to the Bridgehead

Bangladesh’s shift from a geopolitical buffer to a strategic bridgehead for adversarial forces demands a comprehensive recalibration of India’s eastern security doctrine. The convergence of Chinese capital, Pakistani military hardware, and Bangladeshi political realignment is no longer theoretical—it is manifesting on the ground, in the air, and along the borders of India’s most vulnerable region.

To counter this transformation, India must abandon passive containment and adopt an assertive forward posture. The eastern front—particularly the Siliguri Corridor and the Northeast—must be hardened with integrated air defence systems like the S-400, robust ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) infrastructure, and a streamlined joint command structure that ensures rapid responsiveness to multi-front threats.

Simultaneously, diplomatic inertia must give way to strategic influence in Dhaka. India’s outreach must expand beyond connectivity and trade to encompass cyber cooperation, green energy integration, and defence partnerships, thereby reducing Bangladesh’s drift into the orbit of Beijing and Rawalpindi.

At the regional level, India should leverage platforms like BIMSTEC and the Indo-Pacific coalition to internationalize the security implications of Bangladesh’s military realignment. This includes calling out dual-use infrastructure, surveillance cooperation with China, and any creeping militarization near India’s borders.

Most critically, India must reimagine the Northeast not as a neglected hinterland but as a strategic bastion. Accelerated infrastructure development, defense manufacturing corridors, and grassroots integration of local communities into national security frameworks are essential to fortify this potential fault line.

What was once a buffer is now an active frontier. Bangladesh’s evolution into a bridgehead for hostile influence has created a new axis of pressure against India’s eastern flank. Strategic clarity, regional vigilance, and calibrated coercion—not complacency—must guide India’s next steps.

Conclusion

Bangladesh is no longer functioning as a neutral buffer between India and its geopolitical adversaries. Through strategic realignment with China and Pakistan, Dhaka is fast transforming into a bridgehead—one that could facilitate external pressure on India’s most sensitive frontier.

This shift is not incidental; it is structural. With military cooperation deepening, airfields opening to Chinese presence, and ideological proximity with Pakistan resurfacing, Bangladesh is being redefined from a peripheral player to an active participant in a regional counterweight to India.

For India, this represents a paradigm shift. The Eastern theatre can no longer be treated as diplomatically benign or strategically dormant. The Northeast is now on the frontline of a potential multi-axis challenge, and the Siliguri Corridor stands as the chokepoint vulnerable to encirclement.

India must respond not just with defense deployments, but with strategic depth—cultivating resilient partnerships, reinforcing territorial infrastructure, and proactively shaping the region’s security architecture.

Bangladesh’s transition from buffer to bridgehead signals the opening of a new eastern front. If ignored, it could redefine the balance of power in South Asia to India’s detriment.