Arise Bharat

Author : Col Ajay Kumar ( retd )

South Asia is witnessing the revival of a strategic impulse that never fully disappeared. The collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s government in August 2024 did more than destabilize Bangladesh’s domestic politics; it reopened a historical contest rooted in the trauma of 1971. What has followed is not a temporary diplomatic adjustment but a structured attempt by Pakistan’s military-intelligence establishment to reinsert itself into Bangladesh’s security ecosystem and convert Dhaka into a pressure point against Bharat’s eastern front.

Multiple intelligence assessments converge on one core conclusion: Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has activated a long-standing revisionist doctrine aimed at offsetting the strategic consequences of 1971. The objective is not territorial reversal but functional retaliation, using Bangladesh’s political flux, porous borders, and radicalized youth networks to generate sustained instability across Bharat’s Northeast.

For Pakistan’s military elite, the loss of East Pakistan remains an unresolved institutional trauma. It shattered the ideological coherence of the “Two-Nation Theory” and permanently altered Pakistan’s regional standing. Since then, a secular and Bharat-aligned Bangladesh has been viewed in Rawalpindi as an anomaly. Sheikh Hasina’s long tenure from 2009 to 2024 sharply constrained Pakistan’s reach. Her government dismantled ISI-linked militant infrastructure, neutralized Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir networks, and cooperated closely with Indian agencies against groups such as ULFA. Her removal created an opening that Pakistan moved to exploit with speed.

By late 2025, a dedicated ISI operational unit, informally referred to in security assessments as the “Dhaka Cell,” had been embedded within the Pakistan High Commission. This was not a routine intelligence presence but a multi-service task force reflecting the breadth of Pakistan’s ambitions. ISI Director General Lt. Gen. Asim Malik visited Dhaka in January 2025, the first such visit in decades. Malik, a former Adjutant General, laid the foundation for what was publicly described as a “Joint Intelligence Mechanism” with Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI). According to officials familiar with the arrangement, this framework institutionalized intelligence cooperation focused on Bharat’s Northeast, the Siliguri Corridor, and maritime surveillance in the Bay of Bengal.

General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, is widely assessed as the principal architect of the broader military-to-military thaw. He was supported by senior officers including Major General Shahid Afsar and Brigadier General Alam Amir Awan. On the ground, a Brigadier heading the Dhaka Cell oversaw liaison with radical student platforms such as Inqilab Mancha. Colonels functioned as senior operatives managing ideological recruitment, while Majors coordinated field-level activities along the West Bengal and Assam sectors. Lt. Colonel Usman Latif Khalid was associated with technical cooperation and training interfaces. The structure resembled Pakistan’s earlier “Sri Lanka model,” where diplomatic cover facilitated operational intelligence activity, though in Bangladesh the posture has been more overt.

The student protests of mid-2024 initially reflected genuine grievances over quotas and employment. Youth unemployment stood at 4.48 percent, and discontent was widespread. However, intelligence inputs indicate that external groundwork preceded the escalation. Radical factions were consolidated into a loose coalition that included Rohingya armed groups such as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation. These groups were allegedly promised logistical support in exchange for acting as force multipliers during unrest.

On campuses, Islami Chhatra Shibir played a decisive role. In May 2025, Muzammil Iqbal Hashmi, a US-designated terrorist linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, publicly claimed coordination between LeT-linked elements and Shibir during the unrest. The strategy mirrored established patterns: overwhelm local policing, fragment command response, and convert protest into regime-ending disorder. The destruction of the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum was widely interpreted as a symbolic assault on the legacy of 1971 itself.

Muhammad Yunus assumed office pledging democratic restoration. Yet his interim administration has shown increasing dependence on Islamist constituencies. This vulnerability has translated into policy choices with serious security implications. The appointment of Nasimul Gani as Senior Home Secretary in December 2024 drew particular concern. Gani is a founding member of the Bangladesh chapter of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, an organization banned in 2009 for anti-state activities. His elevation placed an ideological hardliner at the apex of internal security.

Similarly influential has been Mohammad Mahfuz Alam, Yunus’s Special Assistant with secretary-level status. Alam’s public statements have included overtly revisionist rhetoric, including references to the events of 1975, the year Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated. Under Yunus, the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami was lifted, Ansarullah Bangla Team chief Jasimuddin Rahmani was released, direct Karachi–Chittagong shipping was resumed, and visa norms were eased for Pakistani “technical experts.” Constitutional proposals diluted references to secularism. Individually, these measures appeared administrative; collectively, they signaled institutional accommodation of groups historically aligned with Pakistan’s security agenda.

The Indo-Bangladesh border, stretching over 4,096 kilometers, remains the most exploitable vulnerability. Roughly 1,090 kilometers remain unfenced or secured only by non-physical barriers, particularly along riverine stretches. Intelligence alerts issued in late 2025 warned of plans to push large numbers of illegal migrants and Rohingya refugees into Bharat ahead of the West Bengal elections scheduled for March–April 2026. The stated objective was to overwhelm the Border Security Force, alter local demographics, and generate communal volatility. Many of those involved were reportedly drawn from camps where ideological indoctrination and basic paramilitary training were provided.

Specific geographies have drawn attention: the Siliguri Corridor, where reports have surfaced of a Chinese–Pakistani linked air facility at Lalmonirhat; North Bengal’s tri-junction with Nepal and Bangladesh; and forested zones such as the Masalong River and Kasalong Reserve Forest, where assistance to ULFA factions attempting to reconstitute training bases has been reported.

The destabilization of Bharat’s Northeast remains central to Pakistan’s strategy. The ethnic conflict in Manipur since May 2023 has been actively exploited. Security analysts assess that ISI-linked channels, possibly in coordination with Chinese intermediaries, have facilitated arms flows to Kuki militant groups via the Myanmar–Bangladesh axis. The resulting violence has tied down Indian Army formations, indirectly easing pressure along the Line of Actual Control and the western front. Similar signals are emerging in Nagaland, where factions such as the NSCN (K) have withdrawn from ceasefires amid indications of renewed external encouragement.

December 2025 underscored how violence is being used for psychological effect. Sharif Osman Hadi, a spokesperson for Inqilab Mancha and a prominent advocate of the “Greater Bangladesh” narrative, was killed in a targeted shooting in Dhaka’s Purana Paltan area. While investigators cited local political rivalries, ISI-aligned networks rapidly alleged Indian involvement, triggering riots, attacks on secular media outlets such as Prothom Alo, and assaults on Indian diplomatic facilities.

Days later, Dipu Chandra Das, a Hindu factory worker in Mymensingh, was lynched following a fabricated allegation of blasphemy. Rapid Action Battalion findings later stated no such remark had been made. The killing sent a chilling signal to minorities historically aligned with Bangladesh’s secular identity.

The return of BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman on December 25, 2025, after 17 years in London, marked the consolidation of these trends. During the BNP–Jamaat rule of 2001–06, Rahman operated from the informal power center known as Hawa Bhaban, associated with ULFA patronage and the 2004 ten-truck arms haul. His mass استقبال in Dhaka signaled the political normalization of a figure long linked in security assessments to ISI-backed networks, despite public efforts to distance the BNP from Jamaat-e-Islami.

What is unfolding in Bangladesh is not episodic instability but the reactivation of a coherent revisionist doctrine rooted in 1971. Through the Dhaka Cell, the Joint Intelligence Mechanism, radical youth mobilization, border weaponization, and insurgency revival, Pakistan has re-entered Bangladesh as a strategic platform. For Bharat, the eastern front is no longer secondary. Unless this institutional capture is addressed with strategic clarity, Bangladesh risks becoming a permanent arena for hybrid warfare—less a sovereign neighbor than a contested space shaped by unresolved history and present ambition.