My recent visit to Dhaka for the annual Bay of Bengal Conversations (BoBC) once again offered a window into diverse regional perspectives on political, economic, and security challenges that define South Asia—one of the world’s least integrated regions. Organized by the Centre for Governance Studies (CGS), the forum has, in recent years, grown well beyond Bangladesh’s borders.
CGS President Zillur Rahman—an influential civil society voice with a distinguished career in journalism and broadcasting—opened the conference with a sober reflection on the country’s recent past. His address ranged across regional geopolitics, cross-border threats from terrorism to cybersecurity and AI, and the economic strains created by bilateral and multilateral rivalries.
Listening to him, I wondered whether Bangladeshi society can genuinely move beyond the political culture he described, and whether the February elections will heal the wounds of Sheikh Hasina’s prolonged tenure.
“The BoB Conversations emerged in an environment where speaking the truth was a crime, standing for rights a violation, and advocacy for justice was monitored—often punished with jail or forced suspension,” Zillur noted. Reflecting on the authoritarian climate that prevailed before August 2024, he added, “In an unusually restricted civic space, we arrived here through persistence, solidarity and a belief in dialogue—driven also by the conviction that silence is criminal.”
His remarks inevitably evoked Pakistan’s own constricted political landscape since March 2022. While Bangladeshi students played a decisive role in ending an era of entrenched authoritarianism, the capitulation of mainstream political parties to coercive legislation has left many questions about the country’s democratic future.
This broader anxiety echoed throughout the three-day conference. Under the theme “Rivals, Ruptures, Realignments: Competing Political and Economic Ambitions of Big Powers,” participants examined the global democratic recession—using the rise of Donald Trump as a prominent example.
The panel “Beyond Non-Alignment: The Bay as the New Middle Ground” highlighted the shift from genuine non-alignment to the strategic pressures exerted by major powers. Once considered peripheral, the Bay of Bengal is now dense with competing commercial corridors, naval routes, and digital infrastructure. The United States, India, and China are all vying for influence, raising the question: how much strategic autonomy can smaller states such as Bangladesh realistically exercise without antagonizing any of them?
Similarly, “Dancing with Giants: The Art of Small-State Survival” explored how small nations navigate this competition without compromising sovereignty.
Another panel, “The Politics of Money: Sanctions, Sovereignty, and the New Economic Iron Curtain,” debated the effectiveness and legitimacy of sanctions regimes and financial watchdogs such as the FATF. Speakers questioned the selective global outrage that targets states like Iran, Russia, and China while overlooking the US- and UK-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—launched without UN authorization—despite similar allegations of human rights abuses and violations of sovereignty. Participants noted how the use of devastating ordnance, including the “Mother of All Bombs,” prompted little discussion about sanctions on Western states, even though comparable actions triggered heavy punitive measures against Russia over Ukraine.
Across sessions, the mood resembled an obituary for the rules-based international order. Terms such as democratic backsliding, fascist drift, and collapse of the rules-based system resonated throughout the conference. Several speakers portrayed the current global environment as one marked by unprecedented turbulence and the erosion of Western moral authority—highlighted by the continued support for Israel despite the killing of more than 70,000 Palestinians since October 2023.
In contrast, China was described as offering a more predictable and less intrusive partnership for developing countries—a non-interventionist actor viewed by many in the Global South as an empathetic political ally and commercially reliable partner.
Bangladeshi participants expressed particular unease about the geopolitics of the Bay and were notably critical of India. Despite decades of influence-building, India is still perceived as a dominating neighbour that leverages its position for its own advantage and has long discouraged Bangladesh from expanding cooperation with China. Many described this as a squandered opportunity for India, which maintains a substantial but quiet constituency in Bangladesh yet has consistently failed to win public trust.
The months ahead in Bangladesh promise uncertainty and tension. Will the exercise of elections will defy some of the apprehensions expressed during the conference is a big question to the context of regional volatility. How China, India, and the United States maneuver in the lead-up to the elections will be closely watched. Equally important will be the role of the Bangladesh Army—whether it remains politically neutral or aligns with external preferences, particularly India’s. For now, the military appears largely detached from political contestation, though many still recall that it was the army chief who facilitated Sheikh Hasina’s departure.
