In recent weeks, a provocative question has surfaced in Indian strategic circles: If India can talk to the Taliban in Kabul, why not engage whoever rules Dhaka today? At first glance, the argument appears pragmatic. Diplomacy, after all, is about dealing with realities, not preferences. But beneath this apparent realism lies a dangerous false equivalence—one that risks misreading Bangladesh, misjudging India’s leverage, and misapplying a crisis-management framework to a neighbour that remains structurally salvageable.

Afghanistan & Bangladesh are not comparable

Engaging Kabul was a compulsion, not a choice.

India’s limited engagement with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is purely transactional. It stems from three hard realities: the collapse of the Afghan state, India’s absence of influence over regime outcomes, and the immediate security risks emanating from Afghan soil—terrorism, narcotics, and Pakistan’s strategic depth.

Talking to Kabul is about damage limitation, not order shaping. India neither legitimises Taliban ideology nor views Afghanistan as a theatre where it can mould political trajectories. It is engagement without illusion.

Bangladesh, by contrast, is a country whose state institutions still function, whose economy remains globally integrated, and whose political future is not yet foreclosed. Applying the Kabul template to Dhaka would amount to abandoning strategic agency where India still possesses it.

Bangladesh has not become Afghanistan

Despite alarmist claims, Bangladesh has not been “taken over” by extremists in the Taliban sense. The army remains intact, professional, and nationally oriented. The bureaucracy and judiciary continue to operate. There is no ideological monopoly akin to the Taliban’s theocratic absolutism.

Yet, there is reason for concern. Islamist forces—particularly Jamaat- e-Islami and allied networks—have regained organisational confidence, expanded street mobilisation, and sharpened anti-India rhetoric. This is not state capture, but ideological seepage—more reminiscent of Pakistan’s gradual Islamisation in the 1990s than Afghanistan’s overnight collapse in 2021.

This distinction matters. Bangladesh still has choices. Afghanistan doesn’t.

Talking to Dhaka is not same as talking to Kabul

The argument that “India talks to the Taliban, so it can talk to Yunus or any interim authority in Dhaka” misunderstands diplomacy’s hierarchy. Talking is never neutral. Who India talks to, how it does so, and in what sequence sends powerful regional signals.

Engaging Kabul acknowledges a fait accompli. Engaging Dhaka shapes outcomes.

If engagement with Dhaka confers premature legitimacy on forces that are, hostile to India’s security interests, ambiguous on cross-border extremism or acting as a civilian façade for Islamist consolidation, then India risks becoming an unwitting enabler of a long-term strategic setback in its eastern neighbourhood. Dialogue must therefore be conditional, calibrated, and reversible—not reflexive.

The Yunus Question: Bridge or facade?

Muhammad Yunus enjoys global credibility and moral capital. But the strategic question for India is not personal reputation—it is political function. Is he a stabilising bridge towards pluralism, or a legitimising cover for forces whose long-term orientation is adversarial to India?

India has learned this lesson before—in Nepal, in Sri Lanka, and painfully, in Pakistan. Civilian respectability does not automatically translate into strategic reassurance. India must engage, but without becoming the first to validate a political arrangement that later hardens against its interests.

China–Pakistan–Turkey Nexus: The missing layer

What makes the Bangladesh question more consequential than Afghanistan is the external alignment risk. Unlike Taliban-ruled Kabul, Bangladesh sits at the intersection of a quiet but converging China–Pakistan–Turkey axis.

Pakistan views Bangladesh as unfinished business of 1971— ideologically if not territorially. Jamaat-e-Islami has long served as Islamabad’s narrative and organisational proxy, particularly on anti- India mobilisation.

Turkey, under President Erdoğan, has systematically cultivated Islamist political movements across South and Southeast Asia, combining religious outreach with soft-power diplomacy and intelligence networking.

China brings scale, money, and strategic patience. Beijing’s interest is not ideological but geopolitical: reducing India’s strategic depth in the Bay of Bengal and normalising regimes that dilute Indian influence, regardless of their internal character.

Individually, none of these actors can tilt Bangladesh decisively. Together, they create a strategic ecosystem that rewards Islamist mobilisation, constrains pro-India choices, and slowly reorients Dhaka away from New Delhi without dramatic rupture.

This is not a conspiracy—it is alignment by opportunity.

Sheikh Hasina’s presence in India: Liability or leverage?

India’s decision to shelter Sheikh Hasina is consistent with its long civilisational tradition of providing refuge—from the Dalai Lama to political exiles across South Asia. Strategically, however, her presence complicates diplomacy.

Dhaka’s new power centres may weaponize her stay to fuel anti-India narratives. Yet, the alternative forced return or abandonment— would be morally indefensible and strategically catastrophic. India’s credibility with all regional partners would suffer.

The challenge is not her presence but managing the optics without surrendering principle.

Is Bangladesh becoming Pakistan’s “B-Team”?

Bangladesh is not under ISI control, but the directional drift is worrying. Jamaat’s revival, the recycling of Pakistan-style street politics, strategic silence on extremist networks, and renewed outreach to Turkey and Qatar mirror patterns India has seen before. This is not takeover—it is alignment creep. And creep, if unchallenged, becomes capture.

The strategic imperative for India

India must reject the temptation of lazy analogies. Bangladesh is not Afghanistan. Dhaka is not Kabul. And Islamist mobilisation is not the same as Islamist rule. New Delhi’s task is not to isolate Bangladesh, nor to embrace it uncritically—but to shape incentives, strengthen institutional interlocutors (especially the military and economic ministries), and draw clear red lines without megaphone diplomacy.

Most    importantly, India must remember that: It    talks    to Taliban    because    it    must. It engages Bangladesh because it can still influence outcomes. Confusing the two would not be realism. It would be strategic retreat.