Pakistan’s expanding footprint in Bangladesh is an insult to the legacy of 1971

Bangladesh was born in 1971 through extraordinary sacrifice. Pakistan’s military campaign, launched under Operation Searchlight, resulted in one of the worst genocides of the twentieth century. An estimated three million people were killed, hundreds of thousands of women were subjected to sexual violence, and the country’s intellectual class was systematically targeted. These crimes are well documented in academic literature and international records, including detailed historical accounts of the Bangladesh genocide.

Bangladesh’s liberation was achieved through the resistance of the Mukti Bahini and India’s decisive military intervention. That victory was not merely territorial; it was moral and civilisational. It established Bangladesh as a sovereign nation free from Pakistani military domination.

Against this historical backdrop, the steadily increasing political, economic and ideological footprint of Pakistan in Bangladesh today is not a routine diplomatic development. It represents a profound affront to the memory of 1971 and to the foundations on which Bangladesh was created.

Recent security assessments and open-source reporting point to a worrying pattern. Since 2023-24, there has been a marked increase in Pakistani engagement with Bangladesh through trade, religious institutions and political outreach. Trade volumes, estimated at USD 1.5-2.5 billion annually, are being projected as a sign of normalisation. However, economic engagement cannot be viewed in isolation from its strategic context.

Reports, including those carried by “Songramer Notebook”, indicate a sharp rise in the number of religious institutions receiving funding linked to Pakistani sources. The expansion of such networks risks recreating ideological ecosystems that historically enabled radicalisation and collaboration with Pakistan’s military apparatus during 1971.

Equally troubling is the persistent effort to dilute or relativise the genocide. Pakistani official discourse continues to dismiss Bangladesh’s war crimes trials as illegitimate, while selective academic and seminar platforms in Pakistan attempt to recast the liberation war as a “civil conflict”. Participation by Bangladeshi political figures in such forums undermines national memory and dishonours the victims of mass violence.

Public sentiment within Bangladesh reflects this unease. Polling and commentary reported by Bangladeshi strategic circles indicates deep public scepticism toward closer ties with Pakistan, with a significant majority viewing such engagement as incompatible with national dignity and historical truth.

From a strategic perspective, the concern is not symbolic alone. Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus has historically used religious networks, financial channels and political proxies to extend influence and destabilise neighbouring states. Indicators of renewed engagement with Jamaat-linked structures and madrasa funding patterns should therefore be assessed with caution.

The risk is not hypothetical. Similar networks in the past facilitated the creation of Razakar militias and internal collaborators during Operation Searchlight. The replication of such ideological infrastructure, even in a different form, poses longterm internal security risks for Bangladesh and regional stability risks for India.

For India, which bore significant military, economic and diplomatic costs in 1971 to support Bangladesh’s liberation, these developments carry particular weight. A Bangladesh drawn into overlapping China-Pakistan strategic influence would alter the security balance in eastern South Asia and undermine the spirit of regional cooperation that followed independence.

Bangladesh today stands at a crossroads. Engagement with all nations is a sovereign right. However, engagement that ignores historical accountability and security realities risks eroding the very sovereignty it seeks to exercise.

Allowing Pakistan to rebuild influence without acknowledgment of past crimes, without accountability, and through opaque financial and ideological channels creates vulnerabilities that cannot be justified by short-term economic considerations. Trade and diplomacy cannot be divorced from memory, justice and strategic consequence.

For a nation born from resistance to genocide, historical amnesia is not neutrality—it is self-negation. Bangladesh’s leadership has a responsibility to ensure that economic or diplomatic engagement does not come at the cost of historical truth or national security. Transparency in funding, scrutiny of religious and educational networks, and an uncompromising stance on genocide recognition are essential.

The legacy of 1971 was not secured to be gradually diluted. It was earned through blood, suffering and collective resolve. That legacy demands vigilance.

Normalisation without accountability does not heal wounds; it reopens them. For Bangladesh, honouring the spirit of liberation means ensuring that the forces responsible for its darkest chapter are never allowed to regain influence—directly or indirectly—over its future.

Pakistan’s expanding engagement in Bangladesh through trade, religious institutions and political outreach raises serious historical and security concerns. Without accountability for the 1971 genocide and transparency in current engagements, such ties risk undermining Bangladesh’s sovereignty, eroding national memory and destabilising the regional security environment.

• Major General R.P.S. Bhadauria (Retd) is the Additional Director General of the Centre for Land Warfare Studies.