Manufacturing panic: Indian media loses its head over neighbour’s affairs. Again.

When Indian media outlet Firstpost recently published a column on whether India should pursue a Monroe Doctrine-style policy towards Bangladesh, or when the Hindustan Times published   disinformation about India being the Bangladeshi Prime Minister's first foreign trip destination, they were not merely another sensational piece of news designed for digital virality. It was reflective of a deeper and increasingly troubling tendency within sections of Indian media as framing the portrayal of Bangladesh's sovereign foreign policy choices as an existential strategic threat to India.  

The reaction to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's China visit and the subsequent Bangladesh–China joint agreements has once again highlighted  how the sections of Indian television, digital media, and strategic commentary ecosystems continue to approach Bangladesh not as an equal sovereign neighbour, but as a geopolitical buffer, expected to remain permanently aligned with Indian strategic interests. 

The language used in much of the coverage has often been alarmist, paternalistic, and, at times, openly interventionist. Terms such as "China tilt", "strategic drift", "security threat", and "India losing Bangladesh" have been repeated with remarkable frequency. 

Taken together, this coverage suggests that Bangladesh's exercise of foreign policy autonomy is frequently framed as unusual, risky or strategically problematic. It also reflects an apparent expectation in some quarters that major foreign policy decisions in Dhaka should remain closely aligned with Indian strategic interests. 

Yet when one examines the actual Bangladesh–China joint communique, much of the alarm appears disproportionate. The document itself is restrained, technical and diplomatic in tone. It focuses on feasibility studies, economic cooperation, infrastructure coordination and broader bilateral engagement. 

There is no military alliance, no anti-India bloc and no indication that Bangladesh is abandoning its long-standing principle of maintaining balanced relations with all major powers. 

Nevertheless, a section of Indian media chose to frame the visit as a geopolitical rupture. This disconnect between reality and media projection is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Manufacturing strategic panic

The Teesta issue illustrates this dynamic particularly well.

For nearly a decade, Bangladesh sought progress on the Teesta water-sharing agreement through diplomatic engagement with India. Since 2016, discussions surrounding the Teesta Barrage Master Plan and broader water-sharing arrangements have repeatedly stalled. Despite multiple rounds of dialogue, substantive progress remained elusive.

Now that Bangladesh is exploring alternative partnerships and technical cooperation with China regarding Teesta-related infrastructure, sections of Indian media have reacted as though Dhaka has committed a geopolitical betrayal.

However, Bangladesh did not "suddenly" move towards China. The nation has long been one of Bangladesh's largest development partners, investors, and infrastructure collaborators. India itself maintains extensive economic relations with China despite their border tensions and strategic rivalry. Yet when Bangladesh pursues similar diversification, it is often framed in Indian media discourse as evidence of "strategic infiltration" or "Chinese encirclement".

This double standard lies at the centre of the current controversy.

M Humayun Kabir , former ambassador to the US, argues that much of the panic being amplified externally does not necessarily reflect the views of more serious strategic observers within India itself.

"There is certainly close observation, monitoring, and scrutiny taking place. However, among the people I have spoken to, I have not found any excessive concern suggesting that Bangladesh is drifting away entirely or moving wholesale into China's sphere of influence," he says.

"Rather, their view is that Bangladesh's engagement with China is neither new nor unexpected, and that India must continue to approach Bangladesh within the framework of the broader realities of India–Bangladesh relations."

Kabir also noted that much of the sensationalism appears driven by the contemporary media economy itself.

"In today's media environment, provocative commentary tends to generate greater public attention, and as a result, there is a segment actively trying to inject a degree of sensationalism into the narrative," he opines.

The post-5 August information war

Since 5 August 2024, Bangladesh has become the subject of a relentless wave of misinformation, disinformation, and speculative reporting across sections of Indian media and social media ecosystems.

False narratives regarding communal violence, fabricated reports of "anti-Hindu pogroms", manipulated videos, and exaggerated claims of state collapse repeatedly circulated online, often amplified by high-profile Indian commentators and media outlets before verification.

In February this year, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) reported that at least 140 instances of disinformation about Bangladesh had been identified across 73 Indian media outlets in 2025 alone. 

The cumulative effect of this ecosystem is the creation of a permanent atmosphere of suspicion around Bangladesh within sections of Indian public discourse.

General Fazle Elahi Akbar, geopolitical analyst and founder chairman of the Foundation for Strategic and Development Studies, warns that this trend is becoming deeply harmful to bilateral relations.

"The Indian government and Indian media have to understand that Bangladesh is a sovereign country," he said, "India must understand the ground reality of Bangladesh. We were previously governed by a fascist regime without a popular mandate that was greatly indebted to India for its survival. Back then, this kind of media hype would have worked to influence Bangladeshi policy. But now, there is an elected government with a two-thirds majority. 

"And for its political support, the government will take any step necessary to pursue a policy for the betterment of the country and its people. Indian media must accept this reality and recalibrate its stance towards Bangladesh. The old ways will not work anymore," he adds. 

He also says that Bangladesh's government has repeatedly assured India that there would be no security risks arising from its foreign partnerships.

"Yet, their media are clamoring about a supposed security risk. This is highly detrimental for our bilateral relationship and a major constraint to building strong, respect-based diplomacy." 

"In today's media environment, provocative commentary tends to generate greater public attention, and as a result, there is a segment actively trying to inject a degree of sensationalism into the narrative." M Humayun Kabir, former ambassador to the US 

The 'big brother' problem

This is not an entirely new phenomenon.

Across South Asia, India has long struggled with accusations of pursuing a "big brother" approach towards neighbouring states. From Nepal to Sri Lanka to the Maldives, tensions have repeatedly emerged whenever smaller regional countries attempted to diversify partnerships or deepen engagement with China. 

Nepal's 2015–16 blockade remains one of the most significant examples of how perceived Indian interference generated long-term public resentment. In Sri Lanka, India openly expressed strategic discomfort over the Colombo Port City project and Chinese vessel dockings. Similar anxieties have surfaced regarding infrastructure development in Nepal and the Maldives.

The core issue is not that India has strategic concerns. Every regional power does. Rather, it is the recurring expectation in sections of Indian media and strategic commentary that neighbouring countries should calibrate their sovereign decisions primarily around Indian strategic interests. 

This assumption increasingly clashes with contemporary geopolitical realities.

Bangladesh today is not economically dependent on India in the way many strategic commentators in New Delhi still appear to imagine. Nor is Dhaka diplomatically isolated. 

Bangladesh maintains relations with China, the United States, Japan, the European Union, the Gulf states, and regional partners simultaneously. This multidirectional diplomacy is consistent with the approach adopted by many countries seeking to balance economic and strategic interests. 

Yet parts of Indian media continue to frame such balancing behaviour as disloyalty.

The contradiction becomes even sharper when India itself actively pursues multi-alignment with competing powers. New Delhi buys Russian energy, participates in the Quad, engages with the United States, maintains trade with China, and balances relations across rival geopolitical blocs. These actions are understood internationally as strategic autonomy.

Bangladesh seeks essentially the same flexibility.

Media nationalism and commercial incentives

Part of the explanation lies within the structural transformation of Indian media itself.

Macroeconomist and weekly magazine Counterpoint's executive editor Jyoti Rahman argued that commercial incentives increasingly reward hyper-nationalist coverage.

"In an increasingly Hindu nationalist India, where the commercial media landscape has become increasingly fragmented because of the rise of social media, legacy mainstream media have to cater to a hyper-jingoistic audience for commercial reasons," he said. 

"It's against that background that they hype up anti-Bangladesh propaganda."

This is a critical point. Indian television media today operates within an intensely competitive attention economy where outrage drives engagement and engagement drives revenue. Bangladesh, particularly after political changes in 2024, has become an easy subject through which channels can manufacture nationalist anxiety and strategic drama.

China's involvement simply magnifies the effect. Any Bangladesh–China agreement can now be packaged as a 'strategic crisis', regardless of the actual contents of the deal.

The danger, however, is that repeated exposure to these narratives gradually normalises hostility towards Bangladesh among ordinary viewers. And that is evident when one goes through the comment sections of such news. 

Between scrutiny and sovereignty

None of this means India's concerns are entirely illegitimate.

India is a major regional power with genuine security interests in South Asia. The Siliguri Corridor, cross-border connectivity, insurgency concerns, and Chinese strategic expansion are all real considerations within Indian strategic thinking.

But acknowledging India's concerns cannot require Bangladesh to surrender independent decision-making.

Md Tanvir Habib Jewel, assistant professor at Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka, said India's increasingly anxious reaction to Bangladesh's China and Malaysia engagements reflected a broader erosion of New Delhi's traditional strategic dominance across South Asia.

"The visits to China and Malaysia can essentially be seen as exposing India's insecurities," he said. "What has happened over the past several years is that India has gradually lost much of its strategic leverage across South Asia, with Bangladesh perhaps being the last major neighbour where New Delhi still expected to maintain overwhelming influence."

"Given Bangladesh's geopolitical significance — particularly in relation to India's sensitive northeastern region and broader regional security calculations — Dhaka has always occupied a central position within the Indian security establishment's strategic thinking," he added.

According to Habib, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's recent foreign engagements and the agreements signed during the visits have forced many in India to confront a changing political reality in Bangladesh.

"It is no longer realistic to assume that Bangladesh will formulate its foreign policy primarily around Indian concerns or sensitivities."

The central problem with much of the current discourse is not scrutiny itself; sovereign states naturally monitor regional developments. The problem is the tendency to portray Bangladesh's every diplomatic move through a binary lens of loyalty versus betrayal. 

Such a framework leaves little room for understanding Bangladesh's foreign policy as an exercise in strategic autonomy. 

Bangladesh is not obligated to structure its foreign policy around Indian domestic political narratives or television anxieties. Nor does economic engagement with China automatically transform Bangladesh into an anti-India platform.

In fact, the Bangladesh–China joint communique repeatedly emphasised sovereignty, development cooperation, and non-interference. Chinese President Xi Jinping explicitly reaffirmed support for Bangladesh's sovereignty and opposition to foreign interference during the visit.

Ironically, much of the Indian reaction itself reinforced precisely the anxieties about external interference that Bangladesh increasingly seeks to avoid.

If India wishes to preserve long-term influence in Bangladesh, it cannot rely solely on historical memory, political patronage networks, or media-driven pressure campaigns. Influence today must increasingly be built on mutual respect, economic credibility, and diplomatic maturity.

Attempts to publicly shame, pressure, or delegitimise Bangladesh's sovereign decisions are more likely to produce backlash than compliance. That is the deeper strategic irony unfolding beneath the current media panic. 

The louder sections of Indian media become in portraying Bangladesh as "slipping away", the more they risk accelerating precisely the alienation they claim to fear.

Bangladesh's engagement with China is an assertion of strategic autonomy by a sovereign state seeking to maximise its developmental and diplomatic options. That should not require panic. Nor should it require permission.