A few hundred people from various minority religious groups staged a demonstration in Dhaka on March 13. They alleged no end to atrocities on minorities in Bangladesh, even as a new government was democratically elected after years of turmoil. 

One month ago, the overwhelmingly Muslim-majority nation gave a clear verdict in favour of the Tarique Rahman-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to rule for the next five years. The protesters in Dhaka alleged that despite the BNP’s pre-election promise of ensuring safety for all – irrespective of religion, caste and creed – violence targeting members of the minority communities, especially Hindus, has continued. 

Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, a prominent minority rights body in the country, organised the protests. They alleged that over fifty incidents of communal violence had occurred nationwide in the month after the new government took office. 

These attacks include the forcible abduction and gang-rape of a Hindu woman in Bhola district, seven murders, and an explosion at a Shiva Temple in Cumilla that injured a priest and three devotees. The violence also involved arson at a Lakshmi temple in Bogura, the looting of various temples, assaults on homes and businesses, and the forceful occupation of indigenous peoples’ homesteads.

Such protests by minorities in Bangladesh have often triggered agitations by Hindutva organisations in the bordering eastern Indian state of West Bengal. Bangladesh and West Bengal were once together and still share ethnic and cultural ties despite nearly eight decades of political separation. 

Following the toppling of Sheikh Hasina’s government in the July–August 2024 youth uprising, West Bengal saw a steep rise in campaigns depicting Bangladesh as a bastion of Islamic fundamentalism. Such incidents drew stinging comments from prominent Hindutva leaders in India, prompted street protests and triggered media outrage. Bengali, Hindi and English language news channels allotted prime time slots to discuss how Bangladesh is set to become the next Afghanistan – a proverbial land of Muslim fundamentalists and terrorists. These Islamic fanatics were now coming for West Bengal, the audience were told. 

The BJP was quick to turn this media-driven alarm into political capital. The party, which has emerged as the TMC’s principal challenger, alleged that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) had already laid the foundation for Muslim fundamentalism to grow in Bengal. In response, TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee accused the BJP of dragging Bangladesh’s internal issues into West Bengal’s domestic politics.

However, in March 2026, there has been no protest or media outrage in West Bengal. The Dhaka protests and the long list of incidents the protesters highlighted have not even made it to news bulletins and dailies on the Indian side of Bengal. 

After months of intense vilification targeting Bangladesh and its Muslim majority, Indian TV news channels, influential social media handles, and Hindu nationalist activists have suddenly looked away – leaving Hindutva’s Bangladesh front uncharacteristically quiet.

“It was a phase of violent anti-Bangladeshi hatred transforming into anti-Muslim hatred,” recalled Kolkata-based human rights activist Ranjit Sur, speaking to Newslaundry. He described the campaign as one spearheaded by TV news channels, amplified by social media users and liberally used by Hindutva politicians. 

With this narrative weakening significantly since early February, Sur believes the Hindutva camp’s strategy of building polarisation around anti-Muslim sentiment has also suffered a setback.

Understanding the pullback 

Throughout 2025 and into January 2026, the BJP’s West Bengal unit was relentless, inundating social media with posts highlighting ‘jihadi violence’ and atrocities against Hindus in Bangladesh. These posts warned West Bengal’s Hindus of a similar fate if they failed to unite. However, since February, the BJP West Bengal’s Facebook page has not published a single post criticising the situation across the border.

They still target Banerjee’s TMC government for “appeasement” and endangering Hindus, yet they have gone remarkably silent on developments across the border. 

What explains this quietness – especially now, on the eve of state assembly elections – given that the “otherisation” of Bangladesh has long been the cornerstone of Hindutva’s strategy in Bengal?

Hasina’s dramatic fall from power has made it difficult for India to take Bangladesh for granted, thinks political scientist Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury. 

“Since Indo-Bangladesh relations have become highly sensitive, it appears that the Modi government does not want to cause discomfort for the BNP government at least in this early stage,” he told Newslaundry.  

The outcome of the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll might be another factor that contributed to the BJP toning down its anti-Bangladeshi narrative, he observed. Of the 60 lakh names deleted from the roll, the majority were from Hindu-dominated areas. 

Senior leaders of West Bengal BJP, including the leader of the opposition Suvendu Adhikari, have repeatedly claimed that there were 1.2 crore Rohingyas and Bangladeshi Muslims in the state. Basu Ray Chaudhury, an expert on migration in South and Southeast Asia, points out that there have never been more than 16-17 lakh Rohingyas in the entire world. 

“The SIR exercise has made it clear that the BJP had been giving exaggerated figures about the extent of undocumented migration of Bangladeshi and Rohingya (Myanmarese) Muslims,” he told Newslaundry. 

Since gaining a foothold in the state in 2014, the BJP and organisations linked to its parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), have launched a four-point campaign linking West Bengal’s domestic politics to developments in Bangladesh. 

The campaign follows a specific, escalating logic: first, it claims that Muslim fundamentalism is being ‘imported’ from Bangladesh through infiltration; second, it alleges that the TMC government is actively fostering this radicalism through ‘appeasement’. This leads to the third and most alarmist claim – that West Bengal is on the verge of becoming ‘West Bangladesh’, where Hindus will no longer be safe. Ultimately, the campaign concludes that the only solution is to restore West Bengal as a ‘Hindu Homeland’, mirroring how Bangladesh (earlier East Pakistan) was originally conceived as a Muslim one.

Now, not only has the phase of hate campaign ended abruptly, but different BJP-led state governments have also stopped their spree of “pushing back” undocumented or suspected Bangladeshis into Bangladesh, observed Amal Sarkar, a Kolkata-based journalist. He has extensively written on Indo-Bangladesh relations and domestic politics. 

Speaking to Newslaundry, he said: “As it became clear that the BNP was likely to come to power, India began softening its approach. After Rahman came to the helm, India saw chances of a thaw in bilateral relations.”

He noted that since then, India has tried to avoid any actions that would put the BNP government under pressure from the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) led opposition. India remains keen on improving ties, and the first month of Rahman’s premiership can be seen as a promising start—especially given the restraint maintained by both sides, Sarkar observed.

“The BJP’s anti-Bangladeshi campaign may not vanish, but it is unlikely to reach its previous intensity,” said Sarkar, whose latest book, Dhanmondi 32: Mujiber Deshe Mirjafarera, documents the turbulent developments in Bangladesh since Sheikh Hasina’s fall.

A campaign hollowed out? 

“The results of the Bangladesh election have effectively turned the tables on the BJP,” says Zaad Mahmood, a professor of political science at Kolkata’s Presidency University. According to him, the reality of the vote has undermined the Hindutva camp’s core narrative. “The national elections have exposed the BJP’s lies and its long-running vilification of Bangladesh and its Muslim majority,” he said.

Indeed, just three days before the February 12 election, BNP chief Tarique Rahman campaigned under the slogan Dharmo Jar-Jar, Rashtro Sobar (Religion is personal, State belongs to everyone). He pledged safety for every citizen – from Hindus and Christians to sceptics and non-believers – regardless of whether they lived in the hills or the plains.

“People of each religion will practice their religion according to their own religious beliefs and customs. This is the custom of a modern civilised society,” said the BNP boss. Three days later, he led his party to a victory with over two-thirds majority. 

The phase of lawlessness during Muhammad Yunus’s interim government provided the BJP a golden opportunity to exploit the situation for domestic gains in West Bengal. The campaign, echoed by BJP-allied media, argued that Muslim fundamentalists had dismantled secularism in Bangladesh – and that Hindus in West Bengal should follow suit by abandoning their own.

However, a decisive mandate in favour of those who championed peace and coexistence against hatred has spoiled the Hindutva camp's party, remarked Mahmood. 

“Despite Hasina’s Awami League, which is considered the most secular party in Bangladesh, remaining outside the electoral scene, the BNP’s inclusive politics won a thumping mandate. Now that Muslims in Bangladesh have shown they are overwhelmingly secular, with or without the Awami League, the BJP’s campaign has fallen flat,” he said.  

Following the Bangladesh election results, secularists in West Bengal contend that while Bangladesh has fulfilled its duty of defeating communal forces, the onus is now on secular forces in their own state to dismantle the BJP’s agenda.

Media politics 

The BJP and the media’s toning down of their narrative against Bangladesh and Bangladeshis has mostly to do with the outcome of the SIR exercise, observed Sabir Ahmed, a researcher with the Kolkata-based Sabar Institute. 

According to him, the deletions through the SIR process “exposed the BJP’s lies” that there were more than one crore illegal Bangladeshi Muslims in West Bengal. 

“Where are those one crore illegal Muslims? Their campaign had toned down because the bubble had burst,” Ahmed told Newslaundry. 

Sur pointed out that during the 18 months of Muhammad Yunus-led interim government from August 2024, many so-called secular liberals also joined Hindutva’s chorus in demeaning Bangladesh and Bangladeshis.  

In West Bengal, not only BJP supporters but also the CPI(M) and a section of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) have deep sympathies for the Awami League due to its historic role in Bangladesh’s war of liberation. Left parties, too, staged protests in Kolkata against atrocities on Hindus in Bangladesh. 

“All these people exhibited a deep hatred for the Yunus government and spoke in the Awami League’s language to paint Hasina’s fall as the fall of secular politics in Bangladesh. Many otherwise progressive individuals were also exhibiting anti-Muslim hatred,” Sur said.

The BNP’s victory has effectively neutralised that wave of hate propaganda, particularly as the Indian government pivots toward improving diplomatic ties and trade engagements with the new Rahman administration. As mainstream TV channels shift their focus away from Bangladesh, the once-relentless social media campaign has also visibly weakened.

According to Mahmood, since mainstream TV channels are primarily driven by profit and the need to please political masters, Bangladesh’s current domestic situation no longer serves their agenda. “There is a specific political logic at play when the media chooses to highlight even sporadic incidents,” Mahmood said. “Since highlighting Bangladesh no longer provides that same payoff, the media has simply moved on.”

Toning down on both sides 

Observers in Bangladesh, too, have noticed these changes. The barrage of anti-Bangladesh content that flooded Indian TV news channels and social media for many months has suddenly stopped, noted Dhaka-based researcher and political commentator Altaf Parvez.

“Indian TV channels have been less provocative in their content on Bangladesh. Hatred against Bangladesh, fuelled by social media, has also gone down noticeably. The Indian government’s keenness to improve bilateral ties has become quite clear,” said Parvez.

He pointed to recent “goodwill” gestures from New Delhi, such as beginning discussions for repatriation of a key accused in the politically sensitive murder of youth activist Sharif Osman Hadi. India has also resumed cross-country bus services and, as part of a stabilised energy pact, has begun supplying Bangladesh with diesel during a crisis. 

Besides, anti-India posts on the Bangladeshi social media sphere have declined, too. This may be because hardline elements in Bangladesh currently have less incentive to promote anti-India narratives, especially with the reduced influence of Jamaat, the principal hardline political outfit, following the elections, said journalist-turned-media educator Sambit Pal. 

Another possible reason could be the role of social media algorithms, which previously amplified a large volume of anti-India content during the interim government's tenure, said Pal. “At that time, political parties as well as elements within the deep state appeared to be more active in shaping narratives in the run-up to the elections. Such posts may still exist online, but they are no longer going as viral as they did earlier,” Pal told Newslaundry. 

Sayantan Ghosh, author of the recently published book Battleground Bengal: The Political Future of a Fiercely Contested State, also finds that international dimensions have gained priority over domestic politics. 

As the Modi government appears to be attempting to recalibrate its relationship with the current regime in Bangladesh, it has avoided taking a strong public stance against Jamaat and has also toned down its rhetoric on alleged atrocities against Hindus in Bangladesh, noted Ghosh. 

“This broader strategic positioning at the national level may explain why the BJP in West Bengal is no longer foregrounding the Bangladesh issue as prominently in its current electoral discourse,” Ghosh added. 

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