With Mustafizur episode, India risks pushing Dhaka further towards Islamabad

Bangladesh cricketer Mustafizur Rahman’s expulsion from the Indian Premier League (IPL) is fast snowballing into a major controversy in the fraught India-Bangladesh relations.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) retaliated by refusing to play in India, the host for next month’s T20 World Cup. It formally requested the International Cricket Council in London to relocate its matches to other venues. Now, Bangladesh has clamped a ban on the telecast of IPL in that country.

The developments have led diplomats and cricket-lovers in the subcontinent to question whether India’ s tendency to use cricket as a tool against hostile neighbours will hurt it more than its adversaries.

India’s decision on Mustafizur

The Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) decided that Mustafizur, who was bought by the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the recent IPL auction, be taken out of the League and asked to return home.

The BCCI’s decision came in the wake of a series of attacks on Hindu and Buddhist religious minorities in Bangladesh in recent weeks, including the hacking and burning of two Hindu men.

Also read: Bangladesh bans IPL telecast over Mustafizur Rahman’s exit from KKR

Keen to win the upcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal, where alleged Bangladeshis posing as Indian voters is a major plank for the BJP, the saffron party has found Mustafizur a handy tool to push its anti-Bangladesh plank even further.

IPL’s popularity in the subcontinent

IPL is one of the most lucrative and attractive cricket tournaments in South Asia that is widely watched not only in India but whose viewership goes far beyond the country and the region.

Over the years, it has attracted the best players from the cricket-playing nations and has become the dream of every budding cricketer in the subcontinent and elsewhere to be part of it.

Mustafizur, a fast bowler, is a cricketing star in Bangladesh and his participation in the IPL added an extra element of participation for the wide number of viewers of the League in the neighbouring country.

Also read: Bangladesh-IPL row: BCCI asks Kolkata Knight Riders to release Mustafizur Rahman

Mustafizur was bought in the auction by KKR at a price of Rs 9.2 crore.

Though it is not clear whether the player will be paid the money for which he was bought, it is the humiliation of their star cricketer being expelled from the IPL that has rallied Bangladeshis behind Mustafizur.

India-Bangladesh relations after Hasina

The relations between the two countries nose-dived since Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s longest serving prime minister, was ousted from power and chased out of the country after a students’ protest on job reservations in August 2024 turned violent.

Hasina, a dream partner for India under whose long rule the two countries faced their most cooperative and cordial relationship, has been in Delhi since fleeing Dhaka.

Meanwhile, an interim government led by renowned economist Mohamad Yunus, assisted by the student leaders as special advisors, has taken the country much closer to Pakistan than the two countries had ever been able to since Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971.

There has also been a phenomenal rise in the number and rise of the Islamists, particularly the Jamaat-e-Islami, a party that had been in the forefront of opposition in the creation of Bangladesh.

Also read: BJP leader calls SRK 'traitor' for buying Bangladeshi player for KKR

In a post-Hasina Bangladesh, the Jamaat has become one of the most influential parties. A coalition between the students, who floated their own political party, the National Citizen’s Party (NCP) and the Jamaat, in the forthcoming February parliamentary election in Bangladesh, has raised concerns among secular forces in the country and India.

BNP now India’s best option

The interim government has held Hasina responsible for the large number of deaths during the student protest and has awarded her a death penalty.

But many observers have seen the move aimed at keeping Hasina and her Awami League party out of the February parliamentary election.

Under the circumstances, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the main opposition during Hasina’s rule, has turned out to be the best option for India in Bangladesh.

India’s experience with a BNP government in Dhaka in the past has not been encouraging. But in the absence of Hasina or her party’s participation in the parliamentary election, the BNP has become the best option for India, especially since it is also contesting the Jamaat-led coalition in the polls.

A latest election survey claimed that over 70 per cent voters in Bangladesh are likely to vote for it to form the next government.

Also read: Bangladesh recalls 5 envoys, including high commissioner to India

A business-oriented BNP leadership is likely to maintain good relations with India for both geographical and economic reasons, as it is both the biggest and the nearest market for Bangladesh.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior members of his government expressed their condolences to Tarique Rahman, BNP leader and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s son, after her death last week.

In diplomatic circles, this was seen as India’s willingness to reach out to Tarique, widely speculated to be the next PM in Bangladesh, for a cooperative relationship in future.

However, the Mustafizur issue once again rocked the boat and activated anti-Indian sentiments in Bangladesh with barely a few weeks left for the parliament election.

India’s decision confusing

In the past months, India has been concerned at the growing bonhomie between Pakistan and Bangladesh.

There have been a number of exchanges of defence and intelligence delegations between the two sides that has led the Indian establishment to sharpen its focus on its eastern front that remained calmer and peaceful during Hasina’s government.

During past engagements India has reiterated its commitment for a stable, peaceful and prosperous Bangladesh with special emphasis on enhancing contacts between the people of the two countries.

Also read: Hindu businessman hacked, set on fire in Bangladesh; fourth attack in two weeks

Much of this, experts say, was to ensure that Bangladesh does not move into the Pakistani orbit.

During another international cricket tournament in Dubai that was held after Operation Sindoor, India had refused to exchange pleasantries with Pakistani crickets, though it played a number of matches against it.

To now bracket Bangladesh in the same category of a hostile nation for the recent attacks on Hindus in the country, runs contrary to what Delhi had been trying so hard to avoid so far.

Unless a course correction is done soon, the Mustafizur Rahman incident will not only give rise to wide anti-Indian sentiments, it will push Bangladesh towards Pakistan to make common cause against India.