Unlike his father, Bangladesh’s new ruler will not have to fight for ceremonial honours from India. Sheikh Mujib was there, bare-bodied above his lungyi in an East End Bangladeshi flat, when Bangladesh was only a state of mind. “Tully Sahib’s”, as John Elliott of the Financial Times, another British journalist to nurture ties with India, called him, wasn’t quite the voice of India. Meanwhile, India’s best course would be strict neutrality as a renascent Bangladesh navigates the waters to seek out its most rewarding course. No Bangladeshi can afford to believe that India alone matters in South Asia, as Sheikh Hasina is said to have done.

Source: The Telegraph February 14, 2026 07:58 UTC