The honeymoon is over. For fifteen years, New Delhi and Dhaka shared a cozy, predictable status quo that looked great on paper and even better on a balance sheet. Sheikh Hasina was the anchor. She kept the extremists at bay, opened the door for Indian transit, and made sure the "Look East" policy didn't just look, but actually moved. Then, in a frantic afternoon of smoke and helicopter rotors, the anchor cut loose.

Now, India is staring at a neighbor in "transition," which is diplomatic shorthand for a chaotic reboot.

The immediate fallout isn't just about flags and borders. It’s about the plumbing of modern statehood—energy, fiber optics, and the cold, hard cash of infrastructure debt. Take the Adani power deal. It’s a specific, $800 million headache that perfectly encapsulates the friction. Adani Power’s Godda plant in Jharkhand was built specifically to feed the Bangladesh grid. For years, it was a symbol of "neighborhood first" connectivity. Today, it’s a liability. Bangladesh owes hundreds of millions in back payments, and the new interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, is looking at those contracts with a magnifying glass and a grudge. They see a deal signed under a deposed leader that favors an Indian billionaire. Delhi sees a sovereign obligation. Neither side wants to blink, but the lights in Dhaka have to stay on somehow.

Then there’s the internet. During the height of the protests, Hasina’s government didn't just lean on the "kill switch"—they jumped on it. Total digital blackouts. For a country trying to pitch itself as a burgeoning tech hub, it was a suicide note. Indian firms with back-office operations in Dhaka or those relying on cross-border data flows found themselves shouting into a void. It wasn't just a glitch; it was a reminder that in this part of the world, "digital sovereignty" usually just means the government has a finger on your router.

The trade-offs are getting expensive. India relies on Bangladesh for transit to its landlocked Northeast. The "Chicken’s Neck" corridor is a strategic nightmare—a narrow strip of land that’s a geographical chokehold. To bypass it, India spent years and billions negotiating transshipment rights through Bangladeshi ports. If the new regime decides to play the "nationalist" card to appease a restless, anti-India base, those transit routes become leverage. You don't get to move your cargo for free if the kids in the street think you’re the reason the old regime lasted so long.

The cynicism in the air is thick enough to choke a diplomat. For a decade, India’s policy was "Hasina or bust." They didn't just put their eggs in one basket; they built a custom-made, high-security vault for that basket and ignored everyone else in the room. Now the vault is empty, and the people holding the keys—the students, the interim technocrats, and the lurking shadows of the BNP—remember exactly who was keeping the door shut.

Don't expect a quick fix. Yunus is a Nobel laureate who understands microfinance, but macro-stability in a post-revolutionary vacuum is a different beast entirely. He’s inherited a central bank with dwindling reserves and a textile industry—the country's literal lifeblood—that is shivering every time a factory strike hits. If the garments stop moving, the economy stops breathing. India can’t afford a failed state on its doorstep, but it also can't buy its way back into the good graces of a population that feels sidelined by years of "Big Brother" diplomacy.

The border, once a site of quiet cooperation, is now a flashpoint of paranoia. Rumors of infiltration and targeted violence have replaced the press releases about joint railway projects. It’s a mess. A loud, expensive, complicated mess that proves one thing: stability is a luxury, and in South Asia, the subscription is always subject to immediate cancellation.

What happens when the "stable" partner you spent fifteen years grooming disappears in a weekend? You’re left holding the bill for a power plant nobody wants to pay for and a transit map that might be worth less than the paper it’s printed on. Does India try to build a bridge to the new Dhaka, or does it start reinforcing the fence?