In December 1971, the flags of two newly reborn nations were raised within days of each other. Bangladesh came into being on the eastern side of a border that India and Bangladesh now share across 4,096 kilometres which is the world's fifth longest border. That border has rivers running through it, forests, paddy fields, and the kind of daily human movement that makes a line on a map feel almost irrelevant to the people who live near it. For more than five decades, the relationship between the two countries has been built on this geographical intimacy, on shared culture, shared memory, and the shared understanding that what happens on one side of that border eventually arrives on the other.
In May 2026, India's High Commissioner-Designate to Bangladesh called on Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi. The interaction focused on strengthening India-Bangladesh defence ties, border security and enhancing military-to-military engagement, with both nations actively charting a forward-looking path toward a pragmatic, interest-driven partnership. That phrase, pragmatic and interest-driven, is the right frame for this moment. It is also an invitation. An invitation to build the kind of technology-centred cooperation that makes the relationship between two equal partners irreplaceable, not because of history alone, but because of what they are building together right now and what they can build together over the next decade.
What history built and technology can deepen
During my MA days at the School of International Studies in JNU, I attended a lecture on Indian foreign policy toward Bangladesh. The professor said something I have not forgotten. He said the India-Bangladesh relationship is not just a bilateral relationship. It is the test case for whether South Asia can function as a region at all: “whether geography can produce cooperation rather than competition.” He meant it as a challenge. In 2026, the technology that exists between the two countries is beginning to answer that challenge.
The 400kV double circuit transmission line from the Bangladesh-India border to Bheramara, supported by a 500MW back-to-back HVDC station, was built on the understanding that connecting the two grids would demonstrate the substantial economic benefits of enhanced regional cooperation. That grid interconnection now supplies over 1,160 MW of Indian power to Bangladesh, making India Bangladesh's single largest electricity partner. The India-Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline, which transports diesel critical for powering Bangladesh's textile industry, lowers supply costs and alleviates power shortages in Bangladesh. The resumption of freight train services in February 2025 after a nine-month pause built on the momentum of an MoU on Railway Connectivity that initiated goods train services between Gede in India and Darshana in Bangladesh, extending toward Haldibari and Hasimara.
These are not aid programmes. They are infrastructure partnerships between two countries that benefit equally from their existence. The power that flows across the grid powers Bangladeshi factories and Indian generators alike. The trains that move freight across the border carry goods in both directions. The interconnectedness this creates is the right foundation for what comes next, because technology cooperation built on existing infrastructure is technology cooperation that already has a proven track record.
The defence partnership that both countries have been building
The annual joint exercise Sampriti between India and Bangladesh has been running since 2009 and now involves approximately 350 personnel from both sides in two-week exercises that alternate between the two countries. The exercises have covered counter-terrorism operations, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and United Nations peacekeeping missions across different terrains. Bongosagar, a yearly naval drill between India and Bangladesh, is designed to improve joint operations and strengthen naval cooperation. This exercise includes joint operations, tactical drills, and sharing best practices in the area of naval operations.
These exercises are not symbolic. They create a feedback loop that the technology dimension of the relationship needs to follow. Soldiers who have trained together communicate better in a crisis. Navies that have drilled together respond faster to a maritime emergency. The operational knowledge built across eleven editions of Sampriti and multiple Bongosagar exercises represents decades of institutional trust. The technology cooperation framework between the two countries should be built on that same foundation of repeated, practical, peer-to-peer engagement.
In my seven years of research on technology and geopolitics, what I have witnessed most profoundly is that the deepest technology partnerships in the world are not built through contracts. They are built through people working together on a problem they both need to solve. The India-Bangladesh defence exercise relationship is already that kind of partnership. It needs to be extended into the technology domains that matter most for the next decade: cyber resilience, maritime surveillance, disaster response, and joint digital infrastructure.
The cyber partnership South Asia needs most
Bangladesh's government stated in May 2026 that it wants to build Bangladesh not only as a technology user country but also as a technology-producing, exporting and innovation-driven nation, with AI, hardware, semiconductors, software, data centres, and digital services as the driving sectors. The government also emphasised that Bangladesh needs to build a national digital resilience framework incorporating communication networks, satellite backup, data centres, cloud infrastructure, cyber security, emergency telecommunications and alternative digital systems. That vision is one India is in a uniquely strong position to support. India secured Tier 1 status in the International Telecommunication Union Global Cybersecurity Index in 2024, with legal, technical, capacity development and cooperation measures identified as areas of relative strength. India has inked bilateral contracts with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka to engage in information sharing, joint cyber exercises and joint research, reflecting India's weight in regional cybersecurity cooperation.
The leverage point this creates is substantial. India's CERT-IN has been working with Bangladesh's cybersecurity institutions, and twelve high-tech parks are being constructed in Bangladesh with an Indian Line of Credit, beginning operations in 2025. Bangladesh's National Cyber Security Council held its first meeting in December 2025, chaired by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, with discussions focused on enhancing cybersecurity for the upcoming elections, countering misinformation, and protecting online services. A joint India-Bangladesh cyber resilience framework, building on the existing CERT-IN relationship and the high-tech park investment, would serve both countries directly. Bangladesh gets the institutional knowledge and technical depth of a Tier 1 cybersecurity partner. India gets a trusted neighbour operating compatible digital infrastructure along a shared 4,096-kilometre frontier. Both countries get the kind of real-time threat intelligence sharing that makes the difference between detecting a cyberattack in hours and discovering it weeks later.
The future that technology makes possible
I met a Bangladeshi diplomat at the Primakov Readings in Moscow in December 2023. It was an informal conversation over coffee, the kind that international forums make possible when the session breaks and people speak freely. He was thoughtful and forward-looking in the way that the best diplomats are. What he said has stayed with me. He said that Bangladesh and India are at a turning point where the relationship can either stay rooted in its history or grow into something genuinely modern. He was optimistic that technology was the domain most likely to produce that growth, because technology deals in practical problems that both sides have an interest in solving together. He said the countries that build technology together build trust in a way that no treaty can replicate.
That optimism is well-founded. Both countries aspire to expedite the construction of a 765 kV high-capacity interconnection between Katihar in India, Parbatipur in Nepal, and Bornagar in Bangladesh, a trilateral energy project that would embed all three countries in a shared power infrastructure. The inauguration of the region's first trilateral power agreement between Nepal, India, and Bangladesh came as a milestone, with the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement negotiations between India and Bangladesh aimed at ensuring continued free market access for Bangladesh as it graduates from Least Developed Country status. Bangladesh and India, as natural partners due to shared cultures, histories and geographies, can leverage energy trade to benefit both nations, particularly India's northeastern states, as well as the landlocked states of Nepal and Bhutan. Joint research and development initiatives on grid integration, energy storage, and smart grid technologies can optimise the utilisation of renewable energy resources and enhance the stability of the regional power system.
From a first principles perspective, the India-Bangladesh relationship has always been strongest when it has been building something. The 1971 relationship was built on a shared vision of freedom. The 1990s and 2000s relationship was built on trade and connectivity. The 2026 relationship has the opportunity to be built on technology, and that is a more durable foundation than either of the previous two, because technology partnerships create daily operational interdependence that outlasts any political moment.
The partnership that South Asia is waiting for
Governments in New Delhi and Dhaka need to find continuity in the bilateral cooperation, essential for holistic economic development on both sides of the border and for stabilising the rather tumultuous geopolitical milieu in South Asia. While national parties in other countries may instrumentalise anti-India rhetoric to gain power, they still recognise the importance of New Delhi's various economic and physical linkages in regional development. That recognition is the foundation to build on. India and Bangladesh share a vision of utilising their extensive bilateral cooperation as a foundation for regional and sub-regional integration within the Global South, through platforms such as BIMSTEC and SAARC. India should consider increasing the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation slots from the current 800 annually and ensuring regular budgetary support for existing scholarships to Bangladeshi students, with capacity building programmes for civil service officers, judicial officers, and police officers continuing unimpeded.
Every engineer Bangladesh trains in an Indian institution, every cybersecurity exercise the two countries run together, every smart grid project they co-develop, every naval drill they conduct in the Bay of Bengal adds one more strand to a relationship that becomes more resilient with each addition. The Bangladeshi diplomat in Moscow said technology partnerships build trust in a way no treaty can replicate. He was right. And the evidence for his optimism is already there: in the power lines that cross the border every day, in the freight trains that run between Gede and Darshana, in the eleven editions of Sampriti, in the CERT-IN cooperation, and in the twelve high-tech parks going up on Bangladeshi soil with Indian credit.
In the last I would mention that the JNU professor who challenged my thoughts on foreign policy of India in the classroom was basically asking us to ponder whether South Asia could function as a unified region and was asking whether geography could produce cooperation. What I believe is that between India and Bangladesh, in 2026, technology is answering that question. The answer, if both countries choose to build on what they have already built, is yes.