For decades, New Delhi’s approach to South Asia rested on a quiet assumption, that India inherently possesses power to become a regional hegemon. With such a belief, except Pakistan, it thought that all other regional countries were under its influence, thereby creating its sphere of influence. In this way, in New Delhi, none had thought until recently, after the fall of Hasina Wajid’s government in 2024, which fell after a political upheaval, that things would take a turn that there would be talks of recalibration in Dhaka where it would be be inclined to collective security framework built around India’s principal regional rival. Last week, Bangladesh’s Foreign Affairs Adviser Humayun Kabir said his country maintains a positive approach towards the possibility of joining an economic or defence framework involving Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye, taking into account its own interests and the changing dynamics of the global economy and trade. while stressing that any decision will be based on national interests and a “Bangladesh First” foreign policy.
On August 7, 2026, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement in Mecca, an accord stipulating that an armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all. The pact builds on an earlier bilateral defense agreement between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and analysts have noted it combines a top oil exporter, NATO’s second-largest army, and a sound military power being the only Muslim with nuclear arsenal.
It is worth being precise about what this is, and what it is not. Dhaka has not signed anything. No timeline, negotiation, or formal application has been announced. What has changed is rhetorical, Bangladesh, has not ruled out joining the defense agreement including its regional arch rival rather has shown inclination to joining it. That is a shift in posture. In n diplomacy, the language a government chooses to leave a door open often matters as much as any signature.
Why this unsettles New Delhi
India’s concern is not that Bangladesh faces an imminent military threat requiring Saudi or Turkish backing, nor that the Mecca agreement is, on its face, aimed at India. Turkish, Pakistani and Saudi officials have repeatedly described it as defensive and open to other members, and it was struck largely in midst of regional tensions surrounding the wider conflict involving Iran, Israel, and the United States. The unease in New Delhi is structural could be structural, that for the first time, a country in India’s immediate neighborhood, one with which India shares a nearly 4,100-kilometer border, is signaling willingness to formalize security ties with a bloc that includes Pakistan. India’s Ministry of External Affairs has so far responded cautiously to Bangladesh interests, its spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated during a media briefing that India is “closely following developments happening in West Asia“ regarding reports of Bangladesh considering joining the pact. It also noted that India is actively examining the implications of the agreement from the standpoint of India’s national security, as well as regional peace and stability.
That is the language of a government watching closely rather than reacting sharply, but the watching itself reflects real strategic anxiety about a precedent that if one neighbor can hedge this openly in an agreement with Pakistan and India’s long-assumed role as the default security anchor of South Asia becomes something to be actively defended rather than passively enjoyed.
Why this makes sense from Dhaka’s side
Bangladesh’s foreign policy under its interim government has been explicitly framed around diversification. Relations with New Delhi have cooled since the political transition of 2024, and Dhaka has been courting new partners across the board, in trade, in defense procurement, and in diplomatic backing. Looking at the agreement, Turkiye offers high-tech defense manufacturing at a price Bangladesh can afford and improve its defense infrastructure. Saudi Arabia offers capital and a long-standing relationship with an opportunity to labor migration, remittances, and religious ties. Pakistan offers a historical, if fraught, connection and an opening for renewed people-to-people and trade links that Dhaka has recently signaled it wants to rebuild. None of this requires ideological alignment against India; it is the ordinary logic of a mid-sized state trying to maximize its options. It is also, importantly, not without precedent, Bangladesh has hedged before, including a defense cooperation agreement with China in 2002 that Dhaka insisted was “not directed at any third country,” language nearly identical to what Islamabad, Riyadh, and Ankara have used about the Mecca Agreement.
However, committing to a mutual defense clause centered on Middle Eastern security dynamics conflicts with the constitutional commitment to non-alignment that has historically anchored Bangladeshi foreign policy. Furthermore, Dhaka must assess the emerging post-war environment, whether region will be more divided forcing states to take sides or whether the pact will create a broader framework for collective security. It also has to also cautiously deal with India that remains an aspirant of regional dominance.
The broader significance, then, is not any single clause in a defense agreement, which has not been made public, rather it is what a more openly multi-aligned Bangladesh implies for how South Asian security is organized going forward. A region where neighboring states treat extra-regional blocs as legitimate options, rather than lines they will not cross, is a region where India’s influence is no longer assumed. Whether that shift becomes a lasting realignment or proves to be a hedge that never matures into commitment will depend less on what Riyadh, Ankara, or Islamabad do next, and more on how New Delhi chooses to respond to a neighborhood that is, gradually, asking to be treated as something other than a given.
Author: Moneeb Mir, Associate Research Officer, Center for International Strategic Studies, AJK.
