Bangladesh Head Yunus' Controversial Gift to Pakistani General Raises Eyebrows in India
A diplomatic firestorm has erupted after Bangladesh's interim Chief Advisor, Muhammad Yunus, gifted Pakistan’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, a book titled “Art of Triumph: Bangladesh’s New Dawn.” The controversy? The gift features a map that provocatively includes India’s entire Northeast—Assam and the "Seven Sisters"—within Bangladesh's borders, echoing the longstanding and inflammatory “Greater Bangladesh” narrative championed by some radical groups.hindustantimes+3
Symbolism and Outrage
The incident occurred during General Mirza's visit to Dhaka, marking a notable thaw in historically frosty relations between the two countries since the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. Photos of the meeting, shared from Yunus’s official X account, immediately caught the attention of Indian analysts and prompted widespread outrage on social media. Experts and diplomatic circles in India view Yunus’s gesture not as a diplomatic faux pas but as a deliberate signal—possibly part of a psychological operations (“psy-war”) tactic to challenge India's territorial integrity and stoke historical wounds.news18+2
The "Greater Bangladesh" Narrative
The controversial map depicted on the book is grounded in the “Greater Bangladesh” theory circulated by certain Islamist outfits. It asserts Bangladeshi irredentist claims on India’s Northeast, West Bengal, parts of Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, and even Myanmar’s Arakan region. The same map fueled uproar when displayed at a Dhaka university exhibition in April 2025, and its resurfacing in a gift to a Pakistani general is seen as a deeply provocative move by many in India.financialexpress+1
Indian Response and Geopolitical Implications
While India’s Ministry of External Affairs has yet to issue an official statement, the gesture comes against the backdrop of strained Dhaka–Delhi relations, a surge in border tensions, and growing unease about Bangladesh’s new interim regime’s foreign policy orientation. Many see Yunus’s outreach as aligning more closely with Islamabad—and by extension, with Beijing—in a strategic effort to counterbalance New Delhi’s influence in the region.indiatvnews
The backlash has reignited security and sovereignty anxieties, with Indian authorities and netizens condemning the gift as an affront to the nation’s territorial integrity and another episode in a string of Yunus’s provocative moves regarding India’s Northeast.moneycontrol+3
Conclusion
Muhammad Yunus’s controversial gesture has done more than ruffle diplomatic feathers—it has thrown light on escalating regional fault lines, historical grievances, and the delicate balance of cross-border politics in South Asia. As India watches closely, the episode is a reminder that maps, like words, can be weapons in the geopolitical playbook.
Bangladesh’s Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus has stoked yet another controversy after recently gifting an artwork titled “Art of Triumph” to Pakistan’s Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza.
Top intelligence sources said that the gesture may not be a routine diplomatic exchange since the artwork includes the controversial map, adding that it may be part of “psy-war" signal aimed at undermining India’s territorial integrity.
Earlier this year, during a visit to China in March 2025, Yunus had sparked controversy by referring to India’s northeastern “Seven Sisters” as “landlocked” and calling Bangladesh “the only guardian of the ocean” for the region. The remark was dismissed by the ministry of external affairs and drew widespread backlash from political leaders in India.
According to the sources, the artwork’s imagery carries symbolic meaning and points to what they call a “covert alignment” between Dhaka’s interim regime and Pakistan’s military establishment. Moneycontrol had earlier reported that Pakistani's ISI seeks to use Bangladesh as a base to launch anti-India activities from the East.
