Return of the Pakistan Navy after 50 years
A warship from the Pakistan Navy has landed in Bangladesh for the first time since 1971. This makes for a unique but strategically sensitive moment in the geopolitics of South Asia. On a goodwill visit for four days, the PNS SAIF, a Type 053H3-class frigate, has docked off Chattogram Port with the Chief of Pakistan Navy, Admiral Naveed Ashraf, on board. The visit occurs after a gap of more than half a century since Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan and the military estrangement that has occurred since then.
The fact that Admiral Ashraf is in Bangladesh makes the trip significant in resuming military and diplomatic links with Dhaka post-independence. Admiral Ashraf attended meetings with General Waker-Uz-Zaman, Chief of the Bangladesh Army, and Admiral M Nazmul Hassan, Chief of the Bangladesh Navy, where discussions centered on building military cooperation, maritime training, and joint (army and navy) exercises.
According to a statement issued by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the visit reinforces Islamabad’s “commitment to enhance historically strong bonds and cooperation,” to improve the level of bilateral maritime cooperation with Bangladesh. Sequence of Significant Military Cooperation.
The visit of Admiral Ashraf is the most recent of a series of senior military contacts between the two nations. Two weeks earlier, Pakistan’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC), General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, visited Dhaka to meet recently-installed interim government leader Muhammad Yunus, as well as the three chiefs of the armed forces of Bangladesh. Earlier in 2024, ISI Director General of Analysis Maj Gen Shahid Amir Afsar visited Dhaka, and a delegation of Bangladeshi military officers visited Pakistan. These back-to-back visits suggest a deliberate effort to restore military-to-military contacts between Islamabad and Dhaka, a level of engagement never seen since the bitter partition that created Bangladesh in 1971.
The Political Background: Shifting Foreign Policy in Dhaka
Relations between Pakistan and Bangladesh began to thaw following the removal of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government on August 5, 2024, during the July Uprising, a student-led movement that elevated Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus into the interim leadership position. Hasina’s government had been staunchly pro-India and generally wary of any rapprochement with Islamabad, but the Yunus government seems more open to considering a different foreign policy portfolio.
The Yunus interim government has since reached out to countries, including Pakistan, China, and Turkey, that signal a recalibration in Dhaka’s foreign policy. Pakistan is, in turn, hoping to take advantage of this diplomatic window to reclaim a foothold in a region which – largely shaped by India’s strategic and economic influence for some time. https://www.moneycontrol.com/world/pakistani-warship-docks-in-chittagong-after-54-years-why-india-must-watch-bay-of-bengal-closely-explained-article-13664431.html
Strategic Implications: A Concern for India?
For New Delhi, Pakistan’s renewed naval and defence diplomacy with Bangladesh is a cause for strategic concern. The Bay of Bengal remains highly significant geopolitically, as it stands at India’s flank on the eastern maritime frontier and as a critical outlet for trade, energy, and naval capacity.
Analysts contend that, in light of its historic relationship with Bangladesh, Pakistan’s re-entry – associated with the expectation of expanding its maritime domain collaboratively with China, which has also begun a growing presence through the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as investments in ports such as Kyaukpyu (Myanmar) and Hambantota (Sri Lanka).
Although Dhaka stated that the PNS SAIF’s visit was simply “routine naval diplomacy,” defence experts in India believe that it carries symbolic implications of a changing regional context. The development is even further heightened by Pakistan’s military outreach in the Indian Ocean region in conjunction with its naval cooperation with China.
Future Perspectives
It remains to be seen if this is a real thaw in Pakistan-Bangladesh relations or a tactical event, but after 50 years, Pakistan’s return to the Bay of Bengal portends something more than goodwill and shows Islamabad’s desire to reestablish itself in an evolving maritime South Asia.
For India, which is already grappling with complications in the Indian Ocean Region, the Pakistan-Bangladesh military rapprochement further complicates its strategic calculus in the Bay of Bengal.
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