Features | Politics | South Asia

On the Bangladesh-India Border, BJP Victories Spike Anxieties

Since the BJP takeover of West Bengal, Muslims and Rohingyas in the region talk among themselves in hushed tones and try not to attract attention, worried about their fate.

Indian side of the international border between India and Bangladesh, Petrapole, West Bengal.

Mohammed Rizwan is angered at the growing anti-Muslim crimes in India. “I cannot even post on social media now,” said the 21-year-old engineering student living in India’s West Bengal state.

“It wasn’t like this before, I could call out whomever I wanted.” Rizwan linked his own silence to the arrest of a local Muslim who was arrested for “protesting on social media.”

On May 4, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won one of the most contentious political battles in the country in West Bengal. Modi’s victory was celebrated countrywide, with his supporters calling it a “historic” win. 

Meanwhile, in West Bengal – a border state of more than 100 million people – a different kind of crackdown on Muslims began taking shape.

A Manipulated Mandate

Modi’s victory in West Bengal stands as one of the most contentious and controversial political battles in the country.

Several critics have called the BJP’s victory questionable, and alleged electoral manipulation. The election took place after a deeply controversial special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission of India, where it claimed to remove duplicate, deceased, or otherwise “ineligible” voters. 

Across West Bengal, more than 9 million names were initially flagged, removed, or subjected to scrutiny during the exercise.

The BJP, which rules at the Union level of the Indian government in its third tenure, has made its brand name by calling for open targeting of India’s minority communities such as Muslims and Christians. For the last six years, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has consistently recommended that the U.S. State Department designate India as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC), due to severe violations of religious freedoms. Although the State Department has not taken up that recommendation, USCIRF continues to make it. 

The BJP’s victory in West Bengal arrived with its own share of problems. BJP leaders, in various speeches during the runup to the election, labeled Muslims as “vermin,” “pests,” “intruders,” and “Bangladeshis.”  They described Muslims as leeches who latch onto Indian territory. West Bengal’s new chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP, has a history of hate directed at Muslims. In December last year, he called on India’s “100 crore [equal to 1 billion] Hindus” to teach a Gaza-like “lesson” to “everyone.” On May 5, a day after he won at the polls, Adhikari said he would work “for the Hindus” who voted for him.

Dr. Z. Ayesha, a social activist based in West Bengal’s Kolkata, believes that the Muslims of West Bengal were apprehensive of the results being in BJP’s favor. 

“This was mostly due to the pre-existing deplorable conditions of minorities in the BJP-governed states. Hence, their victory has evoked (reasonable) fear and (justified) unrest in them,” Ayesha said. “After the declaration of the election results, so many untoward incidents have taken place targeting Muslims in the state. The chief minister’s remarks deeply reflect his biased mindset and arouses justifiable anxiety and fear in the minorities of this state.”

Muslims in the state have also expressed their disappointment with the SIR. “After the list was made public and so many rightful names were deleted from it, they were in great distress and turmoil thinking about the future,” Ayesha said. 

Despite attending multiple court hearings and trying to prove the veracity of their long-standing legal documents, Ayesha said that a major chunk of people didn’t feature in the final voter list. This, many local Muslims said, cemented their beliefs about exactly how the BJP won the elections in West Bengal.

Recalibrating Regional Ruckus

On June 4, Bangladesh said it had foiled several attempts by India to force people into the country, reviving a dispute over alleged undocumented migration between the South Asian neighbors. This pushback from West Bengal was felt in Bangladesh almost immediately after BJP took over the state.

India and Bangladesh share one of the longest land frontiers in ⁠the world, stretching for more than 4,000 km (2,500 miles) across all sorts of terrain, making it difficult to police. Out of this kilometer count, over half (2,216 km) of India’s border with Bangladesh is in West Bengal. 

In April 2026, India’s Border Security Force (BSF) announced that it was releasing crocodiles and venomous snakes into riverine stretches along the Bangladesh border to deter people from crossing into India via the river route. Then, in May, after assuming power, Adhikari announced the transfer of land to the BSF within 45 days to fence the border with Bangladesh. 

In response, Humayun Kabir, the foreign affairs adviser to Bangladeshi Prime Minister Tarique Rahman said, “The people of Bangladesh are not afraid of barbed wire. The government of Bangladesh is not afraid of barbed wire either. Where we need to speak, we........

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