Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.
The highlights this week: Bangladeshi leader Muhammad Yunus finds himself under pressure as calls for elections grow louder, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri visits Washington, and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency flags Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in its annual global threat assessment.
Yunus in the Hot Seat
Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has led Bangladesh’s interim government for nearly 10 months, since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned under pressure from mass protests last August.
Yunus has had a difficult job from day one, tasked with rebuilding Bangladesh after years of government repression and saddled with the high expectations of a public eager to see far-reaching reforms to restore democracy and stability. And he has held his own—commanding considerable respect in the country, especially among young people.
But now the pressure has begun to build, and things are coming to a head. The Bangladeshi public has grown increasingly impatient with an interim government that lacks a mandate, has not set a date for elections, and insists on pursuing comprehensive reforms despite little tangible sign of their progress. The interim government says a national vote will happen by mid-2026.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh has been buffeted by bad news: Provisional figures indicate that economic growth in fiscal year 2024-25 will be the lowest since the COVID-19 pandemic. The country’s law and order situation is getting worse, as violent crime rises.
Last Wednesday, Bangladesh Army chief Waker-uz-Zaman told military officers that elections should happen by December at the latest. The same day, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) took to the streets in protest against the interim government for the first time. The BNP, the main rival of Hasina’s Awami League party, has repeatedly called for early elections.
Then, Nahid Islam—a top leader of last year’s protests who heads a student-run political party, the National Citizen Party (NCP), and former advisor to the interim government—disclosed that Yunus was considering resigning. He has not, but the threat may have been a tactic by Yunus to wake up those around him to the seriousness of the problems that they now confront.
Either way, Yunus risks putting himself on a collision course with critical stakeholders. He has deferred to the student leaders and backed their policy positions, and they are determined to see reforms through, even if it means delaying elections. But the Bangladesh Army, the BNP, the business community, and likely much of the public want elections sooner rather than later.
New fault lines could emerge from this increasingly fraught political environment. The BNP’s demand for early elections puts it at odds with other key parties, including the NCP and the large and influential Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist party. As many parties with divergent views take to the streets to push for their demands, there is a real risk of political violence.
Though the interim government insists there are no tensions with the military, Waker’s call for elections is telling. With a few exceptions, Waker has rarely spoken publicly about politics since Hasina’s ouster, suggesting his comments were urgent. Waker reportedly differs with the government on other policies, including its recent decision to launch Elon Musk’s Starlink service.
At the same time, the enmity between the BNP and Awami League is festering. Hasina’s refusal to acknowledge her party’s abuses has enraged many people in Bangladesh, likely contributing to the interim government’s decision to ban the party from contesting elections. The Awami League’s leadership has mostly fled abroad, but the move won’t sit well with what remains of the party’s base.
In a worst-case scenario, these volatilities could veer into violence, resulting in serious political instability. That would raise questions about the military—which is less inclined to intervene in politics than in the past—taking control until conditions are calm enough to hold elections.
The best-case scenario—which is wholly viable if cooler heads prevail—is for the interim government to settle on a few core reforms with buy-in from a range of political parties, set a date for their implementation, and announce an election timeline. Encouragingly, parties are already approaching a consensus on a few key measures.
This scenario would pave the way for a peaceful political transition and prepare Yunus for a smooth return to the private life that he likely misses these days.
What We’re Following
India’s foreign secretary in Washington. Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri is in the United States this week, with a three-day visit to Washington scheduled to end on Thursday. A statement from India’s Ministry of External Affairs described Misri’s trip as a follow-up to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s White House visit in February.
The visit is likely an effort to smooth out some tensions creeping into the U.S.-India relationship. Comments from U.S. President Donald Trump this month, including his announcement of the India-Pakistan cease-fire and his offer to help solve the Kashmir dispute, didn’t go over well in New Delhi. India is sensitive about external mediation in its bilateral crises, preferring that it not be broadcast to the world.
The Indian government knows Trump better than most: Modi’s cabinet is largely the same as during his previous term, which coincided with the end of Trump’s first. Still, some of Trump’s statements—including boasts of using trade as a pressure tactic to get India and Pakistan to stop fighting, which India denies—likely came as an unpleasant surprise in New Delhi.
Still, the imperatives of strategic and commercial partnership remain strong, and Misri’s visit could help move the needle on getting the two sides closer to a phase-one agreement on a bilateral trade deal. After a visit to Washington by Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, negotiations are reportedly “entering the final leg,” with a U.S. delegation due in India next month.
U.S. DIA flags Pakistan’s nukes. On Monday, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released its 2025 global threat assessment report. Its section on Pakistan focuses heavily on concerns about nuclear proliferation, suggesting that over the next year “nuclear modernization” will be one of the Pakistani military’s top priorities.
The DIA predicts that Pakistan, impelled by its view of India as an “existential threat” and desire “to offset India’s conventional military advantage,” will continue to develop battlefield nuclear weapons and modernize its arsenal. This suggests that the United States will view future India-Pakistan confrontations through the lens of nuclear escalation risks—as it did during the most recent crisis.
This position may pose a challenge for India, which wants the United States and the world to turn their attention to what it describes as the Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in India that often triggers these crises.
Jaishankar speaks with Canadian counterpart. Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar spoke by phone with his new Canadian counterpart, Anita Anand, on Sunday—marking the first known official contact between New Delhi and Ottawa since Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney took office in March.
Each leader posted about the call on X, though Anand’s message was more detailed and indicated that the two officials discussed strengthening economic cooperation and “advancing shared priorities.”
India’s relations with Canada have been very tense in recent years, mainly due to allegations by former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about Indian government complicity in the assassination of a Sikh separatist in British Columbia in 2023. The new government in Ottawa has raised hopes that the relationship can recover; after all, New Delhi had held Trudeau personally responsible for the breakdown in ties.
Already, diplomatic relations are poised for a boost: Each government is reportedly considering restoring its high commissioner—equivalent to an ambassador—next month. India’s push for more global trade deals, coupled with the resilience of India-Canada trade ties, also suggests that deeper commercial cooperation could help bring some stability to the bilateral relationship.
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Under the Radar
This week, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Asim Munir visited Iran. Though Pakistani premiers and military leaders often travel to the Gulf region, they don’t go to Iran as often—and typically not together.
Munir was in a delegation that Sharif led to Tehran—part of a four-country tour that began in Turkey and continues later this week in Azerbaijan and Tajikistan. Pakistan has warm ties with the other countries. But its relations with Iran are more fragile, in part because of Pakistan’s alliance with Saudi Arabia and tensions over cross-border violence. Last year, Iran targeted militants in Pakistan with airstrikes, sparking a brief military confrontation.
Recent developments, however, help explain why Sharif and Munir would visit Tehran together. Iran was one of the first countries to offer and pursue mediation during the recent India-Pakistan crisis. Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi visited Islamabad and New Delhi during the week that the military confrontation began.
Furthermore, Islamabad is likely keen to ensure its other volatile borders stay calm. In recent weeks, Pakistan has held high-level talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan to reduce tensions. It likely aims for similar results with Iran.
Unsurprisingly, Munir’s meetings in Tehran included talks with Iran’s top military official, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, which focused on border security. Moreover, as India attempts to step up its isolation of Pakistan on the global stage, Islamabad has a strong incentive to showcase its ties with as many countries as possible—including those that aren’t its closest partners.