M A Hossain,
In the early 19th century, the East India Company did not conquer the Indian subcontinent by sheer force of arms. Its genius—or villainy—lay in its ability to exploit local fissures: the ambitions of rival princes, the venality of officials, and the complacency of populations lulled into believing their sovereignty was secure. Gunpowder and muskets mattered, but manipulation mattered more. Two centuries later, the parallels are hard to miss. Washington’s “deep state”—that amalgam of intelligence agencies, diplomatic machinery, and corporate lobbies—functions in South Asia as the reincarnation of the East India Company. The uniforms are replaced by suits; the gunboats by NGOs; the treaties by trade concessions. Yet the underlying mission endures: secure resources, install pliable governments, and prevent rivals, especially China, from consolidating their position in the region.
Nepal’s story in 2025 is thus not just a domestic affair. It is the latest episode in the long history of foreign powers attempting to bend South Asia to their will. And unlike in Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, the attempt in Kathmandu failed. The reason? Not because grievances were absent, nor because corruption had suddenly vanished, but because the Nepali armed forces made a choice that others in the region have too often avoided: to defend sovereignty, even against protests that carried the alluring banners of democracy and reform.
The New East India Company
Look across the region, and the pattern reveals itself. Sri Lanka’s meltdown in 2022 bore the unmistakable marks of foreign opportunism. The Rajapaksa dynasty’s incompetence provided the spark, but once the protests erupted, Western creditors and aid agencies seized the moment to impose sweeping reforms. Many of these measures were not designed to benefit ordinary Sri Lankans but to secure repayment to external markets.
Pakistan’s endless political dramas serve as another example. Its military dominance, financial fragility, and dependence on foreign aid made it ripe for manipulation. Whether it was pressure over counterterrorism, energy pipelines, or the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, Islamabad found itself tugged in multiple directions, each crisis serving foreign interests more than Pakistan’s citizens.
Bangladesh’s “Monsoon Revolution” last year revealed the same blueprint. The students who poured into the streets did so out of genuine frustration with repression and corruption. But the sudden international attention, the subtle amplifications by NGOs, and the veiled involvement of Washington—especially through its long association with Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus—turned a local grievance into a geopolitical flashpoint. Washington’s strategic ambition was obvious: greater leverage over the Bay of Bengal and an additional hedge against Chinese influence.
And then there is Nepal. Here too, anger was real: corruption, nepotism, and stasis had eroded faith in government. But when protests threatened to spiral into regime change, the Nepali army intervened—not to suppress legitimate dissent but to ensure that sovereignty was not quietly bartered away in the chaos. In doing so, they made Nepal the exception rather than the rule.
The Tools of Modern Subversion
What is striking about these episodes is how little foreign intervention today resembles the invasions of old. There are no gunboats off Colombo, no British regiments marching through Dhaka, no American Marines in Kathmandu. Instead, the mechanisms are subtle. Funding streams pour into “capacity-building” projects. Youth movements receive international platforms. Social media campaigns amplify every spark of unrest into a global spectacle.
On the surface, these initiatives seem benign, even noble. After all, who could object to fighting corruption or empowering youth? But the deeper question is always: to whose benefit? Whose strategic goals are advanced when a protest becomes a revolution?
In South Asia, the answer is rarely the people on the streets. Rather, it is Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy, India’s perpetual bid for primacy, or Beijing’s determination to shield its infrastructure projects. The grievances are authentic. The exploitation of those grievances is calculated.
Trump’s Transactional Empire
Here enters Donald Trump. Whatever else one says about him, subtlety is not his forte. Trump has fused personal ambition with American strategy in ways more blatant than any of his predecessors. Where earlier presidents cloaked intervention in the language of liberty or stability, Trump reduces it to the logic of the deal.
Cryptocurrency ventures in Pakistan. Speculative projects in Africa. Quiet financial entanglements in the Middle East. Hints of interests in Ukraine and Russia. Trump is less a commander-in-chief than a global entrepreneur. He seeks to leave office not merely as a two-term president but as a tycoon whose empire extends beyond Manhattan skyscrapers to geopolitical domains. If the East India Company was an empire backed by shareholders, Trump has turned himself into the twenty-first century’s sole proprietor.
For Bangladesh, this poses particular peril. In the calculus of a Trump–Modi alliance, Dhaka’s sovereignty could easily be traded away for concessions on trade or security. Bangladesh becomes, in this framework, not a nation to be respected but a bargaining chip to be played. The tragedy is that the Bangladeshi armed forces, once the symbol of independence, stood aside when vigilance was needed most.
Nepal’s Different Choice
Nepal’s generals, by contrast, made the harder decision. They had studied the cautionary tales: Iraq, where foreign-backed protests led not to democracy but sectarian collapse; Egypt, where youth uprisings devolved into authoritarian retrenchment; Lebanon, where hopes of reform dissolved into chaos. They recognized that rage, however justified, can be hijacked by outsiders with agendas alien to the protesters themselves.
When Kathmandu’s streets filled with anger, the army refused to be drawn into paralysis. They did not declare loyalty to a party or dynasty. Their loyalty was to the very idea of Nepal as a sovereign state. That decision, controversial to some, may well have spared their country the fate of becoming another pawn in the regional game.
This was not a rejection of democracy, but of manipulation. It was not a denial of grievances, but a defense against exploitation. In a region where militaries are often blamed for seizing power, Nepal’s army demonstrated a different model: defending sovereignty without claiming the spoils of politics.
The Moral for South Asia
The lesson here is sobering. Sovereignty in the twenty-first century is not lost to invasions but to complacency. Foreign deep states exploit corruption, nepotism, and division, slipping in through the cracks left by failing elites. Only institutions rooted in patriotism—especially the armed forces—can close those cracks before they widen into chasms.
The West, with its soft-power instruments, has perfected the art of conquest without occupation. China and India play the same game, though with different slogans. But for South Asian states, the danger is the same: to wake up one day and realize their sovereignty has been mortgaged away under the guise of reform.
Nepal’s army saw the façade and acted. Bangladesh did not. Sri Lanka’s was too weak, Pakistan’s too compromised. The consequences will shape the region’s trajectory for years. If South Asia wishes to escape becoming a patchwork of client states in someone else’s empire, it must learn that patriotism is not a relic. It is a shield.
History offers its verdict with brutal clarity. Nations that fail to defend their autonomy end up provinces in foreign empires. Nations that succeed—like Nepal, for now—preserve the possibility of charting their own destiny.
M A Hossain, political and defense analyst based in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: writetomahossain@gmail.com
This article published at :
1. Eurasia Review, USA : 14 Sep, 25
No comments:
Post a Comment