More than five decades after India declared the Two-Nation Theory “drowned in the Bay of Bengal,” recent developments in South Asia suggest that the idea never disappeared. Instead, it has quietly resurfaced in a new political and strategic form.
In December 1971, then Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi claimed that the ideological basis of Pakistan had collapsed with the separation of East Pakistan.
However, events unfolding in 2025 and early 2026 point to a different conclusion: the theory did not die. It evolved.
A recent moment at Pakistan’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi captured this shift. Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir presented a silver model of Minar-e-Pakistan to Bangladesh Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal Hasan Mahmood Khan.
In the background stood the portrait of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The symbolism was clear and deliberate.
The monument of the 1940 Lahore Resolution was being handed to a representative of Bengal, under the gaze of the man who led the movement for Muslim political rights in the subcontinent.
Strategic reset between Islamabad and Dhaka
The renewed warmth between Pakistan and Bangladesh is not symbolic alone. It reflects a wider strategic reset.
Political changes in Dhaka in 2024 and 2025 have shifted Bangladesh away from an India-centric foreign policy toward a more balanced and sovereignty-focused approach.
Since then, both countries have moved quickly to restore defence and institutional ties. Direct maritime trade has resumed. Defence cooperation has expanded.
Talks are also underway over the possible procurement of JF-17 Block-III fighter jets by the Bangladesh Air Force.
Officials on both sides see this as a practical response to changing regional realities. There is a growing belief in Islamabad and Dhaka that strategic autonomy and regional balance matter more than alignment under any single power center.
The ideological undercurrent
While 1971 marked a political and administrative failure, it did not erase the Muslim identity of the eastern wing.
Bangladesh emerged as a sovereign, Muslim-majority state not as part of a larger Indian political space.
In recent years, public discourse in Bangladesh has also begun to revisit the origins of 1947.
There is a growing acknowledgement that without the Pakistan Movement, much of it rooted in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s later statehood might not have been possible in the same form.
The reappearance of Jinnah’s portrait in high-level engagements is not accidental. It signals a quiet but visible return to historical roots.
From division to a new equation
The Minar-e-Pakistan gift points to a deeper message. The shared history of Pakistan and Bangladesh is not defined only by the trauma of 1971, but also by the vision of 1940 and 1947.
Today, the Two-Nation Theory reflects a “two states, one historical spirit” reality. The Bay of Bengal did not bury an idea. It reshaped it. And in 2026, that idea appears to be finding a new political expression.
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