Copyright news18
The recent gifting of the artwork “Art of Triumph” by Bangladesh’s Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus to Pakistan’s Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, may not be a mere diplomatic gesture, say top Indian intelligence sources. Sources familiar with the matter claim that Yunus presented the artwork — which reportedly depicts a controversial map — not to a civilian envoy but to Pakistan’s top general, a move they view as deliberate. The sources allege that the act carries layered symbolic meaning, pointing to a covert alignment between Dhaka’s interim regime and Rawalpindi’s military establishment. Intelligence sources suggest that this was intended to signal Dhaka’s quiet endorsement of Pakistan’s long-standing anti-India narrative, at a time when both countries are accused of recalibrating their regional messaging under foreign influence. According to the sources, the artwork’s depiction of India’s Northeast within an expanded Bangladeshi boundary has raised alarm in strategic circles. They describe it as a “psy-war” signal aimed at undermining India’s territorial integrity and stirring old wounds of the 1971 partition. Analysts cited by the sources believe the gesture is an attempt to symbolically erase Pakistan’s military defeat in 1971 and to project a renewed ideological partnership between Dhaka and Islamabad. The same intelligence channels allege that the timing is equally telling. The incident coincides with a reported rise in illegal infiltrations along the Tripura and Mizoram borders, which security agencies link to Pakistan-backed Islamist NGOs operating through Bangladeshi networks. These developments, the sources say, reinforce suspicions of a coordinated soft-power offensive using culture and diplomacy instead of direct militant proxies. Diplomatic insiders also claim that Yunus’s rise to power has been quietly supported by Western funding agencies, including USAID and Washington-based think tanks. According to their assessment, these networks have long sought to weaken Sheikh Hasina’s government and use Dhaka as a counterweight to India’s growing regional clout. Intelligence sources caution that while the artwork’s diplomatic fallout remains contained, it may represent a “US-scripted soft-power experiment” — a calculated provocation designed to test India’s responses without breaching open diplomatic norms.
