Seismic changes in Bangladesh, wrought over July and August 2024, have led to the flight of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina to India and highlighted the fraught relationship between India and Bangladesh. India’s staunchest ally in the subcontinent is now in danger of slipping from its moorings, and a large part of that responsibility lies with India. Over the past decade or so, and in particular since 2022, India’s single-minded focus has remained the building of strong government-to-government ties with Bangladesh to shore up India’s geo-strategic security in north-eastern India with a view to curb China, increase trade and investment connectivity, and reduce risks of migration along the vast 4,096 km-long border, among other things. In the process, it propped up a despotic, corrupt and deeply unpopular regime in Bangladesh. With that, coming fully undone on August 5, India is now in the eye of the storm and, for many Bangladeshis, a neighbourhood villain. As Bangladesh now struggles to reinvent and rebuild itself, India will need to comprehensively reinvent and recalibrate its foreign policy attitude and practice towards Bangladesh, or risk losing much.