New Delhi: A book gifted by Bangladesh’s interim head Muhammad Yunus to Pakistan’s General Shamshad Mirza, has sparked controversy. On the book cover is an abstract painting, including the nation’s flag colours, appearing to be in the shape of a map of Bangladesh, including Northeast India.
The incident comes against the backdrop of Yunus’s recent references to India’s Northeast amid Dhaka’s already strained relations with New Delhi.
Published in 2024 by the July Shaheed Smriti Foundation, the book compiles student graffiti from the July 2024 uprising that led to the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government. Earlier in September last year, Yunus presented the book Art of Triumph: Bangladesh’s New Dawn to Justin Trudeau and Jane Goodall during his visit to New York for the UN General Assembly.
However, his social media post with Pakistan General Mirza from their meeting on Sunday has brought the book cover to the attention of Indians. One of the photos on X showed Yunus presenting the book, with its controversial cover, to Mirza.
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of Pakistan Calls on Chief Adviser
DHAKA, October 26: The visiting Chairman of Pakistan’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC), General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, paid a courtesy call on Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus at the State… pic.twitter.com/A9QmFMHk4F
— Chief Adviser of the Government of Bangladesh (@ChiefAdviserGoB) October 26, 2025
At the meeting, the duo discussed Bangladesh–Pakistan relations, including the growing importance of bilateral trade, investment, and defence cooperation.
During his visit to China in April, Yunus described Bangladesh as the “only guardian of the ocean” for the region. India’s Northeast is “landlocked” and reliant on Bangladesh for maritime access, he said, calling for a unified cross-border economic integration plan with Nepal, Bhutan, and the ‘Seven Sisters’. His remarks, at the time, caused outrage among Indian political leaders.
In an address earlier this month at the Islamabad Symposium 2025, Mirza—considered close to Pakistan COAS Field Marshal Asim Munir—targeted India, calling its Army ‘politicised’ and its polity ‘militarised’, and warned that such a dynamic heightens nuclear risks in South Asia. He also called for third-party mediation in the Kashmir dispute, directly contradicting India’s long-standing position that the issue is strictly bilateral.
Mirza’s remarks echo earlier speeches, including one at the Shangri-La Dialogue in May, where he warned that the threshold for escalation between the two nuclear-armed rivals had “dangerously declined.”
Days later, Pakistan’s Army Chief Munir delivered a combative address at the Pakistan Military Academy, cautioning India that any provocation would invite a response “beyond proportions.”
A senior official, Major General (retired) A.L.M. Fazlur Rahman, the chairperson of the National Independent Commission of Inquiry probing the 2009 Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) massacre, appointed by the Yunus-led interim regime previously said that Bangladesh should occupy India’s Northeast if the neighbouring country attacks Pakistan, which ThePrint has reported on.
Earlier in December 2024, Mahfuz Alam, an adviser to Yunus, wrote in a Facebook post that the entire region between the Himalayas and the Bay of Bengal is civilisationally and culturally similar and that a “truncated Bangla” is not complete victory or freedom. It was deleted after a strong protest was registered by the Ministry of External Affairs, India.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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