New Delhi, April 7 -- There is a particular kind of foreign policy failure that accumulates quietly in deferred decisions, diplomatic silence, and in the bureaucratic comfort of pretending that an inconvenient reality will eventually conform. Bangladesh is deep in that accumulation now, and the bill is coming due on a 271-kilometre border that the government in Naypyidaw does not control.

The United League for Arakan (ULA) did not seek Bangladesh's permission before beginning to function as a nascent state at its border; it simply became one. It controls territory, levies taxes, runs courts, and, as of February 2026, conducts prisoner exchanges with a neighbouring country's border forces. When the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) sits acros...