How Bangladesh’s Nuclear Dream Became a National Consensus

By any serious measure, the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant is more than an energy project. It is a political biography of Bangladesh itself—born in the age of Pakistan’s internal discrimination, institutionalized in the early years of independence under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, carried forward through successive governments of different ideological stripes, and finally executed at scale under former prime minister Sheikh Hasina. To reduce Rooppur to a partisan talking point is to misunderstand both its history and its strategic meaning.

 

This is not merely a power station. It is the product of historical grievance, bureaucratic persistence, geopolitical balancing, and a rare moral consensus across rival political camps.

 

The Origins: East Pakistan and the Politics of Denial

 

The roots of Rooppur stretch back to 1961, when the site was initially selected during the Pakistan era for a nuclear power project. But as with so many development priorities of that period, East Pakistan was promised and West Pakistan was rewarded.

 

While Rooppur stalled, Pakistan moved decisively in Karachi. In 1965, Islamabad signed agreements with Canada to establish the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP). Resources, technical assistance, and political attention flowed westward. Rooppur, meanwhile, remained trapped in files, feasibility notes, and ceremonial promises.

 

This was not accidental. It reflected the broader political economy of Pakistan before 1971: revenue extracted from the eastern wing, strategic investment concentrated in the western wing. Roads, ports, military facilities, and advanced industries followed the same pattern. Rooppur became one more symbol of structural inequality.

 

Even by 1969, when plans involving Belgian assistance reportedly advanced, no meaningful implementation followed. Political instability in East Pakistan was cited as the excuse. In reality, instability was often the consequence of exclusion, not its cause.

 

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman understood this clearly. His public demand in 1969 for the project’s implementation showed that Rooppur was already seen as a matter of regional justice, not merely electricity generation.

 

Independence and the Institutional Foundation

 

After 1971, the newly independent Bangladesh inherited devastation: ruined bridges, broken ports, shattered industries, and millions displaced by war. Few would have blamed the new state for abandoning expensive technological ambitions.

 

Yet Sheikh Mujibur Rahman did the opposite.

 

In 1973, his government established the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC) through Presidential Order No. 15. That decision matters enormously. Nations do not build nuclear capability simply by pouring concrete. They build it first through law, institutions, regulatory culture, scientific training, and long-term planning.

 

Bangabandhu( friend of Bengal) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman also emphasized peaceful uses of nuclear energy in international forums, including at the United Nations in 1974. Land for the Rooppur project was preserved. Scientific capacity building was encouraged. Space for research in Savar was allocated, and technical expertise was brought into national planning.

 

These moves created the legal and institutional spine without which later construction would have been impossible.

 

Many countries announce megaprojects. Far fewer create durable institutions that survive political upheaval. Bangladesh did.

 

The Interrupted Middle Years

 

The assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975 changed the country’s trajectory, but Rooppur did not entirely disappear. Different governments revisited it in different ways.

 

During the Ershad period in the late 1980s, foreign firms reportedly conducted feasibility studies. Under Begum Khaleda Zia in the mid-1990s, the project entered national energy policy. When the Awami League returned to office in 1996, those policies were revised and expanded, leading to later nuclear action planning.

 

This continuity deserves recognition. Bangladesh’s politics has often been bitterly polarized. Yet beneath the rhetoric, Rooppur survived because most governments understood a basic truth: a densely populated, industrializing country cannot rely indefinitely on imported fossil fuels, erratic hydrology, and politically exposed energy routes. That bipartisan—or more accurately cross-party—continuity is rare in South Asia.

 

Why Sheikh Hasina Could Deliver What Others Could Not

 

Still, institutional memory alone does not build reactors. Execution requires financing, diplomatic stability, technical partners, grid upgrades, land security, workforce training, and years of uninterrupted administrative focus.

 

That is where Sheikh Hasina’s era proved decisive. After returning to power in 2009, her government revived the stalled project with strategic urgency. In 2011, Bangladesh signed a state-level agreement with Russia for nuclear cooperation. In 2017, major construction formally advanced. By April 2026, fuel loading for the first unit marked Bangladesh’s formal entry into the nuclear electricity age.

 

The lesson is simple: large infrastructure requires political continuity. Whether one supports or opposes a government, continuity often matters more than slogans. Nuclear projects are measured in decades, not election cycles.

 

Rooppur’s planned total capacity of 2,400 megawatts (two units of 1,200 MW each) can materially strengthen Bangladesh’s baseload supply, reduce pressure on imported fuels, and support industrial growth.

 

The Geopolitical Layer

 

Rooppur also reflects changing geopolitical realities. Bangladesh has historically balanced relations among India, China, Russia, the United States, Japan, and the Gulf states. Choosing Russia as the principal nuclear partner was pragmatic. Moscow offers integrated state-backed packages: financing, technology, training, fuel services, and long implementation experience abroad.

 

For Dhaka, this was less ideological alignment than strategic diversification. South Asia’s energy map is increasingly competitive. India expands nuclear and renewables. Pakistan deepens Chinese-backed power cooperation. Bangladesh cannot remain dependent solely on LNG imports and vulnerable fuel markets. Rooppur gives Dhaka another pillar of sovereignty.

 

In a world shaped by supply-chain shocks, sanctions regimes, maritime chokepoints, and volatile commodity prices, energy independence is no longer a technical issue. It is a national security issue.

 

Controversies and the Arithmetic of Suspicion

 

Large projects attract criticism. That is healthy in a democracy. Nuclear plants worldwide face questions about cost, transparency, safety, and debt. But criticism should be evidence-based.

 

Claims that billions were casually “siphoned” from a multibillion-dollar internationally supervised project involving foreign contractors, state financing, technical audits, and multiple layers of oversight deserve scrutiny, not automatic repetition. Allegations must be tested through facts, documentation, and lawful investigation. Suspicion is not proof. Nor is propaganda accountability.

 

The Deeper Meaning of Rooppur

 

Rooppur tells a larger national story. It began as a denied right under Pakistan. It was institutionalized by Bangabandhu as part of sovereign state-building. It was preserved through changing governments that recognized strategic necessity. It was implemented under Sheikh Hasina through administrative continuity and external partnerships.

 

That sequence matters because nation-building is cumulative. No serious state is built by one leader alone, or one party alone, or one decade alone.

 

Bangladesh’s challenge now is not whether Rooppur should exist. It does. The challenge is whether it can be run safely, transparently, efficiently, and professionally for generations.

 

If managed wisely, Rooppur will power factories, stabilize grids, reduce fuel vulnerability, and symbolize technological maturity.

 

If politicized recklessly, it will become another missed opportunity. The wiser course is obvious: treat Rooppur not as partisan property, but as national infrastructure born of long struggle and long memory.

 

By M A Hossain