Over the past decade, Bangladesh has witnessed recurrent violent attacks on its religious minority communities, perpetrated by both domestic extremist factions and international non-state actors. These incidents highlight not only the state's limited capacity to provide protection but also a deeper legacy of marginalization rooted in religious nationalism, political exclusion, and entrenched social prejudice. Such conditions have reinforced the minority status of these groups as "second-class citizens" and generated chronic exposure to threats ranging from dispossession and abduction to sexual violence and arson.


This study investigates the psychological and social dimensions of these lived experiences by focusing on Bangladeshi minority students pursuing higher education at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), India, where they represent the second largest international student group. Adopting an exploratory sequential design, the research first employs in depth, semi structured interviews to capture narratives of transnationality, reactive ethnicity, perceived threat, discrimination, and identity negotiation. Particular attention is given to the psychological processes of othering, boundary making, and coping mechanisms employed in the face of systemic exclusion. The subsequent quantitative phase validates and extends these findings, incorporating network analysis to examine how individual experiences of threat, resilience, and identity formation are embedded within broader relational and structural contexts.


By foregrounding both subjective psychological processes and structural constraints, this study contributes to a nuanced understanding of minority stress, identity negotiation, and transnational adaptation among marginalized Bangladeshi minority students.