There was a hint of tragedy right at the beginning of Bangladesh’s new journey on August 5 that spoilt the celebration party, even if partially.
On August 1, when the stage was set for the student-led protesters’ one-point demand for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation, one video clip from a 2019 event went viral on social media. Its audio was used in the background of almost every visual of public gatherings in Bangladesh’s cities and towns in the first week of August.
The video had hundreds of students joining folk music band Joler Gaan’s members to sing Dhono Dhanyo Pushpe Bhora (abundant with wealth, food and flowers), one of undivided Bengal’s most popular patriotic songs, while waving their cellphone flashlights in darkness – a magical moment.
People sharing the clip on social media in August 2024 said the 2019 rendition – with hundreds in thundering chorus and Joler Gaan’s Rahul Ananda’s prompts in between – brought tears to their eyes, gave them goosebumps and filled them with patriotic fervour as they fought to liberate themselves from Hasina’s Awami League’s authoritarian rule. Joler Gaan members, too, participated in the protests.
But on August 5, as the news of Hasina’s resignation and exit from Bangladesh spread, and mobs started vandalising Hasina’s residence and statues, sculptures and properties of national importance across cities and towns, Joler Gaan founder Rahul Ananda’s residence-cum-the group’s studio in Dhaka was not spared either. Rare musical instruments were burnt, broken and looted. Ananda bore the brunt of collateral damage.
In Jessore, when a group of young protesters was reportedly vandalising an upper floor of ruling party leader Shaheen Chakladar’s 5-star hotel, another mob set fire to the lower floors, killing about two dozen youths stranded on the upper floor.
Since then, while being relieved at the fall of an authoritarian rule, the people of Bangladesh have also remained worried about the possibility of falling into anarchy or in the hands of another group of undemocratic forces, the Islamic radicals.
Mob rule has kept Bangladesh on the edge, in particular, leading to a series of tragedies. People have been lynched, humiliated, and forced to resign from government jobs. Hindu temples, Sufi shrines and Buddha statues came under attack. While the interim government, headed by peace Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, has taken multiple measures that earned praises from civil society, some trends keep even some of Hasina’s staunchest critics worried.
According to Dhaka-based economist and public intellectual Anu Muhammad, the interim government has taken the right steps to look deeply into the financial crisis, national indebtedness, problems with financing mega projects, agreements and contracts and mega corruption.
He lauded the efforts to reform the election commission, the civil administration and the police force and rewriting the Constitution. Some “good, well-deserved” people have found appointments in top posts in various institutions like Universities and art and culture academies, Muhammad says.
However, he is concerned with the government’s “inability or reluctance” to stop the mob violence, and attacks on religious and ethnic minorities, temples and shrines. He is also worried about the indiscriminate filing of cases against people connected with the previous regime. This he finds a violation of the new government’s promise to ensure free and fair trials of specific responsible persons of the past regime for killing and looting.
“Harassing women for dress, occupation and appearances has become a matter of big concern. The spread of discriminatory oppressive ideas and forces is also a matter of concern,” says Muhammad, a member of the newly formed Ganatantrik Adhikar Committee (Committee for Democratic Rights).
Debates and Diktats
One of the positive aspects a Dhaka-based journalist highlights is the increase in the number of debates and discussions on a range of issues involving a wide variety of forces.
There are demands for rewriting the national socio-political history, re-evaluating major events leading to where the country stands today, identifying the roots of political authoritarianism and the search for the identity of Bangladeshi people and the role of language and religion in shaping politics and identity. People are debating about what the key features of the new Constitution should be.
Leaders of the interim government have argued that during Hasina’s rule, the AL appropriated the whole history of the country’s 1971 liberation war, suppressed the AL’s authoritarian turn during 1972-75 and erased everyone other than Hasina’s family from the history of nation building to create a cult out of her father, Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the Liberation War and Bangladesh’s first President.
This is why an objective history of the country, highlighting the roles of all heroes sidelined in history for so long, has to be rewritten, they have argued. AL supporters have seen in these efforts to erase Mujibur Rahman and the legacy of the 1971 liberation war. Some Islamic radicals have even called for disowning the 1971 ‘independence’ altogether, ob the ground that it came with India’s help.
There are debates about the nature of Islam – how the religion practiced in Bangladesh is different from those of northwest India, Pakistan, and the Arab world. Many such discussions are triggering radical backlashes, who are calling for turning Bangladesh into an Islamic country.
Bangladeshi political expert Mubashar Hasan, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oslo, Norway, agrees that people are speaking more freely on matters related to politics and governance. “People are enjoying this freedom of expression. No one is spared from criticism,” he tells Outlook.
Hasan, a survivor of the Hasina regime’s enforced disappearance tactics used to silence critics, lauds the Yunus government’s decision to join the Convention against Enforced Disappearance and the move to try those accused of the July-August violence perpetrated by the previous government and ruling party in the International Crimes Tribunal. He appreciates the government’s measures in the economic field, such as initiating talks with Western financial institutions.
Law and Order
Many in Bangladesh believe the Yunus government’s lack of control over law and order stems from its lack of political authority.
They argue that at the core of the interim government are Yunus and three student leaders – Mahfuz Abdullah (Alam), Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmood – from a student organisation, Ganatantrik Chhatra Shakti, launched only last year. It lacks organisational influence outside Dhaka and other varsity towns, even if the leaders enjoy high popularity among the masses.
“Due to their lack of political organisation and authority, they depend heavily on cooperation from the Army and myriad political forces opposed to Hasina, especially Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and other Muslim groups,” says a Dhaka University professor who does not want to be named.
The professor adds that the government is trying to gain the civil society’s confidence but in the conflict between civil society and undemocratic religious forces, it stands indecisive or infirm. “At present, even the police fear getting mobbed and lynched. Only a government with a clear public mandate can restore law and order. ”
Among the most worrying trends, the professor highlights how the banned international terrorist organisation Hizb-Ut-Tahrir has been publicly holding rallies, displaying the black flag used by West Asian terror groups, and calling for establishing a Caliphate in Bangladesh. Besides, the syllabus reforms committee was dissolved after an Islamic cleric objected to some members for their secular stands.
“No one really knows who is in control. There is a cold tension between all forces. I feel that multiple forces are trying to assert and wrest control but none have it yet,” says a Dhaka-based journalist.
Hasan, however, attributes the Yunus government’s struggles in restoring control over the law and order situation to the police force’s lack of confidence. Many officers remain in hiding due to their brutal crackdown on protesters and are attempting to avoid public backlash and legal procedures, he says.
Those who have returned to duty often remain inactive, even in situations that require a proactive role from law enforcement. This contributed to insecurity among some minorities, as seen in attacks on minority religious groups and followers of Sufi traditions. The government finally granted magistracy power to the Army to improve the situation.
According to Hasan, the most pressing issue is when Bangladesh will hold elections, as at the root of the country’s current crisis lies the absence of a credible election in over a decade. People joined the student movement demanding Hasina’s resignation because they had already been calling for her departure for many months to pave the way for a free and fair election.
“Even during the student agitation, there was no talk of Rashtra Sanskar (state reforms). Their sole demand, which garnered widespread support, was for Hasina’s resignation. This was neither a coup nor a revolution. There was no pre-declared reform agenda—it was a mass uprising. While people want reforms, they also desire a government with a popular mandate to implement them. The government must prioritise conducting a free and fair election,” he tells Outlook.
Changing Political Landscape
Another debate that has gripped Bangladesh is whether the interim government should wait for all its intended reforms before conducting the elections or engage only in the reforms necessary for conducting a free and fair election and then leave the rest on the government form through electoral mandate.
While the main forces behind the uprising are favouring thorough reforms first, major parties like the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which was Hasina’s AL’s chief opponent and is now perceived to be the largest party, prefer the interim government to focus on electoral and administrative reforms necessary for conducting the elections.
Indicating a change in the political landscape, the BNP is increasingly trying to project itself as a liberal democratic force and engaging in conflict with Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamic political party. The JeI was the BNP’s long-term ally against Hasina.
Political observers see in these developments the emergence of new political alignments, in which the BNP stands on one side, the Ganatantrik Chhatra Shakti-backed new political formation on the other, and a JeI-led alliance of Islamic parties as the third force.
While some Ganatantrik Chhatra Shakti leaders and others have argued for banning Hasina’s Awami League from politics, the BNP opposed it, saying it wants the AL to be on the electoral field. Hasina and her collaborators should face free and fair trials but all parties should get a level playing field for the proper restoration of democracy, BNP leaders argued.
BNP leaders believe the AL has earned such notoriety due to its authoritarian rule and the massacre of protesters between July 15 and August 4 that it has no chance of coming anywhere close to power even if allowed to contest.
Parties that had allied with Hasina, though, allege an atmosphere of terror that would not allow them any scope for free and fair participation in the elections. The Yunus government has already issued an arrest warrant against Hasina, who is reportedly living in India since her hurried exit from Bangladesh on August 5. Most other senior AL leaders are either in jail or in hiding. Leaders of some of Hasina’s ally parties have shared the same fate.
Recently, Army Chief Waker-uz-Zaman, while strongly backing the Yunus government, said that he feels the reforms should be completed and a transition to democracy initiated within 12 to 18 months. While Yunus has been evasive on any electoral timeline, the government’s chief law advisor, Dhaka University professor Asif Nazrul told the media that his “primary assumption” says conducting the elections should be possible by the next year.
Whether or when elections or reforms become a new conflict point remains to be seen.
