Dhaka: With the 13th national election due in February 2026, Bangladesh stands at a critical crossroads where Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus’s pledge of a free and fair democratic transition is being tested by rising communal violence, Islamist extremism, erosion of the rule of law, silencing of dissent, and competing narratives reshaping the country’s political identity.
The July Uprising, the formation of an interim government, and the banning of the Awami League and its student wing, the Chhatra League, received legitimacy because Sheikh Hasina, the now ousted prime minister, had compromised the country’s democracy for 15 years.
Not just anti-Hasina forces within Bangladesh, but also her political opponents abroad (the West) remained fixated on the same. Concerns were raised about the past three national elections being free and fair, while Hasina’s autocratic tendencies were attributed to centralisation of power and her long incumbency and human rights violations.
These issues were treated in isolation, stripped of their context. Hasina’s Western critics often viewed Bangladesh’s politics through a Eurocentric prism, reducing Bangladesh’s democracy challenges to a mere election issue, a turnout problem like that of Denmark. However, Bangladesh’s democracy is earned not through the ballot but through blood sacrificed by millions of the Bengali population and a double partition (1947 and 1971), besides overcoming double colonisation—first from the British and then from Pakistan.
Even after the country’s liberation in 1971, Bangladesh had a brief period of democracy from 1971 to 1975 before plunging into military rule that continued till 1990. Therefore, despite the country’s independent existence for 54 years, Bangladesh’s democracy is new, while anti-democratic elements continue to exist.
The major challenge to the country’s democratic ethos has been the Islamists, who re-emerged under military rule after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s assassination in 1975. A former collaborator of the Pakistan Army—Jamaat-e-Islami—was allowed to reorganise itself as a religious political party in 1978 and allowed to contest national polls under Bangladesh’s civilian rule. It should be noted that Jamaat-e-Islami historically opposed the 1972 Constitution, including the fundamental state principles of nationalism, socialism, democracy and secularism. Instead, it advocates for an Islamic state based on Sharia, a theocracy that is within the Islamic framework.
Jamaat emerged as the third largest party in the country; thanks to a coalition with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the BNP-Jamaat alliance formed governments twice, 1991-06 and 2001-06. These periods also witnessed a rise in Islamic radicalism along with a deepening governance crisis. On one hand, Islamist militant outfits like Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI-B) were terrorising the nation with their arson attacks and targetted killings. On the other hand, those in power were eroding democratic norms through voter manipulation, rigged elections, political violence and rampant corruption.
Sheikh Hasina’s second tenure came amidst a critical political environment that needed military intervention for the country’s democratic survival. The 2008 election that brought her to power ushered in a new phase of liberal democracy. Hasina’s political pragmatism steered the country’s economic and infrastructural growth while also enabling democratic institutional continuity by maintaining civil-military balance. At a time when South Asian nations like Sri Lanka and Pakistan were diving into a debt crisis, Hasina kept the country’s economy afloat, despite the financial challenges.
However, the most notable contribution of the Awami League-led government was Hasina’s iron-clad approach to tackling Bangladesh’s prolonged Islamist extremism. The new phase of Islamist extremist attacks by Neo-JMB and Ansar-ul-Bangla Team targetting secular activists, bloggers, artists, minorities and leaders witnessed since 2013 was met with a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy. The aggressive counter-terrorism operations nationwide through diversified security apparatus and strict laws helped neutralise terrorist camps at the borders and attacks within the country, a move that received international praise.
It was also her tenure that gave due recognition and justice to people who suffered during the 1971 Liberation War. By reviving the International War Crimes Tribunal, Hasina ensured that collaborators of the Pakistan Army, who enjoyed protection under the predecessor government, faced trial for their war crimes. She also gave dignified recognition to the rape survivors of 1971 as liberation fighters or war heroines and provided families of liberation fighters with financial allowances, scholarships and housing. Thus, it was Sheikh Hasina’s tenure that restored the true legacy of 1971, albeit to the discomfort of Jamaat-e-Islami.
Sheikh Hasina’s main political opponents—namely, BNP and Jamaat (then in alliance)—were ideologically antithetical to her party, Awami League, making the latter the country’s only secular party that could form a government. Through the 15th amendment in 2011, Sheikh Hasina’s government constitutionally reinstated secularism, earlier removed under Ziaur Rahman’s rule in 1977, while also maintaining Islam as the state religion. Her 15-year rule protected minority communities; religious persecution witnessed a significant curtailment because of protective measures undertaken by the Awami League government. Bangladeshi culture, too, was actively promoted by the government via interfaith initiatives, celebration of festivals, and boosting Bangladesh’s cultural revival, which is pluralistic at its core.
Therefore, in more ways than one, Sheikh Hasina was not only Bangladesh’s stabiliser but also the protector of Bangladesh’s pluralism that kept Bangladesh economically and geographically predictable. Hasina was the only realistic alternative, notwithstanding her shortcomings, in a state that remained hostile to democracy, liberalism and pluralism. Even her foreign opponents know this, although they choose to downplay it.
Much of Bangladesh’s current democracy crisis is this loophole — the lack of a democratic opposition. Contrary to the old belief that delegitimising a strong incumbent would restore Bangladesh’s democracy and open space for a credible pluralistic alternative, the present political reality reveals a known historic pattern — in a divided society, power vacuums are not filled with moderates but with conservatives, the most violent and organised forces. In Bangladesh’s case, it is the Islamists.
On the political sphere, Islamists are now contesting elections and advocating to change the country’s constitution to make it Sharia-based. Socially, its factions are the forces behind mob attacks, communal violence and disrupting events that observe and celebrate the country’s pluralism.
This counter-revolution resulted from chasing democratic optics; therefore, it proved to be a destructive misstep, a context-blind activism masquerading as a strategy of value-driven paternalism. Indeed, Sheikh Hasina was not flawless. However, state collapse is always worse than an imperfect order.
Bangladesh’s democracy crisis is grave, violence and persecution have become normalised, and the entire country is suffering from destabilisation. Unfortunately, Bangladesh will have to pay a heavy price for this.
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Caption: Cairo: Bangladesh Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the D-8 Summit in Cairo, Egypt, on Thursday, December 19, 2024. (Photo: IANS)
–IANS
