Neighbouring Bangladesh is hotting up, not just literally in terms of the weather but also in terms of the political churn playing out under the shadow of changed geopolitical alignments.
As spring turns to autumn, Dhaka, which has been witnessing a chaotic breakdown in law and order since the August student revolt, which toppled the Sheikh Hasina government, has also seen political activities intensifying and a stern warning being issued by its army chief, Waker-Uz-Zaman, advising politicians and students to stop their often violent infighting, which has kept the nation on tenterhooks.
But first things first. On February 23, in an unprecedented move, students from Dhaka university took out a midnight demonstration demanding the resignation of Bangladesh’s home affairs advisor Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, a retired lieutenant general, for his government’s failure to protect common citizens from widespread extortion, crime, and attacks on liberals and women.
A worried Chowdhury called a press briefing at 2.30 am to promise action to retrieve the internal security situation, which has been palpably getting worse with daily reports of rapes, dacoities and kidnappings piling up. However, as luck would have it, journalists coming for the late-night presser were attacked, and the hapless home ministry head had little leg to stand on as he defended his regime’s internal security record.
Two days later, the army chief, in an unprecedented and stern address, delivered three key messages. First, he warned the political class, which, with the Awami League in hiding, currently consists of the students, Jamaat-i-Islami and Bangladesh Nationalist Party cadres, “This nation’s independence and sovereignty will be undermined if you cannot stop the mudslinging and if you continue to kill and injure each other.”
He also warned students and Jamaat, who have been sympathetic towards the mutineers and have helped free large numbers of Islamist radicals, against seeking to free those border guards found guilty of rebelling against the Hasina government and slaughtering army officers in their February 2009 uprising. “The mutineers who were punished deserve it,” Zaman thundered, adding, “enough is enough.”
He also made it clear that elections must be held by December this year, putting to rest various speculations that commissions set up by the Mohammed Yunus government, which was invited to run the country after Sheikh Hasina was forced to flee, would be given time to make various kinds of constitutional and systemic changes, delaying the elections and giving time to Yunus’s supporters to entrench themselves in the running of the country.
It is interesting that the general has suddenly spoken up, and called out Yunus and his supporters without naming them, days after president Donald Trump told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he would “leave Bangladesh” to India to deal with (Incidentally, the General referred to the de facto prime minister of Bangladesh by name throughout his speech and not by his designation, Chief Advisor, as is normal for a government functionary speaking at an official function).
It almost seemed as if the General was realigning his global loyalties. There have been allegations that the August 5 regime change was a “colour revolution” wrought by American deep state money funnelled through USAID under the Biden regime. The popular belief is that with a change of power in Washington, the protective hand which was on Yunus, a favourite of the Clinton Foundation and President Joe Biden, had been removed.
Weeks before the Modi-Trump meeting in Washington, Gen Waker-Uz-Zaman also signalled there was a need to tone down anti-India rhetoric by his country’s new leadership by stating at a student-led unity rally that “India is an important neighbour. We are dependent on India in many ways.”
Interestingly, two other generals who have come to power in Bangladesh, Gen Hussein Mohammed Ershad and Gen Moeen U Ahmed (who, too, had invited a caretaker government to run from the front while staying in the shadows), had initially taken an anti-India stance and later, after realising that the larger neighbour was a powerful geographical entity which could neither be ignored nor wished away, made amends with it.
It was rather the elected government of Begum Zia which had hurt India the most by mobilising help for northeast rebels, turning Bangladesh into a fertile recruiting ground for Islamist militants, who roamed the subcontinent from Kabul to Assam, and stubbornly opposing all connectivity projects even if that meant Bangladesh’s own development was jeopardised.
However, as politics heats up in Dhaka, all parties have started courting Delhi. Teams of BNP, Awami and Jamaat politicians have made their way to Delhi to try and convince Raisina Hill that they were the best bet for India.
They have also started organising themselves in Dhaka. Students have announced their own party three days after Gen Zaman spoke out. The new party, which many see as a “king’s party” formed with the blessings of Yunus, has been named the National Citizen’s Party.
However, from all accounts, ordinary citizens have gotten tired of the rule by students who have forced out teachers from jobs, brought lawlessness and allowed goons to rule the countryside, and their support base, which was large in the early days of August, has started shrinking.
Also, analysts point out that Bangladesh has always been a two-party state. The Awami League has never polled less than 25 per cent even in its worst days when Gen Zia Ur Rehman had held one-sided elections and usually polled between 30-48 per cent of the vote at other times. Similarly, the BNP had always polled between a quarter and 40 percent of the votes cast, while Jamaat and the Islamist parties have accounted for about 5-8 per cent of the popular vote.
What needs to be seen is how inclusive the polls will be. Will Awami League be allowed to participate in the electoral process, a factor which many analysts feel will help bring some amount of stability in the countryside? Will the polls be free and fair? Will the huge caches of arms, which seem to be circulating among the country’s political cadres, come into play and turn the elections into another killing field?
Only the future ‘Great Game’ and its play will be able to reveal how Bangladesh and democracy will fare in the year ahead.
The writer is former head of PTI’s eastern region network.
