What manifested on the first Saturday in August this year on the capital’s Shaheed Minar overwhelmed the senses. For anybody on the grounds or almost watching (sans AL or pro-AL), the mass gathering of of us from all walks of life heeding the name of the Anti-Discriminatory Student Movement organisers on the starting up set eased the angst and perpetual awe from the outdated weeks – after which decimated it.
Tens of thousands packed the Minar premises to the brim. With it, they impressed collective hope. The gathering outnumbered limitless diversified still demonstrations, essentially led by students, during July — which first known as for reforms in the governmentjob quota system after which justice for the killings of unarmed student protesters on the fingers of the governmentbeginning on 16 July.
On 3 August, whereas the Central Shaheed Minar used to be the level of interest of the mass gathering, diversified huge pockets sprouted across Dhaka, Chattagram and in other locations.
It used to be unparalleled, and the Movement announced a single-level quiz: High Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation. In roughly 48 hours, Bangladesh will peep a ancient feat—the tumble of the 15-year-used autocratic Awami League regime on 5 August.
The fine to assemble and peacefully take half in processions has been thought of a cornerstone of democracy since time immemorial, an even that is protected in loads of constitutions worldwide – along with ours.
But this fine of the of us had been violently denied by the Hasina-led govt. Its most recent track file is the killing of Rangpur’s Abu Sayeed and weeks of violence, which left over 1,600 killed and thousands injured on the fingers of the enlighten equipment. The now-ousted legacy of the Awami League will probably be marred with decades of hardline responses, policies and rules to suppress of us’s freedom of expression.
As extra and extra proof of enduring kleptocracy and crippled establishments floor in the put up-Hasina period, it has been ushering in new sets of challenges for the newest Dr Yunus-led intervening time govt.
And, presumably, extra importantly, it also ushered in discourse on what allowed Awami League’s cataclysmic, autocratic rule. This also begs the question of the race of democracy in Bangladesh’s ancient past — to illustrate, when used to be the last time Bangladesh, a country dominated by a two-event political system for over three decades, loved ‘democracy’?
For a country born out of largely student-led and pro-democracy actions, it is irregular to recognise the lack of “democratic” rule in its Fifty three years of independence.
A 15-year-used chokehold
There were most sharp two years which noticed huge-scale protests led by apolitical students.
The 2018 Dual carriageway Security Movement (29 July to 10 August) by the students met the governments heavy-handed violent response and used to be in the waste and wholly curtailed. Two issues surfaced by the crackdown on this motion – the country’s early life at huge is but to alter into wholly submissive to the regime’s suppressive and violent tactics; it equipped a glimmer of hope, presumably, that no longer all is slow.
On the a connected time, the plot in which ‘helmet bahini’ (aka Awami-League’s student flit known as Bangladesh Chhatra League) along with the police pounced and cornered unarmed students with impunity used to be completely telling; for anybody who adopted the events along with the jailing of photojournalist Shahidul Alam for chatting with AlJazeera relating to the student protests, it used to be sure as day, ‘democracy’ is already six-toes under.
The Awami-League regime also holds a prosperous track file of crackdown on political opposition and extrajudicial killings. For instance, be aware the 2018 drug battle? “Bangladesh started a Philippines-style battle on capsules” in line with an Aljazeera file. Reports of the secret prisons – extra in general known as Aynaghor – hunch by Bangladesh’s navy intelligence DGFI also surfaced in the newest past; and “enforced disappearance” also was a frequent occurrence.
But mega initiatives and charm “statistics” soared, unnecessary to claim.
Bangladesh’s elections in 2014, 2018, and 2024, a marker for democracy, were broadly criticized as “rigged.” Many think relating to the BNP’s (the first opposition event) resolution to boycott these elections allowed the ruling Awami League (AL) to tighten its grip on energy.
In February this year, right a month after the country’s 12th parliamentary elections resulted in but one other “landslide” victory for AL, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released its Democracy Index 2023.
In it, Bangladesh slipped two notches to immoral Seventy fifth among 167 countries from 73rd in 2022, hitting a 5-year low. According to the annual file, the EIU has persisted to list the country among “hybrid regimes” (meaning a combine of autocratic and democratic ‘aspects’) since 2008.
2001-2008: Chaos, corruption and a caretaker govt
For the Bangladeshis in their early 30s or youthful – the unhealthy 1/11 in 2007 is a distant, shadowy memory. Mass arrests — reportedly 15,000 in 10 days, navy intervention and a changeover.
On 15 January 2007, the editorial of one among the most sharp national dailies acknowledged: “For the first time in 16 years, The Day-to-day Superstar received a name from the press data officer (PIO) of the info ministry very gently reminding us of the enlighten of emergency declared by the governmentand likewise that caution in publishing news used to be in tell. On being asked what “caution” exactly intended, he used to be vague and non-committal and requested us to “understand” the topic.”
A navy-backed caretaker govt used to be attach in under the fashionable-or-backyard Bangladesh Bank governor Fakhruddin Ahmed as chief adviser in January 2007 and dominated Bangladesh under a enlighten of emergency for the the relaxation of the year.
This heavily clamped down on freedom of expression and meeting — along with Dhaka College’s Professor Anwar Hossain and the Day-to-day Superstar’s reporter Tasneem Khalil being picked up by DGFI and later released after coercion and torture, among others. Extra crude stories encompass extrajudicial killings.
1991-2001: Considerable to invent with Justice Shahabuddin
The three elections – 1991 (BNP comes to energy), 1996 (Awami League comes to energy) and 2001 (BNP comes to energy) – comprise the decade broadly judicious the most democratic length in Bangladesh in the put up-Liberation period.
While the management adjustments were no longer with out political violence (and emboldening of a two-event political system abetted by frequent adjustments in political allegiance), the length noticed fine and free elections take enlighten — a stamp of the democratic assignment.
Unanimously, one man is credited for this achievement: Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed.
One rebellion and 15 years of navy rule
Have confidence in strategies Abu Sayeed, the first martyr of the 2024 July rebellion? The killing of the 26-year-used Nur Hossain on 10 November 1987 during Ershad’s navy regime bore a identical ripple raise out.
Nur used to be killed when the police fired on a Jubo League rally. He used to be one among the protesters, now a successfully-known ancient characterize, with the phrases “down with autocracy” painted on the front of his bare chest.
It used to be no longer till 1990 that a mass rebellion – starting up in October and rejuvenated by Dr Shamsul Alam Khan Milon killing in November — would descend the navy dictatorship of Lieut. Gen. H. M. Ershad, who took energy in 1982.
After Ershad used to be toppled in 1990, “Bangladesh’s 2d probability at democracy” was a resounding name.
Among diversified violations of human rights, Ershad’s regime (1982-1990) used to be marred by restricted press freedom and govt intervention. It used to be a length marked by plenty of closures or “muzzling” of newspapers.
In 1981, president Ziaur Rahman — who essentially based BNP – used to be assassinated by army officers in a failed coup. Then all over again, it used to be in the following year that a profitable and “cold” coup will take away Ziaur’s govt from energy.
Though a navy rule, media freedom fared better from 1975-1982 when Bangladesh noticed “unhurried liberalisation of the media from enlighten attend a watch on” wrote Netra Files’ Kamal Ahmed in “Prolonged battle for press freedom.” Then all over again, even then, “the governments interventions into editorial freedom did not stop.”
Ershad’s regime attach democratic functions under a tighter leash.
1971-1976: Liberation, BakSal, assassination and a failure to initiate democracy
Within the aftermath of the 9-month-lengthy Liberation Warfare, Awami League’s Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (one among the pivotal figures in the attend of the Liberation motion) used to be sworn in as the prime minister on 10 January 1972.
“Democracy” quickly came under probability. Especially from 1973 to 1975, Bangladesh’s management took a turn against autocratic dispositions – which noticed the killing of freedom fighters with differing views, among diversified instruments of suppression, main as much as the formation of BakSal (Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League) in January 1975 — a one-event enlighten-essentially based fully govt.
All but four newspapers were banned, Mujib led the parliament to undertake an amendment to the Constitution to assemble him the President of Bangladesh, successfully for all times, merged two diversified political parties and Awami League into one, and obligated others to hitch —- BakSal used to be the antithesis of democracy.
In August 1975, a navy coup ended the Awami League management.
The lead-as much as 1971
Normally dubbed as the Enormous Divide, the 1947 Partition left lasting wounds on the subcontinent when the colonial British left. It divided the of us in line with faith between West and East Pakistan (Muslim-majority) and India (Hindu-majority).
After the British colonial rule, the of us of Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) met one other repressive regime — the neo-colonial Pakistan enlighten rule.
The hegemony of the West Pakistani ruling elite over Pakistan, martial rules and a demeaning attitude against Bengali culture and the Bengali inhabitants bittered kin between the 2 provinces; and economic disparity coupled with the West’s refusal to gather Bangla as East Pakistan’s enlighten language did not attend the case
Noteworthy figures admire Bengali nationalist Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, A.K. Fazlul Huq, Muhammad Ali Bogra, and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman played pivotal roles in shaping the nation’s destiny.
Key milestones equivalent to the 1952 Language Movement and the 1969 East Pakistan Revolt, sparked by Sheikh Mujib’s Six-Point Program of 1966, space the stage for the ancient 1970 East Pakistan frequent elections, where Mujib’s event emerged victorious. What adopted is etched in ancient past — a 9-month-lengthy bloody battle for freedom that ended with Bangladesh’s independence.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a central determine in this race, used to be a saunter-setter of the Awami League, a political event essentially based in 1949 as the East Pakistan Awami Muslim League by Bhasani and others. Then all over again, the toll road to democracy after independence has been anything but soft, marked by political turbulence and a form of setbacks.
Though Bhasani severed ties with AL and fashioned a separate event by the unhurried Fifties, he led the mass rebellion in 1969 and known as for the jailed Mujib’s initiate. Many dangle in strategies Bhasani’s political legacy unparalleled, one which consistently fought for the of us from British colonial rule to the put up-1971 Liberation Warfare; or as Nurul Kabir locations it in his essay titled The Red Moulana, he used to be a title which embodies “the ever-oppositional democratic spirit.”
That “spirit” in management and governance, as liberated Bangladesh’s ancient past shows, used to be scant at easiest, or absent, at worst in the last Fifty three years.
When did you last in actuality feel free?
Despite liberation actions, navy coups, assassinations and autocracy under the guise of a “hybrid regime,” democracy continues to elude Bangladesh.
The country has viewed three distinguished mass uprisings: in 1969, which compelled the resignation of Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan; in 1990, which ended Ershad’s navy dictatorship; and in 2024, which ousted the autocratic Hasina-led Awami League. Every of these actions underscores a glaring disconnect between the of us and their leaders, exhibiting how democracy is in most cases hijacked by these in energy — whether by election or force.
For a nation now Fifty three years used, with on the least 33 of these years spent under navy rule, put up-liberation authoritarianism, or the last 15 years of autocracy, can democracy in actuality take root?
Bangladesh’s democratic file, as assessed by Freedom Dwelling, paints a bleak characterize. All the plot in which by the last 50 years, the country has been labeled as “Free” for right two years, whereas the the relaxation of the time it has been deemed “Partly Free” — and even “No longer Free” in a single instance. These findings highlight the chronic challenges in establishing democratic steadiness since independence.
According to those struggles, the Dr Yunus-led intervening time govt has launched plenty of reform initiatives, along with a constitutional reform committee, to pave the plot in which for a extra democratic future. Then all over again, scepticism remains. In a most recent column, Kabir criticized the proposed reforms, arguing that the lack of diverse representation risks rising a “patriarchal, Bengali Muslim-majoritarian” structure. He warned, “If this procedure extends to diversified sectors, Bangladesh stands no probability of breaking free from its used political, economic, and like minded tell.”
The toll road to democracy in Bangladesh remains as complex because it is fraught with challenges.
While the intervening time govt has been going by a new onslaught of challenges ever since taking enlighten of industrial on 8 August and the Chief Advisor has acknowledged “criticize us to your coronary heart’s scream…for media freedom might well no longer be hindered” — the scope for democracy seems to dangle come into sight, certain, but would it be ability is the larger question.
Time will snarl. Even as we wait, establishments – be it the media, regulatory bodies, civil society organisations and past – need to connect their easiest foot forward, preserve the intervening time govt responsible and refrain from falling attend on age-used undemocratic practices. Despite the entirety, this might well as successfully be Bangladesh’s third probability at democracy.
