Election is no longer an issue in Bangladesh. Post-election is. By all indications, the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is all set to hold the next election in January 2024 under its own management, a la 2014 or 2018. The political opposition has been successfully reduced to a bunch of sitting ducks. Anyone talking about a free, fair and participatory election is considered an enemy of the (Hasina) state. The US Ambassador in Bangladesh faced threats of expulsion and death from the ruling Awami League (AL) zealots.
Political persecution
In addition, a BNP source claimed that 1,500 of their members were killed, 600 abducted, 100,000 jailed and 5 million faced 138,000 false cases in the past 15 years of the Hasina rule. It was a “good indicator of how extreme the crackdown on dissent has become (in Bangladesh),” said Angelita Baeyens, a legal affairs vice-president at the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and their 35 minor partners in political opposition seem totally demolished under the fascists’ steamrollers. In the past two weeks, about 10,000 of their top leaders and activists have been rounded up and sent to the jails crowded with three to four times their capacities. Eleven killed and thousands wounded. Almost all of their major offices have been sealed after quick ransacks. According to a Lawyers Forum in Dhaka on November 6, about 20 million opposition activists are hiding in jungles, agricultural fields and other hideouts to escape arrest and torture in the hands of the ruling forces and Awami thugs. The new spate of persecution commenced around October 28, 2023 when the opposition parties tried to hold grand rallies in Dhaka demanding the termination of the Hasina administration and holding the next election under a neutral caretaker government (CTG).
“The BNP rallies have successfully tapped into the pulse of the common people,” said political analyst Mubashar Hasan. “The government’s heavy-handed crackdown appears to be a calculated move aimed at dissuading BNP’s burgeoning momentum from evolving into a full-blown mass movement against the existing administration.”
Last year, the opposition party held a number of greatly successful anti-government rallies around the country. When the party tried to stage the same in Dhaka, the regime’s powerbase, on December 10, 2022, it was a different story. The chief of Indian intelligence RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) had to rush in to protect their protege Hasina. Within hours, the pre-assembly gathering on December 8, was brutalized and chased away using lethal weapons, killing at least two and sending hundreds for medical treatment. Local and global outcries against persecution for exercising political rights meant little to the regime, which continued its ruthless treatment of the opposition. A subdued rally on December 10 was symbolic. This year, the BNP succeeded in holding a large gathering in and around Dhaka on July 28, but the leadership failed to capitalize on the mammoth strength of the crowd. The months of August, September and much of October passed without meaningful opposition action, giving sufficient time and space to the regime to sharpen its knives.
The crucial Dhaka rally
The BNP’s crucial rally on October 28 attracted about a million supporters who braved various blockades, assaults and pre-rally arrests. “Activists from Hasina’s Awami League, accompanied by police, were seen attacking the rallies, armed with sticks, iron rods, machetes and other weapons,” reported Betsy Reed, the US editor of the influential Guardian. However, “Hasina’s oppressive methods were only fueling momentum behind the BNP … Political activists, laborers and poorer workers turned out in droves at the 28 October rally, “said Hasan.
From that rally, the BNP was expected to issue an ultimatum to Hasina to step down. Not the type of character to listen to reasons, she ordered her forces to demolish the assembly while she chose to stay at a safe distance in Chittagong. Her loyal troops complied and the rally was crushed before it could even start.
The JeI was allowed to hold a smaller congregation at the Shapla Chottor in Dhaka’s commercial center. For Hasina, the BNP was the problem, JeI and other minor ones were not.
Ill Prepared
The BNP cannot fully absolve itself from responsibility for the fiasco it faced on October 28. Apparently, it was ill prepared with no contingency plan for such an important event. It failed to preempt what could go wrong and what the regime could do. Or perhaps it was too sure of itself. The leadership ignored the repeated threats from the AL Secretary General that the opposition party could face worse treatment than what the Hefazat faced, in a reminder of their brutality to the Islamic teachers and students in 2013. If the BNP leadership thought that Hasina would quit easily without giving a ‘over my dead body’ type fight, it failed to learn Hasina’s political arrogance of the 20 years combined rule. The party leadership also failed to coordinate the protest rallies with other allied parties and arrange simultaneous gatherings at a number of places.
Of course, fascists are strong. It was not easy to face the brutal boots, batons and bullets, water cannons, tear gas and other lethal weapons. Yet, they could have taken a few lessons from the Arab Springs of 2010 when the protesters braved the guns and tanks of the regimes. In last year’s rallies, the Bangladesh opposition did display some ingenuity. Not this time.
Weak leadership
Many analysts blame the party’s weak leadership and its faulty political strategy. After Begum Khaleda Zia, a former Prime Minister, became seriously ill and virtually incapacitated, the party leadership rested on the London-based Acting Chairman Tareque Rahman, son of former President Ziaur Rahman and Khaleda Zia. People see or hear very little of him for unexplained reasons. The party saw a minor split by a few dissatisfied elements, and more defections are feared. The finger is decidedly pointed at the top. Dr. Q M Jalal Khan, an accomplished author, writer, and political commentator, minces no words in criticizing and castigating the de facto leader for his total incompetent and controversial leadership. Yet, this Khan was once so loyal to the BNP and the Zia family members that he could almost “kill” anyone who criticized them. He wrote a full chapter eulogizing young Tareque in his book Bangladesh in Bondage: Tareque Rahman, SQC, LB and other essays (2021). Khan once explained that his criticisms were aimed at shaking the party up and bringing it back on the path followed by his parents, two of the greatest children of the soil. Khan is not alone to see it that way.
Faulty strategy
Khan and many others kept screaming loud and clear at the BNP that, under Hasina’s absolute fascism, it alone could not dislodge her illegal hold on the authority, given the fact that she, like any other autocratic leader, commands complete loyalty of all the branches of governance–administrative, legislature and judiciary. On top of that, she has India backing her through thick and thin, under a give-and-take arrangement. As such, the BNP needed to make a national movement–I metaphorically call a tsunami–with all opposition parties–big or small, right or left–under one banner. The party leadership has been talking big about a joint movement but nothing tangible has been done on this front. And now, it seems the game is over!
Besides, many well-wishers of the party are opposed to its go-alone, go slow policy for the crucial past few months. BNP is supposedly the largest party in the country with a very strong grassroot level support. Yet, it gave 15 long years to a fascist regime to consolidate its illegal hold in the country, including giving it the legitimacy to the fraudulent “Midnight Election” in 2018. Its wait till the last moment for the final thrust proved disastrous!
With the BNP almost fully neutralized, the regime seems to have the last laugh. The opposition party is left to lick its self-inflicting wounds. And, a nation is betrayed and is left to be punished further by the fascists.
Law in own hands
The Awami leaders have been continuously telling their party cadres to take law into their own hands to deal with the opposition. The Prime Minister declared in and outside the parliament that the hands of the BNP leaders should be burnt and broken, in a reference to their alleged burning of public transports. She even asked them to throw the opposition protesters in the fire. Earlier, she wanted Begum Khaleda Zia, the ailing BNP chief, to be thrown off the newly built Padma Bridge into the water. Obaidul Quader, the Secretary General of the AL, said that Uranium fuel that came from Russia for its nuclear project, should be poured over the head of Mirza Fakhrul, the BNP leader. In another remark, he said that a leaderless BNP would be safe for the country for at least 10 years (or something like that.). The Home Minister asked his party men to keep গজারী কাঠ, tough wooden logs and sticks, to beat the opposition activists when confronted. The US Guardian captured evidence that depicted police officials patrolling with a group of armed Awami activists chanting “capture BNP people, one by one, and slaughter them all.” These are pure criminal offenses. Any other country would have prosecuted them promptly.
BNP’s Joint Secretary General R K Rizvi Ahmed alleged that the ruling authorities conducted various terrorist acts, including torching public transports, and assigned the responsibilities to the opposition. The controlled media was forced to write the stories according to the wishes of the regime, he added.
The struggle will continue
Yet, ever optimist Zoglul Husain, a winner of the Freedom Award, says with his usual inspiring note: “The people of Bangladesh are determined to defeat this corrupt, fascists and India-serving Hasina regime. They will definitely establish a patriotic and democratic governance in the country.
I am sincerely looking forward to that great opportunity.
The writer is a freedom fighter of Bangladesh in 1971. He has authored and co-authored about a dozen books and is a prolific writer and commentator.
November 12, 2023
The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of Aequitas Review.
