In the face of a movement led by the students and joined by the people, the government formed by Bangladesh Awami League (AL) was dismantled on 5August 2024. The death of AL as a political party was decided on that day, with the party leader, former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, fleeing the country while leaving thousands of her party men behind for an uncertain future.
The student-led movement, which saw participation from thousands of people, received its support from people belonging to every strata of society. At one point, the entire Bangladesh stood by the side of the movement, after watching innocent lives like Mugdho or Abu Sayed being lost to the bullets of the fascist forces.
Around 1,500 died, and thousands others were critically injured during the July uprising, the biggest casualty since the Liberation War of Bangladesh. What started as a quota movement soon turned into a movement seeking ouster of Hasina, and people from all walks of life supported this demand as they had lost their hope on the AL due to the mismanagement of the state affairs by Hasina’s government.
The way Hasina fled and the way in which the Awami League government was overthrown led to only one conclusion- the people of Bangladesh don’t want them anymore. But banning AL altogether was not on the cards, the demand grew later. Even the people who had wanted to replace AL with something better didn’t see it coming, the fewer number of people joining the ‘Ban AL’ movement during the past couple of days is a proof to this fact. It was a call made by the leaders and activists of the newly-formed National Citizen Party (NCP), and some other political parties, including Islami Chhatra Shibir and other religious outfits, joined the movement later.
The ban on AL has sparked intense debate on social media, with almost every individual with some political sense or nonsense posting their views on their social media handles. Personally speaking, most of the posts that came to my newsfeed was against the ban, describing how banning the AL can be disastrous for the country’s politics, and how underground activities of the AL might hound those who were behind this decision.
Very few people, including those in my friend list who works for the government, tried to justify the decision by saying how AL’s role during the July uprising does not let them exist in this land. However, no one tried to find out what might be the actual reasons for AL’s ban, and that’s what I want to discuss in this piece.
Being a brand new political party, the NCP might be afraid of two things. Their first fear could be how to face AL, the largest and oldest political party of the country, during the next general elections. NCP might have thought that if AL is not eliminated, they would cast a long shadow over NCP’s electoral prospects.
The second fear of NCP might be the fear of retribution from AL in the future. Taking lessons from a recent example, which is the reinstatement of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladeshi politics after getting banned by the AL, NCP might have thought that if the AL comes to power by any means in the future, everyone who was involved in its ouster would be killed, disappeared or extinguished.
NCP leaders, including Nahid Islam and Hasnat Abdullah, knew very well how dangerous AL’s wrath is. In my opinion, these two reasons led NCP to wage a movement seeking immediate ban on AL, destroying any chance for them to return and haunt the lives of their adversaries.
Formed in 1949, AL has many historical events associated with its image. It was the party which fought for making East Pakistan free from exploitation by West Pakistan, first by demanding autonomy and later through a bloody war.
But AL’s nature changed upon acquiring state power. Soon after forming the first government of independent Bangladesh, they launched repression on the opposition parties like Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD), banned all the political parties and formed Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BAKSAL), and turned Bangladesh into a one party state like the then Soviet Union and Maoist China.
The first drawback in AL’s history came soon after, when angered by these suicidal political decisions, some army members killed the then party leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and all of his family members except Hasina and her sister Sheikh Rehana on 15 August 1975.
Soon after the killing, Awami League went into a coma for 21 years, and after much efforts, came back to power in 1996, this time led by Hasina, whose life was spared on that August night due to her living abroad.
As Bangladesh boasts of being a democratic country, the decision to prevent AL from doing politics in this country should have been taken by the people through casting their ballots in the next elections. Such a big decision should not have been taken by an interim government, the legality of which is itself a controversy
As Bangladesh moved towards democracy, AL went along with the trend, and the first term by AL went unperturbed. The problem began to intensify after AL came to power for the second term in 2009, as they set up a controversial International Crimes Tribunal and started the so called trial of the war criminals, basically the leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, a party which was once their political ally.
The issue of war crimes was sorted out by Sheikh Mujib himself, with pardoning 195 Pakistani army officers held in Bangladesh after the Liberation War and announcing a presidential pardon for the Razakars and their allies during the first AL rule.
Aside from the war crimes trial, AL became entangled in some other controversies. Although the Padma Bridge was built by them, the project timeline and cost both surpassed the initial estimate, putting enormous economic burden on the country’s people.
In the name of development, the Hasina government built huge infrastructures mostly in and around Dhaka and Chattogram, spending billions of dollars just to satisfy the eyes of the people.
In the meantime, press freedom was curtailed, and the idea of Bengali Nationalism, secularism and mujibism were ingrained in the psyche of the nation’s citizens.
You could not speak anything against the Sheikh Family, you could not ask for the government’s accountability or write anything questioning the reasons behind many unimportant and insignificant political and economic decisions taken by the AL government. Elections were rigged, and for the first time in the country’s history, AL retained state power three times in a row.
Under Hasina, Bangladesh grew into an absolutist state, turning Hasina into a more autocratic and fascist leader as the days went by.
July uprising gave a sigh of relief to the country’s people, as they were choking under the authoritarian rule of Hasina and her cronies. However, no one spoke of banning AL altogether except NCP and their political allies, the probable reasons of which have been stated above.
As Bangladesh boasts of being a democratic country, the decision to prevent AL from doing politics in this country should have been taken by the people through casting their ballots in the next elections. Such a big decision should not have been taken by an interim government, the legality of which is itself a controversy.
The Yunus-led interim government should not have budged to a newly formed party like NCP, which is run by some young men who lacks experience and maturity.
If AL goes underground and carries out subversive activities now, who will be blamed for such acts? Do the interim government or the NCP people have the guts to face such a situation?
Only time will tell.
Muhammad A. Bashed is the operational editor of Muktipotro
