By Jaideep Saikia
The illegitimate regime of Md Yunus has banned the Awami League. The illegal order comes in the wake of protests by a group of foreign funded students and radical Islamists.
Indeed, it would not be unfair to state that “fair-weather” Bangladesh was shepherded into pressing a non-democratic dispensation to ban a political formation that had fought for and founded an independent country in 1971 after severing itself from a bestial Pakistan. This article terms a section of present-day Bangladesh “fair weather” because of the manner in which it is courting opportunism. It may be recalled that there was no hesitation whatsoever in the hearts and minds of the people of Bangladesh when the International Crimes Tribunal formed in 2009 to investigate and prosecute individuals suspected of war crimes committed during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 wanted revenge against the collaborators of Pakistan. Indeed, not only were six top leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami (Bangladesh) and one Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader hanged after they were convicted by the court, but there was a clamour in Dhaka’s Shahbagh on February 5, 2013 when a convicted war criminal, Abdul Quader Mollah was given a lenient sentence of life imprisonment by the court. Later, the sentence was changed to death by hanging as a result of the huge outcry. The demonstrations also sought the government’s ban on the radical Islamist group, Jamaat-e-Islami (Bangladesh) from participating in politics, including elections, and a boycott of institutions supporting or affiliated with the group.
Alas! today Bangladesh has taken a 180-degree turn!
While it would ultimately fall on the “jury of history” to determine whether Sheikh Hasina earned the ire of a section of her people and had to flee Bangladesh because of what is being termed as her overseeing extra-judicial killings, brutal crackdown and authoritarian rule, the fact of the matter is that earlier regimes in Bangladesh—including the democratically elected Bangladesh Nationalist Party—had resorted to repression and viciousness as well. Institutional memory should recollect the 2004 Dhaka grenade attack that took place at an anti-terrorism rally organised by the Awami League in Bangabandhu Avenue on 21 August 2004. The incident left 24 dead and over 500 injured. Among the dead were Hasina’s bodyguard, Mahbubur Rahman and the Awami League’s Women’s Affairs Secretary Ivy Rahman, who succumbed to her injuries a few days later.
Therefore Bangladesh’s “Legacy of Blood” is not so cut and dried as it is being made out to be at present. Yahya Khan’s Pakistan had unleashed a reign of terror by way of Operation Searchlight on 25 March 1971. Pakistani soldiers and local pro-Pakistan militias (primarily the Razakars) massacred close to three million Bengalis and raped between two to four lakh women in an organised campaign of mass murder and genocidal carnal sadism. In any event, it is important to be clear-eyed in order to comprehend that the 10 May 2025 banning of the Awami League and prohibiting it from participating in any political activity including in cyberspace is just a rerun of earlier rancorous events in a country which Lawrence Lifschultz terms as a country of “unfinished revolution”.
It is also important to unravel that the mastermind behind the Awami League ban is from within the so-called interim government of Md. Yunus as well as his foreign handlers. The drumming up of protest marches and sloganeering was merely to showcase to a gullible world that the call for the ban had popular support in the erstwhile East Pakistan. However, in reality the demonstrators who gathered outside Md Yunus’ residence and later in Shahbagh were members of either the students who had ousted Sheikh Hasina or the ones who are currently members of the newly formed National Citizen Party and radical Islamist organisations such as the Jamaat-e-Islami, Hifazat-e-Islami, Islami Chhatra Shibir, Inqilab Manch and kindred organisations.
The illegitimate interim cabinet headed by the Nobel peace prize laureate Md. Yunus decided to ban the Awami Leagues’ activities under the country’s Anti-Terrorism Act. Although it is not immediately known as to under what clause of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2009 such a ban is being imposed (it has to be state-sponsored terrorism as Sheikh Hasina was in the seat of governance), the ban would reportedly be in-situ until a special tribunal completes an investigation of the political party and its leaders over the deaths of protesters during the anti-government rebellion in July-August 2024.
One of the purported reasons that have been proffered is that the “the ban is intended to safeguard national security and sovereignty, ensure the protection of leaders and activists of the July Movement, and guarantee the safety of plaintiffs and witnesses associated with the International Crimes Tribunal”. A complete mockery has been made by tendering such a reason. Bangladesh of the present may continue to harbour considerable Awami League supporters and sympathisers (primarily people who are against Islamisation of the country!), but almost all Awami League leaders have either fled the country fearing persecution or have been arrested. For all intents and purposes, Bangladesh of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman has been rid of all secular Awami Leaguers. An unholy mandate rests in the hands of pro-Pakistan Islamists that are on the fast track to what the United States’ Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard termed as an alliance with the Islamist Caliphate.
It would be of interest to note that the cabal of advisers also approved an amendment to the International Crimes (Tribunals) (ICT) Act, 1973, giving the tribunal the authority to punish political parties, their affiliated organisations, or support groups. The ICT was originally formed in March 2010 by the Awami League government to try the perpetrators of the crimes committed during the Liberation War in 1971. The manner in which the ICT—during Sheikh Hasina’s rule—tried and convicted war criminals who joined hands with Pakistani slaughterers was lauded by all right-thinking people of not only Bangladesh, but around the world. It is wondered whether Md. Yunus—who was just 31 years old in 1971—was witness to the pogroms committed by Tikka Khan’s executioners which included members of the Jamaat-e-Islami (Bangladesh). Yet one of his first acts—after having assumed ill-gotten power—was to release the war criminals and lift the ban on radical outfits such as the Jamaat-e-Islami (Bangladesh). The Jamaat-e-Islami (Bangladesh) is an offshoot of the Jamaat-e-Islami which was founded on 26 August 1941 in Lahore. The grouping was strongly supportive of the idea of an undivided Pakistan.
The ban on the Awami League has been goaded by an obvious motivation: to momentarily halt its return. Therein lies the rationale of the ban. But the men who rule the roost in Bangladesh of the present are fully seized of the fact that the oldest party in Bangladesh could rise like the phoenix if its innards are not decimated. However, they are also aware that a political formation that was founded almost 75 years ago, on 23 June 1949, can never be removed from the essence of Bangladesh. After all, it is the party which, after having fought a war and sacrificed countless lives, gave birth to a new nation. It is not easy to erase memories of such a progenitor. Besides, the phoenix does rise from its ashes!
(Jaideep Saikia is India’s foremost strategist and bestselling author. He was also the sole Asian Fellow of West Point, USA in 2022)