POST-MASS UPRISING BANGLADESH - Making the new dawn real

by Nurul Kabir

BANGLADESH is undergoing a critical political transition. An autocratic political regime

was thrown out by a popular mass uprising a year ago and an interim government took over

with undisputed supports of forces of the uprising. The youth who played the vital role on the

streets, braving death and wounds, in ousting the authoritarian regime of the Awami League found the moment of ouster to be new political dawn that would usher in a real democratic order — political, economic and cultural — based on the country’s historic promise of establishing a democratic republic based on ‘equality, social justice and human dignity.’ A year after that golden moment, many painfully fear that Bangladesh is on the brink of missing another historic opportunity to democratise its state and governance.

The democratically oriented sections of the Bangladeshi youth, Bengalis and non-Bengalis,

Muslims and non-Muslims, males and females, traditional political activists and otherwise, re-

sponded to their generational call, a year ago, for ridding the country of an authoritarian politi-

cal regime, led by Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina, which had used and abused power to suppress democratic resistance, political and intellectual, against the regime’s manipulated elections, extrajudicial murders of political opponents, enforced disappearances orchestrated by the partisan law enforcement bodies and intelligence agencies, plundering public wealth, syphoning off a huge amount of looted money abroad, et cetera for one and a half decades since 2009. The youth-led democratic protests, which culminated in a massive people’s uprising, not only succeeded in ousting the League’s politically repressive and

financially corrupt regime on August 5, 2024, but also forced most of its leaders, including the once mighty prime minister, ministers, members of parliament, party leaders and a significant number of civil and military bureaucrats as well as businesspeople, who were the League’s partners in crime, to flee the country, obviously to escape legal consequences, on the one hand, and the public wrath, on the other. Earlier, before being ousted from power, the League’s ruthless regime publicly killed some 1,500 people including more than a hundred children and severely injured more than 13,000 only in three weeks from July 16 — a phenomenon that Bangladesh had never experienced excepting the Pakistani genocide conducted in Bangladesh in 1971.

Almost every generation of the Bangladeshi youth came forward to put up effective resistance

against autocratic regimes, resulting in, more often than not, the ouster of the autocratic governments, obviously at the cost of blood. For instance, during the Pakistani era, the Bengali youth, primarily the students, put up a vigorous resistance in 1948 and in 1952 against the irrational political efforts of the West Pakistan-based Urdu-speaking rulers to impose Urdu as the ‘sole’ state language of Pakistan, ignoring the Bangla language spoken by the majority of the Pakistani population living in the East those days. The youth sacrificed lives in the

second phase of the Bangla language movement in 1952, eventually resulting in securing a constitutional recognition of Bangla, alongside Urdu, to be a state language in 1956. Earlier, in 1954, the same generation of youth’s electoral campaign in the provincial elections eradicated the politics of the erstwhile West-based ruling Muslim League in

the East forever.

Then, again, the Bengali youth from working classes, student community and peasantry stood

together in a bloodied mass uprising against the West’s autocratic military-bureaucratic regime of General Ayub Khan in 1969 that ended in the humiliating ouster of the General from power. The mass uprising, however, did not bring in a democratic political order, due primarily to political opportunism of the mainstream political classes active in both the East and West wings of Pakistan.

Nevertheless, the mass uprising eventually paved the way for the first-ever general elections in Pakistan, based on universal franchise, the next year, 1970, through which the East won the electoral verdict to govern Pakistan. An unhappy West,however, launched a brutal military campaign. in the East in early 1971 to suppress the latter’s legitimate right to govern, which instantly forced the East to launch its war for national independence. The East’s youth of the day, mostly peasants, labourers and students, again, rose to the occasion and took up arms to successfully fight the war for national independence. Bangladesh emerged independent the same year, obviously at the cost of a river of blood.

The historically proclaimed promise of the Bangladesh’s war for national independence, po-

litically presided over by the Awami League, was to set up a ‘democratic republic,’ based on the principles of ‘equality, human dignity and social justice.’ But, the independent Bangladesh, under the leadership of the Awami League that politically presided over the country’s war for national independence, eventually grew up to be a cruel ‘one-party’ state, with no political party other than the League having the right to political activism, no newspaper accepting those controlled directly by the government to be published and no right of the citizens to protest against autocracy and injustice. The League’s autocratic regime came to an end with a brutally violent ouster of its government by a section of the unhappy freedom fighters serving the national army in 1975.

Then, Bangladesh went through a series of military coups and counter-coups, eventually placingat the pinnacle of power an otherwise popular, decorated freedom fighter, General Ziaur Rahman, in 1977, only to be killed by another group of disgruntled military officers in 1981. The political party that General Zia lunched in 1978, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, continued to rule the country as an ‘elected authority’ in a multiparty political dispensation restored by Zia’s BNP, until another general, HM Ershad, usurped power in 1982. General Ershad’s military regime faced almost immediate resistance from the student community, which was eventually followed by the political parties and other classes of people, such as

industrial workers, professional bodies and peasants, but the regime managed to cling to the power through various kinds of political manipulationsand intrigues till the end of 1990. The youth, particularly the student community, again, responding to the ultimate call of their generation intensified the democratic movement, culminating in a student-mass uprising that ousted the General from power in December that year. The ouster of the autocratic regime promised a ‘new dawn’ — a genuinely representative democracy accountable to the people — but eventually proved to be a false one.

Then, the country had the latest mass uprising, spearheaded by the present generation of the

youth, last year, which not only forced the autocratic League to quit power but also to flee the country on August 5 last year.

Subsequently, three days after the League supremo Sheikh Hasina had fled to India, the chief

of army staff, General Wakar Uz Zaman, facilitated installation of an interim government, headed by the Peace Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, on August 8. Earlier, the major political parties and groups, who had fought against the League’s authoritarian regime for almost 15 years, unanimously backed the victorious student leaders’ proposal to invite Yunus, and the latter, then visiting France, accepted the responsibility over phone to install an interim government. In the wake of the ouster of the League regime in the face of a massive popular uprising, the question of ‘legality’ in setting up of such an ‘interim administration’ appeared irrelevant, because it had the complete ‘political legitimacy’ emanating from the undisputed ‘consent’ of all the political parties, groups, socio-cultural organisations and others who fought against, and finally defeated, the politically illegitimate League government. This was, again, a new dawn to begin a fresh journey of democratising the state and governance, based on the Bangladesh’s historic promise of building a democratic republic based on ‘equality, human dignity and social justice.’ This was what the

youth leaders of the uprising announced after the victory.

Under such a circumstance, the head of the post-uprising government, Professor Muaham-

mad Yunus announced three special agenda to be implemented: trying the killers of the League regime to ensure justice particularly for the martyrs of the popular uprising; carrying out democratic reforms of the state and politics in a way that there would be no scope for any future political regime to grow authoritarian like that of Sheikh Hasina and the holding of the ‘best’ general elections for transferring power to a genuinely elected government. Yunus did not announce any timeline to implement this set of agenda nor did anyone ask for it either.

However, after taking oath as chief adviser to the interim government, head of government in

other words, on August 8, Yunus announced his cabinet composed of about two dozen individuals, mostly belonging to the NGOised ‘civil society.’ Most of his recruits, despite their personal reputation of being honest, clearly lack political acumen, if not political minds, required to run the affairs of a state and, that too, in an extraordinarily complex political climate. Three young leaders of the Student Against Discrimination, a loose student body that led the mass uprising, were also inducted in the post-uprising cabinet, arguably to influence the course of the state’s post-uprising governance in the light of the democratic spirit of the uprising. Considering the profound hopes and great expectations of the democratically orient sections of the people, generated out of the bloodied mass uprising against an autocratic regime, the cabinet instantly appeared incapable of playing an adequately courageous role in bringing about substantive reforms of the country’s state and governance.

However, as noted earlier, while approving the idea of inviting Professor Yunus to form his

interim government in that emotionally charged political environment, none of the organisations and individuals consulted, however, raised the important issue of the ‘tenure’ and ‘terms of reference’ of the interim body. Euphoric about the fall of Hasina’s repressive regime after long 15 years, the political parties and others concerned must have, apparently in good faith, left the issues to the conscience of the Nobel laureate. It was, however, the responsibilities of all the sides concerned to set the tenure of the interim government, with

the responsibility of carrying out certain democratic reforms within a stipulated time, for no government on earth, worth being called democratic, should remain in power for an indefinite period. The Awami League, on the other hand, has not displayed the slightest of remorse for killing some 1,500 people. Moreover, League leaders, now living abroad, are out to portray the massive popular uprising against its autocratic regime to be a ‘terrorist attack.’ The government has imposed a ban on the party’s activities on May 10 this year until the end of the trial of the League leaders for conducting the July-August mass killing.

Nevertheless, the interim government set up a total of 11 commissions in October-November last year to recommend some essential democratic reforms in 11 sectors of public importance — the constitution, electoral system, police administration, Anti-Corruption Commission, the judiciary, public administration, local government system, public health, mass media, women’s affairs and labour — while the commissions submitted their reports, some of them are good while others are not that good, by May this year. Then, the government set up a seven-member high-powered national consensus commission — composed of chiefs of the first six commissions and Yunus at the top in February this year — which picked up more than a hundred reforms proposals from the reports concerned and started dialogues with 37 political parties and groups — centrist, rightwing and leftwing — to forge a consensus on some substantive reforms for a democratic transition.

While the five commission reports — local government system, public health, mass media,

women’s affairs and labour — remained outside the purview of the consideration by the consensus commission, for reasons only known to the interim government. The defence sector, which needs to undergo critical democratic reforms, did not even appear on the government’s reform agenda at all. There was no commission set up to look into the matter. The agriculture sector, which plays a vital role in the economy, on the other hand, failed

to draw attention of the interim government to be reviewed for democratic reforms by a com-

mission. It seems that the interim government of Yunus finds the well-organised defence sector too powerful to be scrutinised by the civilian authorities while it finds the peasants too disorganised these days and, therefore, too weak to get the government reform the agriculture sector in favour of the peasantry. The democratic reforms of the agriculture, after all, involve land reforms that would affect the interests of the powerful rich.

However, following open dialogues with the political parties, the consensus commission has,

meanwhile, reached consensus on certain constitutional changes, such as the removal of constitutional obstacle for lawmakers to vote freely — without party-whipping — on every issue excepting the ‘no confidence bill’ against the incumbents that could topple a government and the finance bill that keeps the government’s financial transactions going, reinstating the non-party care taker government for holding general elections,

the introduction of a 100-member upper house, enabling the opposition lawmakers to head some important parliamentary standing committees, restricting the arbitrary use of the presidential clemency, reducing the prime minister’s unilateral authority to ask the president to impose emergency that suspends certain fundamental rights of the citizens, the decentralisation of the higher judiciary to the divisional level of the state administration, et cetera.

However, even if the agreed reforms package is implemented, it would definitely help improve the country’s democratic practices, but it would not adequately democratise the country’s politics and the state. The consensus commission, after all, has not even dared, so far, even to propose a discussion to change certain inherently undemocratic component of the existing constitution, for example, removing the provision that grants ‘special status’ to a particular religion, Islam in the case at hand. While equal rights and opportunities of all the citizens remain an essential component of democracy, granting special constitutional

status, such as ‘state religion’, to the faith of the majority community of the citizens makes any

state and its constitution to be majoritarian and, therefore, undemocratic. Again, although the

commission reached a consensus with the political parties on the expansion of the citizens’ democratic rights, it does not appear to have bargained with the parties to make any of the five universally recognised fundamental rights — food, clothing, shelter, healthcare and education — to be legally enforceable and this it would continue to remain an empty promise by the state.

Besides, the commission has not yet achieved success in its efforts to convince all concerned,

particularly the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the largest political organisation of the ruling class, to set a constitutional bar on an individual citizen from holding three powerful political positions, such as the chief of the ruling political party, the leader of house and the chief of the executive wing of the state, which inevitably makes the individual concerned an all-powerful authoritarian prime minister — if not a pure dictator. Nor has it succeeded in convincing all concerned, again, particularly the BNP, to free the constitutional bodies such as the Election Commission, the Public Service Commission or the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Office of the Auditor and Comptroller General, et cetera from the influence of the executive branch of the state.

The BNP’s stiff resistance to deeper democratic reforms speaks of its inability to understand the democratic spirit of the slogans chanted in hundreds of protest processions and dozens of graffiti painted on the city walls, during the bloodied people’s uprising. Bangladesh may not experience a total democratic transformation of its state and society even this time and, thus, the ‘new dawn’ that apparently arose out of the people’s ‘spontaenous’ upcharge last year, may again prove to be a ‘false one’. Nevertheless, Bangladesh is not likely to go back to the pre-uprising condition any more.

Politically empowered by the experience of a successful mass uprising, the people would no longer allow the political parties to run the affairs of the state the way they did before.

However, as regards the first of the three prime promises, the trial process of the errant League leaders has started, but no meaningful progress in the process has so far become visible. Of the democratic reforms, some progress has been made in terms of reaching a consensus, but no substantive reforms have taken place in real terms, while the chiefs of five commissions — local government system, public health, mass media, women’s affairs and labour — have already expressed their dissatisfaction at the government’s inaction about the implementation of recommendations although the interim administration believes that implementation of these reforms would not require prior consultation with the political parties.

In the midst of all this, the rightwing political parties and groups, particularly the Jamaat-e-Isla-

mi, a political party that actively participated in the Pakistani genocide against the Bangladeshis fighting the war of independence in 1971, has started asserting their inherently undemocratic postures in many ways. The Jamaat’s symptomatic activism includes the activation of its dozens of cyber platforms to slander the democratically oriented political quarters and intelligentsia, the intimidation of the women working outside home, 6 t in general, and democratically oriented female activists, in particular, and so on. The phenomenon would definitely stand in the way of making the new political dawn to be a real one.

Thus, the lack of democratic reforms and the slow process of the trial of the League killers, coupled with visible failure of democratic governance, naturally brought forth the government’s third promise — the general elections. But the vagueness of the government’s tenure has provided a section of the unduly ambitious members of the interim cabinet with scope to speak for prolonging the interim administration and thus ‘enjoy’ power without being accountable to people.

Such an unholy ambition of the incumbents are not unlikely to find some takers in an otherwise powerful but undemocratic sections of society.

But Bangladesh, which has time and again put up bloodied resistance against autocracy, cannot not afford to be governed by a set of unelected individuals for long, particularly when the individuals concerned have hardly displayed the necessary political acumen to run the affairs of the state in line with democratic principles.

Be that as it may, it is easily apprehensible that Yunus is intelligent enough to realise that

his administration would not be able to deliver the kind of democratic reforms that hundreds of protesters had braved bullets for, and that only an acceptable general election would ensure his honourable exit and, therefore, he is expected to concentrate on delivering a good general election, if not the ‘best’ one he had initially promised. The next elected government, under socio-political compulsion arising out of the last mass uprising,

would be forced to carry out certain democratic reforms, improving the situation to some significant extent. For the ‘new dawn’, to be a ‘real’ one, the country would require at least another popular uprising — more ‘politically conscious’, led by organised forces of democracy with an unambiguous democratic objective of a ‘second republic’, a democratic one, on the debris of the dismantled pseudo-democratic state.

Nurul Kabir is editor of New Age.