The climate of fear and anarchy that Bangladesh has been trapped in since August 2024 continues. All the attributes of fascism, as consistently demonstrated by the unconstitutional regime headed by Muhammad Yunus, have been pushing the country increasingly deeper toward the abyss.
On August 15, the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, brutality was again deployed by the followers of the regime, as also by supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Citizens who wished to visit whatever remains of Bangabandhu’s iconic home at 32 Dhanmondi came under mob assault. A rickshaw puller arriving at the place with a bouquet was pounced upon and placed under arrest, on the laughable charge that he had been involved in a murder in 2024.
A woman trying to pay homage to the Father of the Nation was jostled by the mob, insulted in a manner that raised new questions about the organised destruction of the republic and the history of the land.
Barricades erected at the entry points of the road leading to 32 Dhanmondi prevented people from making their way to the residence-cum-museum of the nation’s founder.
The crisis goes from bad to worse, if it has not already. Muhammad Yunus, who months ago claimed that it was the students who had placed him in power, came forth with a new statement last week when he averred that the people of Bangladesh had invested him with power.
That was a clear deviation from reality, one which even repudiated his claim before Bill Clinton in New York last September that Sheikh Hasina’s fall had been the result of a meticulous design on the part of his followers.
Besides, in his claim that Bangladesh’s people had put him in power, he conveniently stayed clear of explaining what methodology had been exercised by the people to raise him to power.
As the crisis goes on, it is the chief of staff of the army who now feels that the military has lately been maligned by the young, those elements who have pretended that it was a revolution that caused the political change last year.
General Wakar uz Zaman has lamented that the young who have been spewing venom against the army will realise, once they grow up, that they have been wrong in voicing their attitudes about the soldiers.
Unsurprisingly, the general did not say a word about the mobs causing wholesale destruction in the country for more than a year, during which the army had propped up the Yunus regime in power.
Things have been getting shockingly bizarre in a country where citizens across the spectrum have begun to feel the consequences of the conspiracy which led to the departure of the Awami League government.
The Foreign Ministry last week issued instructions to Bangladesh’s diplomatic missions abroad to remove the portraits of President Mohammad Shahabuddin from their premises.
That was the height of folly, given that Shahabuddin is not only the sole legitimate holder of high office in Bangladesh but continues to be in office.
Much though Yunus and his regime might ignore him — Yunus has never reported to the President on his foreign travels or on any other matter of public interest in these last thirteen months — President Shahabuddin remains not only head of state but also supreme commander of the armed forces.
The Yunus regime and the mobs loyal to it would like the President to resign. Indeed, there has been talk of Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed taking over at Bangabhaban, the presidential residence-cum-office, though not much follow-up to the reports has been there.
But, yes, the fact that the Chief Justice, who was installed in office after mobs forced his predecessor and other members of the higher judiciary from office last year, recently called Yunus has raised eyebrows.
In the history of independent Bangladesh, no Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, being the head of the nation’s judiciary, has ever called on a head of government.
If Ahmed’s visit to Yunus was a surprise, there has been more. Western diplomats, notably of the United States and Britain, have been in touch with him.
Speculation has been rife on why the Chief Justice has been speaking to these envoys. Justice Ahmed’s contacts with the diplomats are, again, a break with practice in Bangladesh.
And, yes, elections. Of late, worries have grown about the election Yunus has promised for February 2026. That should have been cause for happiness in the country.
The happiness is simply not there, given the growing public feeling that with the Awami League under a ban, an illegal proscription by any means, elections will not be fair or free or credible.
With the party holding public support anywhere between 35% and 40% of electoral backing — and this support has been growing against the background of the fascistic repression of the party — there is hardly any way in which Yunus and his cohorts can justify an election without the party that steered Bangladesh to independence in 1971.
The conclusion? A whole lot more will happen in the country before February, perhaps even public pressure coming in to have a new regime, a properly caretaker one, in place to preside over voting that will have the Awami League taking full part in it.
And, of course, that sort of change will also entail the constitution of a new Election Commission, one free of any taint of the Yunus regime.
These are testing times for Bangladesh. In the last thirteen months, the country has been hollowed out, the rule of law has simply been pushed aside, the judiciary has remained impervious to the violations of law and civility across the country, the media remain silent for fear of the mobs, gangs of the young have been perpetrating violence everywhere, and allegations of corruption are rampant against a good number of the advisors of the regime and members of the Yunus-backed king’s party.
And yet there is a chink of light for Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina has, in recent times, come forth with a 21-point statement on how she envisages a return of the country to democratic, indeed secular government.
That complements the millions of statements and messages on social media paying tribute to Bangabandhu on the anniversary of his assassination this year.
Resistance is taking shape. People of all classes are beginning to speak out against the treasonous acts of the Yunus regime.
On August 15 this year, processions, however small, were brought out across the country, with Joi Bangla and Joi Bangabandhu slogans punctuating the remembrance of the biggest tragedy in independent Bangladesh’s history.
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Hope keeps Bengali dreams alive. Fear defines those who have gone about bulldozing everything of beauty and nobility in Bangladesh in the more than a year since constitutional government was brought low in the country.
