It has been a year since Bangladesh’s constitutional government, headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, was overthrown. And in this one year, Bangladesh’s people have watched, in disbelief and horror, the brutality the country has been subjected to by those who were installed in power undemocratically and without any legal process in August 2024.
Stated without ambiguity, Bangladesh, under the regime led by Muhammad Yunus, has lurched from one problem to another, with little sign that it is on top of things.
And it is not on top of things because on its watch has been unleashed a process of mob rule, indeed terror unprecedented in Bangladesh’s history.
In the aftermath of the cataclysm of August 5, 2024, all institutions of the state have come under assault. The judiciary, the election commission, the civil service, the media and business firms have felt, and continue to feel, the heavy hand of the mobs even as Yunus and his regime have kept their silence.
Judges have been forced to resign, with new judges approved by the mobs taking their place. Even Yunus has gone on record with his assertion that he ascended to power through the support of the students. They are his employers, he has said.
It is on their backing that he continues to hold office, though on flimsy grounds. With parliament dismissed, with the elected government of the Awami League removed, this past year has not only been an image of a political vacuum in the country but also a sign of the sinister manner in which the regime and its followers have been going around browbeating an entire country into submission to their whims.
Political illegitimacy has systematically undermined Bangladesh and its history in these twelve months. The home-cum-museum dedicated to the memory of the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, has been demolished.
It was a clear sign of the country slipping into the grip of elements unhappy with the nation’s history. Yunus and his advisors did not issue a single statement to condemn this assault on history. The security forces stood silently by as this monument to history, along with other symbols of the War of Liberation, was razed to the ground.
In the months since August 2024, the rule of law has been fugitive in the land. Former ministers, lawmakers, journalists, civil servants, theatre activists, students and others have been herded into prison, with lawyers afraid to come forth in their defence in court.
In an outrageous manner, arrestees have been assaulted on their way to and back from court. Perfectly respectable individuals have been handcuffed, made to wear police vests and helmets as they were produced in court. The levels of indignity to which people have been subjected to in Bangladesh are unprecedented.
Two former chief election commissioners and a former chief justice were taken into custody in recent days, and yet the men who preside over the High Court and Supreme Court in these Yunus times have said not a word. Indeed, in these twelve months, the silence of the judiciary over the degradation Bangladesh has been pushed into has been deafening.
Since August last year, politics has been commandeered by religious radicals. The Jamaat-e-Islami has been taking centre stage, to the point of eclipsing its once-upon-a-time senior alliance partner, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), in the race to ride to power.
But that ride to power remains fraught with questions and not just because the Yunus regime has so far proved unwilling to come forth with a specific timetable for general elections.
The bigger problem for the regime and for the political classes who have been kowtowing before Yunus and his regime is that no election will be credible without the presence of the Awami League.
The regime and the political parties which have cheered the fall of the Awami League remain, all these months after Sheikh Hasina’s departure for India, driven by fear generated by the possibility of the Awami League taking centre stage again.
Public support for the party, despite the ban arbitrarily imposed on its activities, has been going up.
There is little indication that the Yunus regime is prepared to have the country go through a free, fair and credible election. One need only observe the manner in which a king’s party, formally called the National Citizens Party, comprising followers of the regime, is being highlighted in the media and elsewhere.
And the media? They have either gone to ground or are too afraid to speak up or have opted for self-censorship. Articles critical of the Yunus regime do not see the light of day.
Write-ups on Bangabandhu, on the destruction that has been going on, on the Awami League and indeed on the War of Liberation do not find space in the media. It is all a throwback to 1971, when the Bengali nation was caught in a similar straitjacket in the face of the atrocities perpetrated by the occupation Pakistan army.
In these twelve months, diplomacy has paid a price in Bangladesh. Relations with India have plummeted to their lowest depths.
Ties with Pakistan, thanks to the rise of pro-Pakistan elements in the new dispensation, have had new openings. Governments in the West, vocal against the alleged abuse of human rights under Sheikh Hasina, have looked the other way as human rights and the rule of law have been grossly undermined in the country under the Yunus regime.
In this past year, scores of garment factories have shut down, pushing their employees into a state of destitution. Buyers abroad have not been forthcoming about garments imported from Bangladesh. America’s Trump administration has imposed a 37% tariff on imports from Bangladesh.
The country’s foreign reserves are low. And yet, despite such an economic downslide, the regime plans to purchase 25 Boeing aircraft for Bangladesh Biman, the national flag carrier.
Discontent has been growing over the past few months. Reform proposals, formulated by the regime through as many as eleven reform commissions, have been submitted to Yunus and his council of advisors.
They will likely have been pointless exercises since a future elected government might be inclined to be dismissive of them.
Influential figures originally sympathetic to or supportive of the regime have begun to voice their criticism of its actions, in fact of its failure to bring about a positive change in society.
Education has hit rock bottom, with students at various institutions cordoning off roads and placing a continuing series of demands before the regime. There has been no justice for the scores of policemen lynched by mobs on and after 5 August 2024.
The report card for the Yunus regime speaks of a team that has wallowed in incompetence. It speaks of bad governance by a group of individuals determined to hollow out Bangladesh through organised assaults on the country’s history.
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The regime is at sea, with many of its young followers caught in the act of indulging in extortion.
For the people of Bangladesh, it has been a year of living dangerously. The danger is not about to be rolled back anytime soon.
