Bangladesh’s President Mohammed Shahabuddin is a lonely figure these days. Ensconced at Bangabhaban, the presidential residence, he has been in forced isolation for the past ten months.
Since the fall of the Awami League government in August last year, the President has found himself in dire straits, the ostensible reason being that he was elected to the office by the Awami League in 2023 in succession to President Abdul Hamid, who had served as head of state for a decade.
President Shahabuddin has had a distinguished career as a district and sessions judge and civil servant. He served on the Anti-Corruption Commission and was noted for his judicious approach to issues that needed his attention. In his younger days, he was a freedom fighter, taking an active part in the country’s War of Liberation.
Associated with the Chhatra League, the student wing of the Awami League, he was involved with progressive politics in the country in the 1960s and 1970s. His loyalty to the Bengali nationalist cause was manifested anew in the mid-1970s following the assassination of the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Shahabuddin boldly protested Bangabandhu’s assassination, an act of courage at a time when the people of Bangladesh were trapped in a condition where conspiracy reigned supreme.
Shahabuddin’s was a brave voice. In the atmosphere of terror engendered by the intrigue taking hold of Bangladesh, he did not flinch from reiterating his loyalty to the Father of the Nation and to the values which underscored the nation’s strenuous struggle for independence from Pakistan in 1971.
And he paid a price for his adherence to his principles. He was placed in incarceration. He spent three years in prison.
A soft-spoken individual, Shahabuddin was unanimously elected Bangladesh’s President by the Jatiyo Sangsad, the nation’s Parliament. His election was symbolic of the rise of a person of dignity and integrity to the office.
And it is that dignity and that integrity he has maintained in these months in which Bangladesh has been pushed into a state of despair with the rise of forces determined to undo the history of the country.
On 5 August last year, the President informed the nation that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had resigned. Subsequently, though, he told a leading Bengali daily newspaper that he had not seen any copy of a resignation signed by Sheikh Hasina.
For her part, Sheikh Hasina has maintained that she did not sign any resignation letter and, therefore, she remains the legitimate Prime Minister of the country.
In these past ten months, President Shahabuddin has been a target of mobs demanding his resignation because he was elected by the Awami League, and owing to the fact that he made it plain that Sheikh Hasina’s resignation letter was a document he had not seen.
The general rule is that the Prime Minister submits, under the provisions of the Constitution, her or his resignation in writing to the President.
On 5 August, when Sheikh Hasina was hurriedly forced out of the country by the army, obviously as a way of saving her life from a mob approaching Ganobhaban, the prime ministerial residence, there was no way for her to go through the formalities of meeting the President and handing over her resignation to him.
The interim regime headed by Muhammad Yunus, though sworn into office by President Shahabuddin despite the absence of a constitutional provision permitting such a swearing-in, has not been happy with the head of state.
Despite the fact that the head of government is expected to keep the President briefed on policy matters and report to him on his visits abroad, Yunus has not carried out that responsibility.
President Shahabuddin, in the absence of Parliament and an elected government, is the sole individual holding constitutional office at present and yet the current regime has flouted convention relating to the presidency.
The interim government deliberately ignores him, in clear violation of the Constitution.
There are many in the regime and among their supporters who have forced changes through street agitation in such significant areas of the state as the judiciary, the civil service, the police service, the education sector, and the foreign policy establishment.
Such elements had hoped to force the President to resign, at one point laying siege to Bangabhaban, until the army drove them away.
President Shahabuddin has demonstrated exemplary courage in holding on to office. Besides, there is no constitutional means in Bangladesh today that could enable him to quit office.
Had Parliament not been dissolved, he could have submitted his resignation to the Speaker, following which measures could have been taken to elect his successor.
In the current circumstances, the President being the sole constitutionally elected functionary of the state, the interim government or anti-Awami League forces have no legal means of forcing him from office. The interim regime has done itself no favours by keeping no links with the President.
The President is no mere head of state. He is also the supreme commander of the armed forces and chancellor of Bangladesh’s universities.
Since August last year, President Shahabuddin has not had or has not been given the opportunity to interact with the nation’s public and private universities. The degree to which his contacts with the military happen to be at present is not known.
The disconcerting truth about Bangladesh’s politics today is that President Shahabuddin is a virtual prisoner at Bangabhaban. He has never ventured out of the place in all these months.
There is little question that his security could come under threat were he to decide to carry out his presidential responsibilities through visits to places which merit his presence.
Owing to the darkness which befell Bangladesh ten months ago, the President has been unable to speak to the nation on important historical anniversaries that have been part of Bangladesh’s heritage.
The President of Bangladesh is a lonely figure these days.
With his allies in government gone, with the country sliding increasingly into chaos and with an unelected regime adamant about having its writ run in the country, with the values of the War of Liberation under organised assault, President Shahabuddin is not a happy individual.
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But he remains the last hope of a nation that has, in these many months, witnessed Bangladesh slipping into the grip of elements intent on turning it away from its history. The loneliness of the President causes despondency among Bangladesh’s citizens.
Yet they fervently hope that he will bear his pain with fortitude, that he will play a decisive role in reversing the disaster through which Bangladesh has been passing since the collapse of constitutional politics last year.
