Dhaka, Bangladesh — On the afternoon of July 16, 2024, as Abu Sayeed, a scholar chief on the forefront of protests in opposition to then-Prime Minister Sheikh Haisna’s management, was shot useless by police in Rangpur – a northern district – a strikingly completely different scene was unfolding within the capital, Dhaka.
On the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, Abdur Rahman, a senior chief of Hasina’s Awami League and a minister in her authorities, sat unperturbed in his workplace having fun with a poetry recital by an area poet.
A video from that day captures Abdur Rahman reclining in his chair, resting his fist in opposition to his proper cheek, listening casually. In direction of the tip, he supplied a lighthearted response: “Great.”
Moments later, when knowledgeable by an aide of the escalating unrest following Sayeed’s killing, he dismissed the issues, saying, “Oh, nothing will occur. The chief [Hasina] will deal with every thing.”
That distinction between the strain exploding into lethal violence on the streets of Bangladesh and the minister’s seemingly informal manner has since come to epitomise, for a lot of within the nation, the Awami League’s disconnect from grassroots realities amid nationwide tumult.
Lower than three weeks later, the Hasina authorities, accused of authoritarianism and brutality, was toppled by a student-led rebellion. At the least 834 folks misplaced their lives in assaults on protesters and bystanders by regulation enforcement officers. The protests started on July 1 and ended on August 5 with Hasina fleeing to India. Greater than 20,000 others have been injured, together with ladies and kids.
The upheaval introduced down the curtains on Hasina’s 16-year management. Now, 5 months later, her social gathering – which has been a serious power in Bangladeshi politics since earlier than the nation’s delivery – remains to be struggling to choose up the items. A pointy divide is rising between unapologetic social gathering honchos and mid-level leaders and activists who imagine the Awami League must replicate on the place it went mistaken – and that the way in which during which the 75-year-old political social gathering addresses that chasm may decide its future.
A celebration divided
Many Awami League leaders proceed to deflect duty.
“We’re victims of a global conspiracy; this will probably be confirmed quickly,” the social gathering’s joint-secretary, AFM Bahauddin Nasim, advised Al Jazeera over the cellphone from an undisclosed location on January 16. He didn’t specify whom he was accusing.
Analysts argue that such claims spotlight the management’s denial of its failures and incapacity to deal with public grievances.
This, in flip, is alienating grassroots members of the social gathering, lots of whom are actually in hiding or scared of authorized repercussions over the killings. They lament the social gathering’s transformation from an organisation linked with the lots to a top-down construction that misplaced contact with public sentiments.
On August 5, 2024, as enormous crowds marched in direction of Hasina’s official residence, the then-prime minister joined her sister Sheikh Rehana in fleeing Ganabhaban (the prime minister’s residence) on board a navy helicopter.
“Whereas the dramatic escape was being broadcast on TV, I used to be nonetheless on the streets of Khulna with some activists. I attempted calling our senior chief, the native lawmaker, however his cellphone was switched off,” a senior native chief of the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the Awami League’s scholar wing, within the southwestern metropolis of Khulna, advised Al Jazeera, requesting anonymity.
“At that second, I felt cheated.”
On October 23, 2024, the interim authorities led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus banned the BCL. The once-influential BCL chief from Khulna recounted his harrowing journey to security. He fled to neighbouring Gopalganj earlier than relocating to Dhaka below a false id.
“I’ve modified my Fb account, cellphone quantity, and every thing. I’ve began a small enterprise to outlive. The social gathering deserted us. I’ll by no means return to politics,” he mentioned.
Comparable emotions of abandonment have been shared by grassroots activists throughout the nation.
Whereas many members stay silent, Samiul Bashir, an assistant secretary of the Bangladesh Krishak League, a pro-Awami League organisation, has been vocal on social media platforms.
“Dedicated activists have been sidelined for years. Since 2014, opportunists and relations of native lawmakers have dominated social gathering buildings on the grassroots, resulting in the disaster,” he advised Al Jazeera.
Talking on situation of anonymity, a frontrunner of a pro-Awami League docs’ affiliation echoed related frustrations. “The actions and phrases of those that rose to be the face of the social gathering have been disastrous, significantly previously couple of years.”
Reflecting on the social gathering’s failures, he advised Al Jazeera: “It was a harsh actuality that our social gathering turned closely reliant on intelligence experiences to make selections. I discovered many high leaders unaware of how selections have been made or who have been making them.”
Analysts say the shortage of democratic practices additionally plunged the social gathering into disarray. Over the previous decade, all grassroots items of the Awami League and its affiliated organisations within the Dhaka metropolitan space, as an illustration, have been working with outdated committees, counting on the identical outdated members with none modifications.
No regret
The Awami League has but to problem a proper apology or assertion acknowledging its authorities’s heavy-handed actions in the course of the student-led rebellion, often called the “July motion”.
As an alternative, the social gathering repeatedly dismissed the motion, with statements – comparable to a January 10 press launch from its youth wing, the Jubo League – describing it as a “terrorist rebellion”, allegedly orchestrated by forces aiming to push the nation in direction of a “Pakistani ideology”.
Throughout the almost one-hour dialog with Al Jazeera, Nasim additionally repeatedly accused Islami Chhatra Shibir, the coed wing of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (BJI) social gathering, of “deceptive” college students below the guise of the anti-quota motion. The 2024 anti-quota motion in Bangladesh started as a scholar protest in opposition to the reinstatement of a discriminatory quota system in public jobs. Escalating because of authorities repression and widespread bloodshed, it developed right into a broader rebellion in opposition to Hasina’s authorities.
The Jamaat has lengthy had a controversial place in Bangladeshi politics, because it opposed the nation’s independence from Pakistan in 1971.
Throughout the Awami League’s latest management, 5 high Jamaat leaders and one senior chief from the principal opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Occasion (BNP) have been executed for warfare crimes. Each the BNP and Jamaat confronted extreme crackdowns below the Hasina authorities, together with widespread enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
Nasim admitted to Al Jazeera that his social gathering had made “strategic missteps” however attributed its failures primarily to “intelligence lapses”.
Nevertheless, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, a detailed aide of Hasina and residential minister for 11 years till the removing of the federal government, claimed in a latest interview with the Indian Categorical, a serious Indian newspaper, that the Awami League had been the sufferer of a “joint coup” carried out by “Islamic terrorists and the military”.
Others near the social gathering disagree.
Tanjim Ahmad Sohel Taj, the son of Bangladesh’s first Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmad and former state minister for house affairs, lamented the shortage of accountability throughout the social gathering.
“The Awami League should apologise to the folks of Bangladesh for the injustices, oppression, corruption, plundering and laundering of billions. I’ve but to see any self-realisation, self-criticism, or act of contrition,” he mentioned in a tv interview.
Al Masud Hasanuzzaman, an analyst and professor of political science at Jahangirnagar College in Dhaka, argued that the social gathering’s hardline stances and selections fuelled public outrage, paving the way in which for the rebellion’s success.
“Fanatical measures in the end damage Sheikh Hasina’s recognition, turning her resignation right into a singular demand,” he advised Al Jazeera.
Resurrection – an uphill battle
Hasina will not be unfamiliar with exile – or with comebacks.
After the assassination of independence chief Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his household on August 15, 1975, Hasina, his daughter, stayed in India for a number of years.
However she returned to Bangladesh to guide the Awami League in 1981. It took 21 years to rebuild the social gathering and are available again to energy.
“This time, nonetheless, is completely different; the social gathering fell to a bloody student-led rebellion supported by the navy, and Sheikh Hasina’s picture as a frontrunner is severely tarnished,” Hasanuzzman mentioned.
He argued that the Awami League faces a extreme picture and management disaster. “With out Sheikh Hasina, rebuilding the social gathering will probably be difficult, and inside divisions are probably,” he mentioned.
The BNP and the Jamaat, the 2 different main political forces within the nation, have each mentioned that they need Awami League leaders and activists concerned within the killings of residents final July and August to face trial. In the end, nonetheless, they’ve argued that the destiny of the Awami League could be determined by the nation’s folks.
Nevertheless, the coed motion that led the marketing campaign to take away Hasina has taken a way more uncompromising place on the way forward for the Awami League.
In a road rally on January 25, Mahfuz Alam, an adviser to the interim Yunus authorities and a key chief of the coed motion, mentioned that the Awami League wouldn’t be allowed to take part within the subsequent elections, which Yunus has mentioned will probably be held by early 2026.
“Our focus consists of prosecuting people concerned in murders, disappearances and rapes whereas implementing reforms and guaranteeing honest elections with the participation of all pro-Bangladesh political events,” he mentioned.
From the Awami League’s perspective, the elections may show essential. “If AL [Awami League] can take part within the election, it’ll create a foothold for the social gathering to return,” Hasanuzzaman mentioned.
“But, political revival may be very troublesome for [the] Awami League with out rebuilding public belief via management, organisation and grassroots connection,” he added.
Ali Riaz, a political analyst and professor at Illinois State College, outlined 4 situations that the Awami League would want to satisfy for any probability of a possible comeback: issuing an unequivocal apology for crimes dedicated throughout its 16 years in energy, significantly the 2024 rebellion; renouncing its present ideology; guaranteeing that no member of Hasina’s household leads the social gathering once more; and dealing with trials for committing heinous crimes together with crimes in opposition to humanity.
“These straight liable for the atrocities in the course of the July rebellion together with Sheikh Hasina should face trials. Any dialogue on their comeback can happen provided that these situations are met,” Riaz advised Al Jazeera. Riaz can be the vice chairman of a Yunus-led authorities fee tasked with constructing a consensus on a sequence of proposed reforms.
Nonetheless, many Awami League activists proceed to think about Hasina, although they sometimes criticise the misuse of energy by her household in personal.
Senior leaders overseas are utilizing social media and discuss exhibits to induce them to regroup and recommend that the Yunus-led authorities is “going to fail”.
However that’s a tough promote to social gathering activists. Within the feedback part under these assertions by social gathering leaders, these junior Awami League leaders are pushing again – declaring that it’s simple for exiled leaders to talk from the sanctuary of a international land, when activists on the bottom are scattered and in hiding throughout Bangladesh.
Like the previous Khulna scholar chief, lots of them are too afraid to disclose their identities publicly. A political comeback feels a great distance off.
