Bangladesh’s Vanishing Democratic Space – OpEd
The leader of Bangladesh’s Anti-Discrimnation Students Movement, that brought down Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government, has fired a fresh salvo. Hasnat Abdullah, the convenor of this students platform, has said he will not stop until his group could ensure the banning of the Bangladesh Chatra Dal. This followed furious clashes between Chatra Dal supporters and those supporting the platform led by Hasnat Abdullah in the southwestern city of Khulna, in which 150 were injured.
The Chatra Dal is the student affiliate of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party ( BNP), one of two major parties in the country, other than the Awami League which led the country’s fight for freedom and ruled it for much of its independent existence.
Bangladesh’s interim government led by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus has already banned the Chatra League, the student affiliate of the Awami League and branded it as a ‘terrorist organisation’. The student agitators, who brought down Hasina and installed Yunus, have so far seen the Chatra League as their main challenger. Now with the Awami League and Chatra League on the run, the Chatra Dal has attempted to spread its wings.
That upsets the leaders of the Anti-Discrimination Students Platform who are planning to form their own party after getting the interim government to organise elections to Students unions in colleges and universities, which they hope to control and use it as the base for their proposed political party.
The students, mostly educated in religious seminaries called ‘madrassas’, enjoy unstinted backing from the country’s leading Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chatra Shibir. Together, they have pushed the Yunus government on a radical Islamist path — from freeing jailed Islamist radicals to vandalizing Sufi and Shia mosques, Hindu and Buddhist temples , Christian churches and libraries and museums bearing the legacy of the 1971 Liberation War.
Women have been prevented from playing football or moving around without hijab and stalls highlighting menstrual hygiene in the Dhaka Book Fair have been closed down.
In the context of this rapid attempts to radicalise society and polity, Hasnat Abdullah’s promise to ban the Chatra Dal assumes a sinister significance.
Going by the ease with which the Yunus government banned the Chatra League, there is no reason why Hasnat’s threat should be taken lightly.
The students platform is particularly upset with the BNP, whose leaders have been pushing for early elections. The Yunus government and the radical Islamist groups clearly remain opposed to early elections, which if held fairly, may bring the BNP to power and help the Awami League reclaim some lost ground by emerging as the leading Opposition.
Hence the plan to deny both the leading parties of their student-youth power by banning their student affiliates. The BNP is not yet hitting the streets to back their demand for early elections but the Yunus coterie, specially the student leaders, seem determined to weaken its street fighting capabilities by banning its students affiliate. As has happened with the Awami League.
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