Bangladesh: As Muhammad Yunus Takes Charge, a Final Look Back at Sheikh Hasina

As a micro-finance pioneer, Yunus helped pull millions of Bangladeshis out of poverty.

Hasina gradually became imprisoned in an airtight glasshouse where no noise from outside could be heard. She lost her base with the ‘gonomanush’ (the masses). 

(Photo: JIBON AHMED)

Two days after the resignation of Bangladesh’s longest-serving prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, the country is yet to install an interim government to oversee the transition and hold a credible parliamentary election. Now that the presidential house has announced that microcredit guru Dr Muhammad Yunus is all set to head the interim government, it just remains a matter of time. 

The Nobel laureate, admired by many as a ‘banker to the poor,’ was equally hated by Hasina who used to call him a ‘bloodsucker.’ He is coming home tomorrow (8 August) from Paris after undergoing a minor surgery to take charge of a provisional government.

Bangladesh’s quota reform student leaders, credited for a successful ‘students-people’s revolution’ have made it clear that the transitional government would be neither a President-run one nor an army-led one. That means the leaders of the Anti-Discriminatory Students Movement continue to have their clout for the foreseeable future.

Both the president, a titular head of the State, and the members of the armed forces, will play a faciliatory role so that the interim government can deliver day-to-day business for now and hold a free and fair election in the shortest possible time. 

To further that goal, the president of the country dissolved the parliament yesterday. They were controversially elected this January under Hasina’s orchestration.

Following a lengthy late-night meeting at Bangabhavan, Bangladesh’s presidential house, a key coordinator of the students’ movement, Nahid Islam, told the media that the president, the heads of the army, navy and air force and the revolution leaders were all on the same page in endorsing Dr Yunus as the head of the interim government.

Nahid, who endured enforced disappearance and physical torture during the fag end of Hasina’s 16-year regime, also said a list of 15 names for the remaining members of the interim government had been submitted, which included representatives from civil society and student bodies.

Muhammad Yunus, who endured an enormous amount of hostility and framing in numerous politically-motivated cases by the Awami League government over the past few years, has the right credentials to head an interim government. As a micro-finance pioneer, he helped pull millions of Bangladeshis out of poverty and hugely contributed to the inclusion of marginalised women into economic activities.

Critics may remain sceptics about Yunus’ political acumen, as this is unchartered territory for him. However, he had his little share of political exposure when he tried to form the Nagorik Shakti (Citizens’ Power Party) in 2007 to rid the country of corruption. Prof Yunus later eschewed the plan, declaring politics was not "his cup of tea."

Now with the full weightage of the army and the revolutionary students thrown behind him, the global promoter of social business comes under the spotlight once again for a greater national cause. 

An Otherwise Admired and Seasoned Politician Turned a Tyrant Over the Years

In modern-day politics, governments fail to deliver, offering early resignation and going for snap polls. In worst cases, governments try to hang on to power even after becoming unpopular and earning public wrath. Ultimately, they give in to popular movements gaining momentum. But how often does one see a head of government, who ran a nation for four terms – fleeing her country after resigning and many of her cabinet colleagues and party comrades following suit?

After 15 years in power at a stretch, the beleaguered Bangladeshi leader stepped down most unceremoniously. She fled the country amidst a fierce student movement, civil disobedience and bloodletting, losing up to 500 lives under her watch. The once popular leader championed the cause of democracy during the late 1980s anti-autocracy movement and weathered many a political storm over the decades.

She recently boasted that Awami League, the party she has led since 1981, was like a proverbial phoenix that rises from the ashes time and again. When her scheduled foreign visit on 21 July was postponed at the height of the students’ quota reform movement, it was rumoured that she had bolted. She appeared before television to say boldly and firmly – “Sheikh Hasina doesn’t flee.” 

Her exit from Bangladesh’s political landscape after ruling this country for 20 years (in two phases) saw the release of thousands of leaders and activists including her arch-rival and former premier Begum Khaleda Zia, opening up a window of opportunity—the 170 million people of this South Asian nation can exercise their voting rights again.

For millions of Awami Leagues supporters, as well as general members of the public, it’s a sad episode to watch in Bangladesh’s contemporary history. An otherwise admired and seasoned politician turned a tyrant over the years. One wonders whether she was to blame, or whether the onus falls upon the company she kept.  

Sheikh Hasina had to live in exile for six long years after a section of disgruntled military officers brutally killed her father and his immediate family members. Thanks to their visit abroad on that fateful night of 16 August 1975, Hasina and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana were left alive.

When she finally made it home in 1981, her party – the Awami League — was split into different groups. She managed to bring all the factions under one umbrella and take the helm. She has remained the party’s president since then. This mirrors typical Bangladeshi political culture where top leadership remains a constant, without much inner-party democracy.

With an aberration in the case of the current head (Xi Jinping), even the Communist Party of China (CPC) – the world’s largest political party – always had the practice of handing over the party mantle in a 10-year two-term cycle. But in Bangladesh, this is not the case for either of the two majority parties.

This situation poses a significant risk to the effective implementation of democratic principles. The stagnant, non-rotating party leadership is unlikely to foster robust democratic practices at the national level, within parliament, or government. 

Hasina and the ‘Gonomanush’

We’ve seen how psychopaths of all shades circle throughout Hasina’s political journey and more so whenever she was in power. Her father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and the ‘spirit of 1971’ have been her Achille’s heel. She was often ill-advised by many of her close functionaries, who exploited these weaknesses.

Personality cult, obeisance, flatter, and overexploitation of the ‘spirit of 1971’ and above all, dividing the nation unnecessarily on the question of the country’s liberation war, slowly but surely took her away from a high place of respect in the public’s eyes.

Not only did her key party comrades do her such disservices, but a section of dubious bureaucrats, flippant advisors, and a band of lapdog media had their share of contributions. Hasina gradually became imprisoned in an airtight glasshouse where no noise from outside could be heard. She lost her relationship with the ‘gonomanush’ (the masses).   

In retrospect, it now appears that students’ asking for a reformation of the quota system in government jobs was just a prelude to a burst of pent-up anger. The youths of the country have been enduring the pains of not being able to cast their votes as the last three general elections, including the last one held as recently as January this year, were shams.

Under Hasina’s rule, they found space for expressing dissent getting squeezed, institutions of the state becoming dysfunctional with unbridled grafts and widening income disparity and joblessness. Her admission in her last press brief that the man who ran errands at her house amassed 400 crore taka explains a lot about her regime.            

If the restoration of democracy by toppling then military dictator Ershad in 1991 and standing tall after a heinous attempt on her life on August 21 2004 were some of Hasina’s finest hours in politics, depriving people of their voting rights for too long a period was her time of slipping away from democracy.   

(Reaz Ahmad is the Executive Editor of the Dhaka Tribune. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)