The political dynamics are moving into uncharted territory in Bangladesh as the agenda of the leaders of the student movement becomes clearer. It seems to be shifting towards an accommodation of Islamic ideology within the structure of the state.
In a strategically significant move, the political guru of the students’ movement, Mahfuz Alam, a 26-year-old law student from Dhaka University, has been appointed Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser, Muhammad Yunus. It will permit him to closely shape and guide Yunus’s reform agenda.
Student leaders have been declaring that the 1971 revolution was incomplete and arguing for a “second revolution”.
What this meant became clearer last week at a conference on “Dialogue for Democratic Restructuring: The Constitution Context” in Dhaka. Alam indicated the broad direction in which he would like Bangladesh to move at the conference.
Arguing for a new Constitution for Bangladesh, he emphasised the need to rewrite the constitution by reflecting the ‘will of the people’. Criticising the Constitution adopted by Bangladesh in 1972 he declared enigmatically, “The 1972 constitution was ideologically unilateral, merging the party’s principles with those of the constitution. That ideological space is now missing, but there is potential to reconstruct it. Other political parties still need to make changes in their ideological spaces as well.”
Alam’s statements have several politically significant implications.
The Feuding Ladies of Bangladesh
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Bangladesh's Jamaat Conundrum
Bangladeshi Identity and the Constitution
Clearly, the student leaders want a new Constitution, but how such a project will reflect the people's will is nebulous. As of now, the student protesters clearly assume that they represent the will of the people. Even after their anti-quota demand had been met by Hasina, they claimed to be acting in the name of the people by asking for her resignation.
In democracies, the people's will is determined through the process of elections to Parliament or a constituent assembly. But Alam seems to suggest that he and his colleagues are the immediate repositories of the ‘people's will’.
Further, in saying that the new Constitution must have “ideological space” beyond the “unilateral” ideology imposed on it by “merging” the ideology of the Awami League with the Constitution in 1972, Alam perhaps wants a new Constitution to go beyond the Bangladeshi identity professed in the existing Constitution.
This identity based on nationalism, secularism, democracy, and socialism ignores, some critics have held, the religious sentiment of the Muslim majority citizenry.
By talking of broadening the ideological space Alam also seems to be addressing the political exclusion of pan-Islamist parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami which was banned by Hasina.
Alam’s words also suggest that a new political formation would have to go beyond the two main parties – the Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). In the past, the “minus two” formula referred to excluding the two dominant political leaders, Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia, from the electoral process. Now “minus two” might well mean a political sphere that excludes the AL and the BNP. Both are secular parties.
Alam is on record claiming that the “people are tired of the two political parties. They have confidence in us (student leaders).” This implies that he sees no ideological difference between the AL and BNP. Perhaps Alam’s decision to form a new political party stems from this understanding of the two parties.
If the students' party fails to win a majority, then they are likely to choose an alliance with the Jamaat-e-Islami, untainted by secular ideology and a fellow-sufferer targeted by Sheikh Hasina. Incidentally, the BNP was also in the crosshairs of Hasina’s government but it would be excluded because of its restrictive ideological baggage.
As of now, the Jamaat is ahead of the other political parties after the 5 August phase. Its political activities include mass outreach at the grassroots level, organising rallies and even undertaking flood-relief work.
AL and BNP Can Be Easily Outmanoeuvred
The ousted AL is on the back foot after Sheikh Hasina fled to India. Its members are being charged with ‘murder’ and arson as part of the fever of retributive justice that seems to have overtaken Bangladesh
The BNP went into a premature celebratory mood after Hasina fled as the presumptive government-in-waiting. Its cadres, especially those belonging to its students’ wing, the Bangladesh Jatiotabadi Chatra Dal, have been grabbing the shops and properties of AL leaders claiming that they were illegally occupied, extorting protection money from AL activists in hiding, and harassing some others.
Indeed, BNP leader Tarique Rahman had to tell BNP workers, “I urge you not to seek revenge for past injustices, nor take the law into your own hands. Instead, if you face any injustice, pursue legal avenues to address it, but ensure that no one is subjected to unjust attacks or legal harassment.” BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has had to call for immediate police action against those using the BNP’s name for illegal acts.
Under these circumstances, the AL and BNP could be easily outmanoeuvred by an alliance between the political party launched by the students and the Jamaat-e-Islami.
Their activists have the experience of working together in the mass movement. Such a political alliance will move Bangladesh’s polity to the right, opening up the “ideological space” to the Islamist parties that have a certain limited appeal amongst voters in Bangladesh. Even the BNP aligned with the Jamaat earlier and the AL facilitated the creation of the Hefazat-e-Islam to appeal to voters with Islamic sentiments.
Many of the student leaders themselves are reportedly very bright madrassa students who gained entry into universities based on academic merit. They are likely to be more predisposed to Islamic ideology and that might explain the strong sentiment for broadening the ideological space in the proposed new Constitution.
The established political parties had a meeting with Chief Adviser Yunus and urged him to hold an election after implementing reforms “within a reasonable time”. However, the new political party envisaged by student leaders will require time to put together a structure that is election-ready. It is unlikely that they will allow power to be transferred any time soon to an elected government manned by the former political elite, albeit reshuffled.
(The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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