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12 August 2024

Nurturing and Destroying Democracy: The Two Sides of Bangladesh's Ousted Awami League

Rafiq Dossani

The word “Awami,” which derives from the Arabic noun “Awam,” means “of the people” in Bangla. The word is found in many languages, including Azerbaijani, Farsi, Hindi, and Urdu. Despite its lofty connotations, its users in many countries live in what have been called “electoral autocracies,” where leaders believe they can rule forever through a vote every four or five years and repression otherwise.

The collapse of Bangladesh's Awami League–led government illustrates the perils of pursing this model. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country Monday amid widespread, violent protests seeking her ouster. The military was reported to be setting up an interim government.

At the turn of this century, the Awami League offered hope that a democratic government of the people could take hold in Bangladesh. To a significant extent, the responsibility for this lay with the ideals of Bangladesh's founder and the Awami League's leader at the time of the country's formation in 1971, Mujibur Rahman (father of Sheikh Hasina). Sheikh Mujib, as he was known, successfully fought Pakistan for control of the country and its governance.

At the turn of this century, the Awami League offered hope that a democratic government of the people could take hold in Bangladesh.Share on Twitter

After a landslide victory in Bangladesh's first parliamentary elections, Sheikh Mujib assumed political control over a country in chaos that was hungry for democracy. To the surprise of his own people, and the world, he abandoned promises of honest and frugal governance, in favor of expensive populist policies and corruption. When populism failed, he chose repression as a means of controlling the inevitable dissent.

In 2001 the Awami League, then led by Sheikh Mujib's daughter, Sheikh Hasina, lost the elections and yielded power its chief rival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). It appeared at the time that the country's democratic system was in good order despite the brutalities handed out by the Awami League to the BNP over the preceding five years. The impression that democracy was working was furthered in 2008, when the BNP accepted defeat, despite the significant human rights abuses it directed at the Awami League. Both times, brutalities against the opposition were explained away as the short-term costs of a maturing democracy.

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