Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. But in the bigger picture, the norm in Bangladesh hints at something more fundamental: Justice rarely stands as a sacrosanct principle.
Instead, it is wielded as a rhetorical instrument --partisan, malleable, fragile, and transactional --shaped by the whims of political expediency. Outrage, far from being a moral stance, wears the illusion of justice, directed where it serves vested interests and ignored when it does not.
Mass uprisings and missed opportunities
Twice in the nation’s recent history, fleeting moments of unity materialized for the common good: First, in the lead-up to the fall of Hussein Muhammad Ershad, and more recently, with the mass uprising that led to the ousting of Sheikh Hasina. Instances of collective purpose, legitimately aimed at removing authoritarian regimes, temporarily rallied a fractured population.
The first moment failed to offer a lasting solution. Politicians and bureaucrats categorically fell short in delivering on the promises they made to citizens in 1991. Bangladesh needs to conduct a post-mortem on why that occurred and what has transpired since, learn from those failures, and avoid repeating the same mistakes before making any major constitutional decisions.
The lesson from the three decades following General Ershad's resignation is that even if good public policies and consensus-based agreements exist on paper, they are rendered null and void without a politician-led culture change in how things are done.
A strong, functioning opposition, the empowerment of Members of Parliament to operate as robust policy-makers rather than subservient stooges to a single political dynasty, and allowing parliamentary committees to function for the public interest, are all institutional guardrails that should be foundational for Bangladesh to pursue. Parallel to policy reforms, the way politics is conducted by politicians must also be treated as a high-priority issue that cannot be ignored.
With Hasina’s departure, the partial mirage of solidarity has begun to thaw. It has not dissolved per se, as it is true that the breadth of support the interim government has received from all corners -- barring a few allies of the deposed regime -- is unmatched in Bangladesh history.
This thawing has begun to expose a landscape still haunted by an unreckoned past. The question of what becomes of the millions who continue to stand with the Awami League -- whether one likes it or not --remains unanswered.
This includes not only direct participants or beneficiaries of authoritarianism but also party workers who committed no crimes in a legal sense, as well as the voters who still support the Awami League. The status of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, loved by many and loathed by others, also remains unresolved, with his legacy and place in Bangladesh’s national storyline repeatedly shifting depending on who holds power.
Reconciliation toward the Awami League, by the interim government or those backing it, remains currently unviable due to the complete absence of remorse shown by Hasina and her allies following August 5. They have expressed no regret for what can best be described as crimes against humanity under international humanitarian law, committed in July and August, nor for the multitude of other transgressions over their 15-year tenure. Hasina continues to propagate lie after lie, sounding, for lack of a better word, like a madwoman.
The crowdsourced movement, as journalist Ashraf Kaiser observed, has now coalesced around a handful of Dhaka University-based student leaders whose recent comments have been more isolating than bridging and more impulsive than deliberate -- a reflection, perhaps, of their political inexperience.
Those rash statements, it seems, have dimmed, if not disappeared, in the past two weeks, with Bangladesh presenting a far more united and pragmatic front in response to the industrial-scale propaganda emerging from Indian mass and social media.
Revolutionary ideas pushed at a pace Bangladesh may not be ready to embrace, ill-timed -- if not inaccurate -- remarks about India, and a standoff with other important stakeholders over the presidency have weakened their earlier connection to the masses and de facto with major political parties, traded for the approval of an aggrieved subset of the younger population.
With time and experience, they will learn. They deserve the benefit of the doubt, but a suggestion would be for their leaders, specifically those who are advisors in the interim government, to resign from their posts, distance themselves from the machinery of government, form their own party, and take their ideas to the people in the coming election.
Partisan ideologies versus universal principles
Beneath the thin mask of unity lies an ideological battlefield dominated by two opposing forces: Islamists and progressives. At its most aspirational, this clash of ideas could and should foster democratic consolidation. In reality, however, and if history is any guide, it may breed a vicious cycle of hypocrisy, where both camps demand accountability but refuse to shoulder their own.
Tucked between these polarities is the BNP. Its positioning as a centrist representative of the masses and a victim of persecution -- which it has been -- is shackled to a legacy marred by the infamous August 21 attack and rampant corruption from 2001 to 2006. These failures, now overshadowed by the Awami League’s excesses, are indelible.
From London, Tarique Rahman signals an unusual openness -- if not a full acknowledgment -- to confront the sins of the past. For voters, the choice is bittersweet: To pin cautious hopes on a reformed BNP or to brace for more of the same and take to the streets if necessary.
Meanwhile, Jamaat-e-Islam has reemerged with astonishing audacity after years on the sidelines. Here, Bangladeshis should understand a pattern: An entity driven underground often strengthens and expands its base by zeroing in on its exclusion.
In 1971, many Jamaat leaders actively collaborated with the Pakistani military, aiding and abetting one of the bloodiest genocides of the 20th century. Half a century later, Jamaat offers neither apology nor reconciliation.
Instead, Jamaat sidesteps its complicity with vague statements about its role as simply being allied with the Pakistani state and against Indian hegemony, ignoring its part in enabling mass atrocity crimes. It cloaks itself as both victim today and Islamic visionary of the future.
Let there be no mistake: Jamaat was hounded by the Awami League in ways that undermined the rule of law. This abuse -- real and reprehensible -- does not absolve Jamaat of its own flaws. Two things can be true at the same time. Its claims to moral high ground remain an affront to the memory of those who were martyred in 1971.
While the scale and nature of the crimes committed by Jamaat and Awami League leaders in 1971 and 2024 differ greatly, their shared refusal to acknowledge responsibility is a troubling commonality. This dogmatic denial extends, not equivalently but indisputably, to the BNP and Jatiya Party. Jamaat has set a dangerous precedent, and this will give the Awami League leeway down the road to avoid self-reflection by pointing to their rivals' lack of repentance.
Hefazat-e-Islam poses a different yet equally potent challenge. Anchored in the Qawmi madrasa network, Hefazat commands influence over the most vulnerable. For the impoverished, these madrasas are lifelines, but they are also breeding grounds for absolutist ideologies.
Hefazat’s strength lies in its ability to mobilize en masse. It offers little vision beyond dangerous, misogynistic, and rigid religious orthodoxy. A similar analysis can be applied to other smaller Islamist actors that have emerged recently from the shadows.
The 2013 Shapla Chattar crackdown was a dark chapter. Law enforcement agencies ferociously suppressed Hefazat’s activists, killing children among the demonstrators. Bangladesh still does not know how many people died that day.
This event, leaving the politics aside, demanded universal condemnation. Instead, progressives remained silent. Their disdain for Hefazat’s regressive rhetoric overrode any commitment to denouncing state-sponsored violence.
This silence was not an isolated failing: It indicated a broader moral crisis. In Bangladesh, outrage is selective, calibrated by ideology rather than principle. The deposed regime leveraged the symbiotic nature of selectivism to stoke division: Pro-Liberation against anti-Liberation, cultural reverence versus religiosity, secularism versus Islam -- the list goes on.
Progressives are also steeped in hypocrisy in the political arena. Over the past decade, thousands of BNP activists were arbitrarily detained, denied due process, and silenced under fabricated charges. The 2014, 2018, and 2024 elections -- denounced as fraudulent -- eviscerated the democratic character of the polity. Too many cultural elites -- self-proclaimed defenders of human rights and the spirit of liberation -- remained complicit. They basked in state patronage while the state crumbled around them.
Similar things can be said about two other cases. First, the silence of feminist groups over Khaleda Zia’s politically-motivated detention. Bangladesh’s first female prime minister, who championed girls’ education through groundbreaking fiscal policies, was denied medical treatment abroad despite her age and frailty.
Second, the indifference of so-called liberal commentators to questioning what caused the BDR mutiny, where over 70 officers were killed, while many progressives remained silent. Both expose a selective morality shaped by ideological convenience. This collective amnesia reflects a deeper malaise: Unless injustice aligns with personal or ideological interests, it is ignored.
Finding democracy via the political centre
Political science suggests that three types of forces dominate parliamentary systems: Activist-based, voter-based, and a blend of both. Jamaat and Hefazat represent activist-driven forces, creating the deception of strength while amplifying fringe voices --remember, the loudest voices are usually those on the margins.
The BNP, primarily voter-based, is at this time content to rely on the ballot box for its legitimacy, favouring patience over provocation. However, some grassroots BNP activists are behaving unpredictably and adopting a sense of entitlement, raising concerns across the board.
The Awami League, a hybrid of activism and mass appeal, seems to be drifting toward criminal conspiracy. Be warned: Under the deposed dictator’s command, its network of enforcers continues to plot and destabilize Bangladesh after being booted unceremoniously from office.
On minority issues, the narrative remains fraught. Certain leaders of the Hindu community, who overwhelmingly backed Hasina during her tenure, now find themselves under scrutiny. The Awami League marketed itself as a protector of minorities. But the exploitation of Hindu communities through land grabbing reached outrageous levels under its reign.
Critics remain polarized: Some focus on past BNP-era atrocities, while others dismiss present concerns as Indian conspiracies, sidelining evidence of rural Hindus in particular feeling unsafe due to recent mob violence targeted at them. Neither faction offers realistic proposals on what should happen next.
This chaos is not unnatural. After every mass uprising against autocratic systems, suppressed voices rise, often bitterly. Sadly, the Hindu community continues to be misused as a political football, similar to how it has been during times of political upheaval since independence. For Bangladesh to chart a path forward, it must resist the temptation to let the loudest or most fundamentalist groups dictate its course.
Simultaneously, in no way should any stakeholder cluster that has not violated the law be barred from preaching to the people. The reality is that the nation’s future lies in its political centre: Pragmatic, resilient, and rooted in the ideals of democratic compromise.
Bangladesh’s future must be decided at the ballot box. The country has consistently rejected extremism in credible elections. Between 1991 and 2008, election results consistently showed an almost equal national vote share of 30-35% for the BNP and Awami League.
During this period, the two parties -- when evaluating their combined social, economic, and political policies -- positioned themselves along centre-left and centre-right ideological lines. Parties on the extreme right or left have, by default, formed coalitions with these two major parties, but never in numbers large enough to challenge them on equal footing. The commitment of the average voter to moderation remains strong even today.
Democracy in Bangladesh, like anywhere else, is messy and imperfect, but it is the best system amid a plethora of bad systems. Ideas should clash. Debates should rage. Only through an uninterrupted process of authentic electoral exercises will Bangladesh learn and grow, absorbing even its most painful contradictions into the fabric of its political evolution. It will take decades, so the nation should not expect a miraculous cure in the immediate future.
Bangladesh’s strength has always been its common people: Durable, defiant, and steadfast. There are those who argue that the average uneducated voter, swayed by small payouts and fake news, lacking the knowledge or enlightenment to meaningfully participate in civic life, serves as proof that democracy is not suited for all. But the fault does not rest with the voters.
It lies squarely with the partisan entities and interest groups that exploit their ignorance, treating them as little more than political pawns in a cynical game of power. Democracy is not an innate state but a discipline: One that begins with the imperfect act of voting, repeated, recycled, and refined until a society can collectively recognize hypocrisy, demand accountability, and shape an electorate capable of making informed choices.
Even in democracies, a government must wield the levers of state power to establish strength --enforcing, not imposing, the rule of law. Dr Muhammad Yunus finds himself in a difficult position: Leveraging law enforcement as a means to clamp down -- importantly, within the confines of the law --on what appears to be a coordinated effort to disrupt the interim government versus allowing protests to proceed under a watchful eye, avoiding any display of aggression. It is a tough choice, but the former must be taken if and when such scenarios arise.
If the interim government fails to demonstrate authority within the framework of the rule of law, which, granted, it is doing much better than before, it risks leading Bangladesh down a path of further instability. This could manifest as a dangerous culture war between entities on opposite ends of the political spectrum, propagated through social media in a way that could polarize the nation and deepen existing fissures. Such a state of affairs must be avoided at all costs.
For all the chaos of the present, democracy offers the only way to reconcile Bangladesh’s past and secure its future. Whether the nation leans toward continuing to be constitutionally secular -- which the writer of this article believes it should -- or pivots toward a conservative Islamic identity -- which the writer of this article is profoundly anxious about -- that choice must be made by the people writ large via elections. Denying the co-existence of these rival ideologies would be the gravest mistake Bangladesh could make.
Mir Aftabuddin Ahmed is a Toronto-based public policy columnist for Bangladeshi and Canadian media outlets and policy platforms. He can be reached at [email protected]. Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
