The hope for a good-faith transition from authoritarianism to an inclusive, multiparty liberal democratic environment -- where progressives, moderates, and conservatives can coexist -- is being undercut from within, with political instability eroding Bangladesh’s pluralistic aspirations: a symptom of a collective inability to build consensus, as the space for both much-needed political and public policy reforms is being overtaken by manufactured chaos driven by all major political actors and, unfortunately, by the failures of the interim government to provide strong leadership.
Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus is feeling boxed in, cornered, and increasingly suffocated by a political climate that has brought Bangladesh back into a pressure-cooker state -- after a brief period in which he was able, to some extent, to restore a degree of political stability and macroeconomic order.
From the BNP to the NCP, partisan maneuvering, public threats, and zero-sum demands have made governing nearly untenable -- particularly recently, as political actors dig in and compromise grows more elusive. The tension is now high enough that Professor Yunus is reconsidering whether he can, or should, continue serving as head of government. Yunus and his Advisory Council share responsibility for the ongoing situation -- hesitating when firmness was needed and failing to act decisively in response to frequent instances of mob-style behaviour.
His recent warning that he may walk away should not be dismissed as mere frustration -- it should concern everyone. At best, it is a strategic move, a final effort to assert leverage and deliver a clear message: this cannot continue. This article focuses on one visible example of the crisis -- the growing influence of Islamist political groups, whose beliefs and priorities most likely stand furthest from Yunus’ own. But the same pattern -- public disruption, factional pressure campaigns, and a refusal to lead on negotiation and consensus-building -- runs through every major political camp.
Radical right-wing rhetoric rushes to fill the political vacuum
Those who conduct politics in the name of Islam -- and the political parties for whom religious identity serves as political currency -- are no longer operating from the margins. By any reasonable electoral calculus, all Islamist parties combined remain far from forming the next government. Notwithstanding this, they have stepped fully into public life, openly and without apology -- and with a sense of innate confidence not seen in Bangladesh’s independent history.
On social media, both language and tone -- from those who claim to support a more hands-on role for the state in enforcing religious orthodoxy -- that once signaled moral collapse now circulate freely: Vulgar, obscene, sexist, regressive, and saturated with Islamist totalitarian rhetoric, radicalism, and misogyny.
What was once implied or confined to private thought is now flaunted with pride.
Meanwhile, the interim government has so far failed to foster -- due both to the actions or inactions of politicians and, of course, its own shortcomings -- even the basic scaffolding of liberal democratic norms following the mass uprising that ousted an authoritarian regime. This vacuum has left the country exposed to forces that thrive on disruption. Alternatively, the Westminster tradition of open debate offers a space for different ideologies to co-exist.
Current political turmoil
The student-led movement galvanized the most powerful moment of civic unity since 1971. It brought together people across philosophical, generational, and class lines -- inadvertently coalescing around the idea of pluralism not as an abstraction, but as the baseline for coexistence. The message was clear: Bangladesh was home to many political beliefs, ethnicities, and religions, but it presented a common front against what former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her party had become.
That vision did not demand consensus. It called, above all, for respect amid disagreement -- between secularists and religious communities, between progressives and conservatives. But the very coalition that helped oust the former regime has since fractured, and extreme right-wing elements within that bloc -- who, to be sure, faced repression under the Awami League -- are now turning their fire inward. The failure to preserve the fundamental spirit of the uprising cuts deep, not because specific demands remain unmet, but because its core expectation -- the the ability of society to agree to disagree -- is being ignored. In place of the principled space that briefly emerged, a climate of intimidation and culture war-driven hostility -- not public policy-based deliberation -- has taken root. Far-right Islamist messaging is no longer confined to anonymous online accounts.It has seeped into rallies and street demonstrations. Progressive dissenters are smeared as beneficiaries or allies of the former regime, or as pawns or agents of India. Women are singled out for asserting themselves in public life. Standards of democratic discourse are being cast aside -- ironically, under the umbrella of freedom of expression. Some members of the interim administration -- or their quiet backers -- are suspected of exploiting the manufactured unrest to justify delaying elections.
To what extent that is true remains unclear, but the Chief Adviser must be held to his word -- and the country wants to believe that his word, above all else, carries the weight of a binding guarantee. Professor Yunus has committed to holding elections between December 2025 and June 2026, but his decision not to set a specific date as of now has left the nation in limbo.
But seasonal realities -- Ramadan and the monsoon -- make any window beyond February 2026 logistically implausible. The gap between promise and preparedness is widening rapidly, and public confidence is eroding fast. Nowhere has the hostility been more concentrated than in the reaction by Islamist groups to the policy recommendations submitted to the interim government by the Women’s Affairs Reform Commission -- a body established by the government itself. What began as criticism of its composition -- largely NGO-affiliated and perceived by many as disconnected from religious sentiment -- quickly escalated into a coordinated campaign of verbal abuse. Its members -- most of whom are esteemed practitioners in their respective fields -- were subjected to personal attacks and sustained efforts to delegitimize their work, with groups like Hefazat-e-Islam leading protests that featured figures such as Hasnat Abdullah of the recently formed NCP.
Even women’s football has come under attack in recent months. Too many women and girls continue to face sexual violence -- both in private and in public -- along with a general sense of fear in public spaces, as emboldened men, often invoking messaging from Islamist actors to justify their actions, behave as though they have a license to say and do whatever they want.
Other commissions have proposed recommendations that may also be seen as provocative to Islamist groups, yet only the women-led, women-focused commission has drawn this level of vitriol.
This is patriarchy, laid bare. The selectivity of the outrage reveals a deeper agenda -- one that, if accommodated and appeased without resistance from the highest levels of the state, would drag Bangladesh back into the dark ages. What is unfolding is neither random nor spontaneous.
A government struggling to govern?
It follows a recent pattern engineered by Islamist factions, far-right parties, and actors seemingly aligned with -- or protected by -- elements within the interim government. These groups offer little to no indication of their concrete positions on economic policy, job creation, education, healthcare, or foreign affairs -- the very public policy issues Bangladesh urgently needs to prioritize. Their presence -- and de facto influence -- is sustained not by ideas, but by the disruption they sow. Dhaka’s streets are routinely paralyzed. Law enforcement agencies are stretched thin. Intelligence services are consumed by unrest of a kind and scale that is neither warranted nor sustainable. Even the armed forces -- which are not meant to serve as a civilian law enforcement body -- have been drawn into an extended security role for which they are neither mandated nor adequately trained.
Parallelly, some Islamist groups are now openly calling for Khilafat-style rule. These demands denote more than fringe murmurs -- they are calculated efforts to wear down public resolve and derail the path toward democratization. Those pushing for Shariah-based rule are, in effect, rejecting the terms and conditions of a modern democracy. Rather than engaging through open debate, these forces are working to dismantle an already volatile political field.
Their tactics are designed to exhaust a fatigued population via relentless disruption, fear-mongering, and the gradual cultivation of apathy. It is a mood all too familiar to Bangladesh -- one cemented during the Hasina era and now returning in a different guise. Yet once again, the population is being steered toward a risky political vacuum, this time under the banner of religious orthodoxy.
And amid all this, the ground once associated with progressive, left-of-centre, or welfare-oriented politics -- which the Awami League claimed to represent but spent more than a decade dismantling -- now lies abandoned, with no entity willing to reclaim it. The foundations of Democracy is once again under threat. The political centre -- where most voters are, and where the BNP, currently the country’s largest political party, seeks to remain as a centrist force -- is being actively targeted, with efforts underway to hollow it out, while the extremes grow sharper and louder. Unfortunately, the Chief Adviser stands at the heart of this contradiction. His Individual legacy is one of progressive thought leadership and women’s empowerment. Yet the transitional arrangement under his watch has allowed radical anti-women Islamist forces to embed themselves within -- or operate in tandem with, or adjacent to -- the state. This is extremely concerning.
A symbiotic relationship now seems to exist between the state -- which, in theory, should function as an agnostic entity in its truest sense -- and religion-based actors, who cannot be permitted to impose their ideological agenda through state institutions, especially in the absence of a majority electoral mandate. It is true that Yunus was dealt an unwinnable hand when he was asked to take the reins of the ship of state. It is also true that chaos following an uprising is, to a large extent, natural and expected. But on the one expectation where there was no room for compromise -- that Yunus would remain principled and neutral -- he now appears increasingly unable, rather than purposely reluctant, to uphold it. The very groups undermining the government’s credibility -- particularly its gender-sensitive and other women-focused reform agendas -- are, ironically, acting with either the support, indifference, or fear-driven tolerance of the interim administration.
The state cannot endure If everyone fails to see the bigger picture. Importantly, this threatens to damage Professor Yunus’ standing. It is just one chapter in a series of events that are eroding confidence in the interim government’s ability to bring the country together and govern -- not merely serve as a placeholder. The NCP is demanding the resignation of three Advisers and the reconstitution of the Election Commission -- threatening to boycott the election if their demands are ignored. The BNP and the military are now aligned in calling for elections to be held by December 2025. The Dhaka South mayoral fiasco continues to spiral -- and it does not help residents of Dhaka that the BNP is now openly at odds with the NCP on the streets of the capital.
Arrests are being made in cases where many of the accused have no plausible connection to the alleged incident -- some cases list over two dozen names without any clear link to the crime. Charges are being filed in bulk, often with no factual basis. While the government may not be directly responsible for initiating these actions, it has so far failed to intervene -- whether through policy or oversight -- to prevent authorities from accepting or acting on cases that clearly lack merit. It is a continuation of a dangerous pattern from the past, where the legal system is allowed to be weaponized without checks. A mob-style politics has taken hold. Rule of law remains absent.
If this mayhem does not stop, and if elections are not held within the timeline Yunus has publicly committed to, it will feed a dangerous and false narrative: that Bangladesh experienced an Islamist-backed regime change rather than a people-powered mass uprising that removed the mafia-style criminal enterprise the Awami League had become.
It will also suggest that women and girls -- and, frankly, the entire country -- were or felt safer under an authoritarian regime than under a government led by a Nobel Laureate who, throughout his life, championed their financial independence and economic rights and successfully pitched the story of Bangladesh abroad.
The next steps
Look -- for all the criticism that has been rightly directed at the interim government, it remains non-negotiable that the country continues placing its faith in Professor Yunus. Without him leading the administration until a new elected government takes over, Bangladesh risks tearing itself apart from within. His indication that he may resign reads almost like a veiled threat -- directed not only at the BNP, the NCP, and Islamist factions, but at all key stakeholders, including members of his own administration who are making it nearly impossible for him to do his job, effectively holding him hostage. Bangladesh wants to believe its Chief Adviser can still draw a line in the sand, calm the chaos, and act as the elder statesman this moment demands. Because without him at the top in a society where no one trusts no one, Bangladesh will certainly descend into civil conflict.
As next steps, Yunus must re-engage political parties directly and bring them together in a single forum. He could leverage the National Unity Commission -- which he chairs -- to fast-track consensus-building on reform proposals that political parties have already weighed in on.
The priority now is to resolve remaining points of disagreement and formalize alignment -- with the ideal outcome being immediate implementation of the agreed-upon reforms through Presidential ordinances, while leaving the rest for the next parliament to address.
That consensus should be captured clearly in the envisioned July Charter. He should also consider asking NCP-affiliated student Advisers to step down, dismiss underperforming members of the Advisory Council, and bring in fresh faces if needed. Most critically, he must now zero in on delivering credible elections as soon as feasible -- ideally by announcing a date that reassures the public and restores calm.
Mir Aftabuddin Ahmed is a Toronto-based public policy columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].
