What happened in Bangladesh is part of a global phenomenon where post-colonial states began their journey of freedom from colonial rule with great expectations and optimism and then descended into a form of backward capitalism buttressed by one-party undemocratic rule. Nisar Ahmed on the causes of the uprising and scenarios what will happen next.
The massive uprising in Bangladesh that just over a month ago overthrew the brutal fascist regime of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her party, Bangladesh Awami League (BAL), has caught the world by surprise. This is complemented by confusion about why and how it happened that a seemingly impregnable government could be swept apart in a matter of weeks. Now that the dust has settled to a degree the question doing the rounds is the prospects of the interim regime of Professor Yunus and that of the country at large.
What happened in Bangladesh is part of a global phenomenon where post-colonial states began their journey of freedom from colonial rule with great expectations and optimism and then descended into a form of backward capitalism buttressed by one-party undemocratic rule. In this regard the recent events are part of what happened in the Arab Spring, Sudan, Argentina, etc, and earlier on in Indonesia, Iran, Egypt and even in India during the Indira Emergency of 1975. This is important to remember because there is a tendency to see such occurrences through the prism of a one-sided focus on geo-political issues and ignoring the internal dynamics of the country. That has also happened in the case of Bangladesh.
Progressives in the advanced capitalist countries are sometimes prone to emphasize the external dimensions of the struggle i.e. the role of US imperialism or of India’s expansionism as the key determinant. Sometimes they seem to accept an Awami League narrative that condones their authoritarian /fascist regime since the alternative is Islamic Fundamentalism.
What will happen in the short and the medium term? There are several issues we need to keep in mind as we analyse the likely trajectory of the course of events.
First, the political, economic and cultural factors that were brewing over the past decade and half and which linked with the student movement and created the uprising stemmed from the unique fascist rule of Sheikh Hasina and destruction of all contrary opinion and views, the looting of the nation’s resources, the merger of the state institutions with a party , the reduction of the narrative of 1971 to a party and ultimately a family.
Second, the nature of the organisational strategy and tactics that was used by the students: the absence of any political party or their students wing in the quota movement itself. Some of the methods derived from those in advanced capitalist countries like Occupy Movement and Black Lives Matter – a more open-ended organisational form that was tech savvy and decentralised.
Third, the coming together and linkage of political, economic and cultural factors that was unique to Bangladesh and which will be continuously analysed in the future.
Fourth, the geo-politics of the region that will now try to take advantage of the outcome of the movement by steering the future to serve their interests. The Hindutva ight wing regime of Modi will try to recover their apparently lost hegemony by continuously undermining any regime other then Awami League, the imperialist powers led by USA and EEC will try to rope in Bangladesh in an alliance against China by trying to get the next government to grant them permission to establish a military base in St. Martin Islands. India will continuously seek access in Bangladesh to protect their strategic concern regarding their seven states dubbed as the “seven sisters”. Added to this is the Rohingya issue. Navigating such a scenario will be onerous for any government let alone an interim one.
Fifth, the unity forged amongst diverse forces from the right, centre and the left will fracture on the issue of the mandate of the interim regime of Dr Yunus. He has set up 6 commissions to come up with a comprehensive reform programme on different aspects of the state. In a similar vein he has set up a commission to come up with a strategic plan for the economy. The key divide that is likely to emerge between the interim regime and the political parties is on the likely timing and road map of the elections.
What then is the likely course of events over the next 1 to 3 years? There are various options on the horizon depending on how the concrete situation evolves.
What has taken place is not a total crisis of the ruling class in Bangladesh. Other than Awami League the main bourgeois political parties, the capitalist class, the army, the interim regime are all functioning. The external powers American imperialism and expansionist India are prowling in the wings.
However, if there are widespread divisions within the political parties or if there is a divide within the student’s organisation then there might be intervention internally from the Army or externally from India. There is also the likelihood of the economy going into a nosedive and creating conditions for a similar intervention. The most likely scenario is that the interim regime will be able to complete the reform agenda it has planned, set up the mechanism for extensive reform of the state structures, punish the oligarchs responsible for plundering the economy, get the financial and banking sectors on an even keel and above all hold a free and fair elections. That is quite a tall and foreboding order.
What are the likely strategy and prospects for the left in this “interim period”?
Even though a section of the left has subscribed to a politics of the lesser evil and have been lukewarm towards the uprising, the majority has participated in the movement to topple Hasina and are now chalking out specific class programmes to steer the struggles in a more progressive direction.
They reject the binary of democracy and secularism by clearly stating that one cannot be secular if they are not democratic and also argue that subscribing to real democracy must mean one is secular.
The Communist Party of Bangladesh along with the left front is attempting to pursue an independent course of democratic revolution on course to a socialist transformation of the society. In their analysis they are clear that capitalist accumulation has resulted is immense inequality following the pursuit of globalised economic policies endorsed by IMF, World Bank and WTO. This will not change soon.
At a political level the left is categorical that the various bourgeois formations will use a form of jingoism/nationalism to justify their rule. Awami League will advocate it based on ethnicity, BNP will pursue it at a country/state level while the religious parties will take recourse to religion. All of them are united in their subservience to capitalism and imperialism.
In contrast the communist and other progressive forces are attempting to ensure genuine national sovereignty by taking an anti-imperialist stance complemented by the pursuit of national democratic and socialist economic policies.
Even though communist and left forces are relatively weak now they have begun to organise on a class basis the workers, peasants, informal sector employees. At the same time, they are forming new organisational forums to assemble different groups of professionals to pursue their sectoral demands. Now they are also assembling within a broad united front the new classes, agents and forces that have emerged through the uprising.
Over the next two years as the various elements of the ruling class is Bangladesh fracture and fragment the Communist left will be able to become an alternative pole of attraction that can begin the task of mobilising the majority of the working people, the 90%, who will point the way towards a genuine democratic transformation and socialist alternative. Therein lies the real emancipation of the Bangladeshi people and society.
Nisar Ahmed is former chair of the Bangladeshi Workers Council (BWC) UK and long-time community activist
The views expressed in the articles published on this website do not necessarily represent those of Liberation
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Photo: Students launched the “Bangla Blockade” following a one-point demand for scrapping all illogical and discriminatory quotas in public service through enactment of a law and keeping a minimum quota for marginalised citizens in line with the constitution.
Date 11 July 2024 / Rayhan9d, CC BY-SA 4.0
