Four months have passed since the student-led revolution overthrew Sheikh Hasina, the most despised dictatorial prime minister in Bangladesh, on August 5, 2024. The nation has not yet shown signs of stability. The nation’s continuous, sporadic instability and disorder prompted people to consider the government’s successes and failures, as well as its strengths and flaws. The removal of Prime Minister Sheik Hasina from office is a unique event in the history of contemporary global affairs, even though the dismissal of a government and its cabinet members is not a new occurrence in a political system. This is because she was overthrown by a popular uprising along with her entire cabinet and members of parliament after 16 years of poor leadership during which she administered the nation with excessive corruption, nepotism, and favoritism in every area of government. Following an all-party participatory election in January 2009, the military-backed caretaker government took office. Since then, her government held three consecutive elections in 2014, 2018, and finally in January 2024, keeping aside major opposition political parties.
With the passage of time and her autocratic rule, youngsters, who were up to 35 years old in 2024, were unable to vote in the national election to choose their leaders. But alas! Who knew she would be so quick to be forced to leave? Ultimately, she had to flee the country shamelessly on August 5, 2024, the month on which her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was coincidently murdered by revolutionary military officers 49 years ago for the same reason she is today!
In response to the revolutionary students’ call, Nobel Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus has taken over the role of chief advisor for running the Interim Government (IG). From the beginning, the brains behind the revolutionaries from home and abroad were vocal about forming a Revolutionary Government instead of an Interim Government, which went to deaf ears. Almost all other advisors were appointed in closed-door discussions, keeping all in dark.
The Sheikh Hasina made administration is running the country without any noticeable change in the military and civil administration. Rampant corruption is still running high. Police and law enforcement are morally inept at bringing law and order. Defeated parties and miscreants are always busy destabilizing the country, confronting the new Interim Government on a daily basis for their illegitimate demands under different banners and groups. They are setting fire to industries. The selected killing spree is still ongoing. The recent killing of attorney Saiful Islam Alif in Chattogram is such an act of those anarchists. The deposed Sheikh Hasina is constantly instigating her left-over party men to create havoc in the nation. Some dedicated and patriotic Awami Leaguers are sickened by her anti-government and anti-state statement made over the phone call to some of her party, Awami League miscreants, got leaked. In such a volatile environment, some of the Indian media, including the English language electronic and print media are constantly broadcasting anti-Bangladesh news, which has created anti-Bangladesh sentiment among the Indian population, alleging that the minority Hindu people are the target of violence after the formation of the new Interim Government in Bangladesh.
The recent anti-Bangladesh statement by senior BJP leader and the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has stirred, to attack the Bangladesh High Commission in Tripura State of India. Since Sheikh Hasina’s fall and the formation of the new government, the students and ordinary citizens have been sincerely protecting the lives and properties of the minority people so that no innocent minority becomes the victim of any foul play, and no communal violence can erupt in Bangladesh. But the nature and attitude of the Indian government and its media towards Bangladesh seem to be ill-affected and arch adversarial. The Indian government has already nearly stopped all visa facilities for some Bangladeshis, who seek visitor visas, including visas for patients. While the anti-Bangladesh attitude in India that sheltered Bangladesh’s most hated prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, is high, the anti-India sentiment is sure to be all-time high in Bangladesh, even though Bangladeshi revolutionaries have not fallen into the Indian trap of the “Communal Violence.”
In this volatile time, Dr. Yunus’ administration must take lessons from the chronicles of history, which they are not paying attention to. Otherwise, Dr. Yunus’s government may face the same consequences that the Second Prime Minister of Pakistan, Khawaja Nazimuddin did, which had sealed the path to democratic process for a new nation, Pakistan, in 1953. In Pakistani and Bangladesh political studies, it is a popular discussion that Khawja Nazimuddin was a feeble political leader and an ineffective and inefficient administrator. Therefore, he was ill-advised to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan from his position as the Governor General of Pakistan. Within a short while, the new Governor General, Gulam Muhammad, deposed him by force from the government, allying with the Chief of Army Staff, General Iskander Mirza, the descendent of Mir Jafar Ali Khan and General Ayub Khan. The then Awami League, the main opposition political party in Pakistan, led by Huseyn Shahid Suhrawardy, Sheikh Mujib’s political predecessor was in support of overthrowing Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin of Pakistan. Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin was removed on the grounds that he failed to bring law and order to East Pakistan, his constituency. If he could manage his rivalries in East Pakistan with an iron fist, he would have saved Pakistan from military dictatorship, though it did not take much longer for General Ayub Khan to remove Iskandar Mirza from his presidency of Pakistan. Again, the path to election opened for Pakistani people of both wings in 1954. It did not last long.
Under the ‘United Front’, Huseyn Shahid Suhrawardy became Prime Minister of Pakistan for a short couple of years in 1956, and he had to get the same taste of power and pity that he conspired with military generals or supported the military generals’ ill-intention for over-throwing Khawaja Nazimuddin either covertly or overtly. It is still widely speculated that if Huseyn Suhrawardy, as the chief of the main opposition leader, would stand against the undemocratic practice of the military generals and bureaucrats of Pakistan, Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin could be running the country, and the people of East Pakistan might not have to sacrifice their lives in 1971; and the course of Pakistan history could have been different. However, Bangladesh achieved its independence from West Pakistani discrimination. Then, why has there been discrimination in the last 16 years? Nevertheless, the emergence of Bangladesh from the Pakistani state is the greatest achievement of India! This is not what Sheikh Mujib and his daughter Sheikh Hasina; his party supporters and followers believe. Does this Interim Government believe? Perhaps the all-party reconciliatory conference organized by the Interim Government is its first attempt in this prospect.
Because, it is late, however, it is not too late yet to rectify the mistakes that the Interim Government led by Dr. Muhammad Yunus made, for which his cabinet needed to reshuffle and dismiss the minimum number of bureaucrats and administrators, who were appointed solely based on partisan practices, or who were supporters of the previous government, incompetent, ineffective and inefficient. Maybe they do not own the Monsoon Revolution, also known as the July-August Revolution.
The recent attempt of a military coup in Turkeye is a living example of how to neutralize bureaucratic incompetency, ineffectiveness and increase the efficiency of the government by dismissing the supporters of the coup d’é·tat from the civil and military administration. Since the administration is organized by the autocratic government, the dismissal of those impostors from the administration should be the first act of this Interim Government. The nation has already noticed sporadic attempts under different pretexts to create chaos and anarchy in the country. If his government cannot radically change its administration, Dr. Yunus may have to accept the same fate as the Prime Minister, Khawaja Nazimuddin, with the country on an uncertain path.
Mizanur Rahman Taught at Several Institutions of Higher Education in USA as a Full-Time Faculty Member
