That the stability and sustainability of Bangladesh’s renewed tryst with democracy will depend on how maturely Tarique Rahman deals with the thorny issue of Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League.
Both the USA and Israel have adopted evasive strategies influenced by various factors, such as diverting attention from the Epstein scandal, preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon despite Iran repeatedly denying its intent through negotiations in Geneva, the potential failure of Trump’s MAGA project, and notably, projecting a false sense of control over Iran before Trump’s visit to China to gain bargaining leverage. The length of the conflict will depend on the conflicting attitudes of the USA and Iran’s determination to withstand the war.
As the new representatives go about setting up a government (which, the way the cumbersome Nepali system is structured, might be two weeks away in mid-March), it is now time for reflections, analyses and speculation.
Coups are not accidents. They are outcomes of institutional design shaped by fear, mistrust, and the imperative of survival. Bangladesh’s history, from 1975’s cascading coups to 2007’s indirect intervention, shows how the struggle to control the guardians of the state can redefine politics itself.
It is often said that there is no personal loss to the architects of war. That statement may be rhetorically exaggerated, yet it captures an essential imbalance. Decision-makers operate at a distance from the battlefield. Their families are rarely in the line of fire.
On the question of 1971 and apology, Jamaat’s tone was arrogant. Had they shown even minimal reconciliation, people might have celebrated August 5’s victory with them on the election day, specially given their alliance with the student movement.
The fact that Jamaat has won so many seats for the first time ever -- most of them along Indian borders -- should be a cause for concern for India. While Bangladeshis may not have embraced Islamic fundamentalism this time, anti-Indian sentiment is clearly gaining ground.
If states tighten control over digital spaces to prevent manipulation, how do democracies function? How do we distinguish between organic, bottom-up people’s movements and those that are partially orchestrated or externally influenced?
A Bangladesh that wants diplomatic space to grow must first secure strategic space. If it wants autonomy, it must first make coercion unprofitable. That is the hard, unromantic truth of the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.
Bangladesh will remember the outgoing Chief Adviser with respect for stepping up when the country desperately needed him. His record in government is, predictably, mixed. Was it fair to have expected more?
While it would be presumptuous to predict a Jamaat victory in the upcoming elections on February 12, the BNP and other secular and liberal democratic parties must acknowledge the emergence of a Third Party with a moderate Islamic agenda that could gain power in the next round of elections in 2031.
Arithmetic still points to a BNP-led alliance winning, with a Jamaat-led alliance more likely to land as the principal opposition. The caveat is that Bangladesh has not had credible elections since 2008, so any confident prediction about voting behaviour is just that: An informed forecast, not a guarantee.
Is tinkering with the formal rules of the game the triumph of hope over experience (this time politics will be different)? Or a more technocratic faith in the power of institutional architecture to push back against the potent political imperatives of rents and control (we can design our way to democracy)? Either way, fixing the rules seems a misplaced focus when history has shown that the amassing of political power rapidly renders such niceties ornamental.
India has not merely provoked a cyclical wave of anti-India sentiment; it has actively contributed to giving it a permanent, structural form. The alienation is no longer just about borders -- it is about sovereignty.
Rumour is part of politics and society but now it can be magnified and curated at speed in the age of the (un)smart phone. Compared to the digital control of the previous regime what we have now is the information bomb.
