The Collective Myopia of BNP and How They are Losing Their Brand

This was BNP’s moment to shine. The stage was set for them. After August 5, 2024, BNP could have emerged as the single major pro-people party in Bangladesh’s history.

This was a golden opportunity for Tarique Zia to come out of the shadow of his parents. People were mentally ready to receive him as the national leader beyond the party fray.

Unfortunately, slowly but surely BNP leadership lost the plot as time progressed. BNP top echelon became more and more partisan, lacking substance in their approach, and appearing to be less sincere. Rather than a party unifying and leading, BNP is getting perceived as divisive, petty, and a major obstacle to any meaningful change occurring in Bangladesh.

At the least, the overwhelming majority in the country still wants to see significant changes in all sectors as that was the promise of the July uprising. Willingly or unwillingly, BNP is becoming a figure standing against this. This will not go down well with the people. And there is more to it. 

 While it is true that the students led the movement and ouster of Sheikh Hasina regime with participation from all political parties and people of all quarters, no one could deny that it was the BNP activists who bore the brunt of the authoritarian regime’s oppression, faced persecution, torture, and languished in despair and agony the last 16 years.

However, despite their sacrifices, BNP failed to emerge as a formidable opposition to Awami League’s dominance in politics and in every sphere of life. There was no dearth of issues, no lack of supportive public sentiments but why BNP could not capitalize on them warrants further analysis and is beyond the scope of this write up.

BNP politics has always relied on being the party of Bangladeshi nationalism and rode the waves of anti-India and anti-AL sentiments. This sentiment played a more decisive role than the actual political ideology and activities of the party in their win in 1991 and 2001 elections. Even at local levels, universities, colleges, BNP enjoyed a wide swath of support that basically stemmed from negative perceptions of the AL politics and neighboring India. This created a popular BNP brand. 

 In the wake of subsequent events that followed the July uprising and not so unlikely lack of agreements between the interim government and the political parties, BNP gradually shifted to a position that is contrary to their politics in the last 47 years.

It was amazing to see the lack of foresight from BNP’s top brass. BNP’s opposition to removing the president, overhauling the constitution, banning of AL activities, their reluctance to major reforms, resorting to same old politics of extortion and politicization, disruption of public life with ridiculous demands of announcing Ishrak the mayor of Dhaka south, and parroting demands of an early election without addressing many ongoing issues are alienating them from the public and have resonated negatively with most non-partisan people of Bangladesh.

In the absence of Awami League, BNP is confident, and perhaps arrogant, that they would emerge victorious in the next election. This might very well be true, but their recent activities have caused irreparable damage to the party’s image. Even Tarique Zia, who started with so much promise and maturity right after the uprising, gradually became the echo chamber of his deputies.

What is more concerning is that BNP is losing their brand of being the only major nationalist party who can stand against the aggressive and intrusive foreign policy of the Modi/BJP government. Mere similarities in the political rhetorics and demands of AL, Modi government and Godi media, and BNP recently are raising eyebrows and making people question the motives behind this.

Whether true or not, BNP is getting re-branded as a ‘Pro-India’ (‘India B Team’) in political discussions, social media, and among the populace. There is a huge trust deficit building between people and BNP leaders like Mirza Fakhrul Islam, Mirza Abbas, Salahuddin, Ruhul Kabir Rezvi, and Amir Khasru.

While the internet and social media is abuzz with BNP bringing youth leadership to the frontline, they are not quite visible yet. BNP must rethink if it is time to replace the old school politics with young blood. That would be critical for their standing with Gen Z.

When the election is held next, BNP should still emerge as the party of majority, but they probably have lost support of a big chunk of people which is many times a critical deciding factor in elections. AL activities have been banned temporarily, but they will be back sooner or later. When they do, where would BNP stand?

What BNP leadership is doing right now is sacrificing party brand for short term gains. People have short-term memory and will forget things soon -- this saying is only true for politics of old times. In this era of internet and social media, people are not allowed to forget.

Every information, every statement, every image lives forever. When we were given a rare opportunity for a new Bangladesh, people will remember who were for them, against them, and who betrayed them.