We Have Already Lost

I'm not entirely sure that Bangladesh will become another Afghanistan. 

But I am 100% certain that Bangladesh will turn into a country like Somalia -- plagued by fratricidal conflict, where no Nike or Adidas will invest, where no BMW, Mercedes, or NVIDIA factory will be built, and where Facebook, Google, or Apple will never come to utilize our human capital -- the way they are doing in India right now.

During Hasina's rule, I knew exactly why that wouldn't happen. Global investors knew that unelected Hasina's Bangladesh was a bomb without a fuse -- it could explode at any moment. Investing here was simply too risky.

After Hasina's fall, they are now turning away even more, but for a different reason.

Now they see the rise of mobocracy, the ascent of extreme far-right forces, the normalization of cultural fascism, rule by fear, and the recreation of the Hasina-style India-hating vs. India-loving polarization through propaganda -- creating a conflict-ridden environment.

Through this process, Bangladesh is being transformed into a potential civil-war country like Somalia -- and the Yunus government has fully enabled this possibility. This government has created this situation in two main ways.

First: By backing the far-right mob.

Today Shafiq bhai is crying, saying he failed as a journalist. But look at whose status he liked and shared all this time -- there is a very clear pattern of who his patrons were and who patronized him.

Many seasoned insiders in the government are not active on social media, but they have secret circles. There is a very clear design in which a highly selective group, including Pinaki and Elias, is working dedicatedly on a very clear agenda.Their sole agenda was to prolong their own stay in power and empower Jamaat. Why?

It was a very natural alliance. BNP wants quick elections. Jamaat does not. NCP does not.

So if Jamaat can be empowered, then after these people leave power, Jamaat will give them a place in the new government -- which BNP would never do. Very simple incentive structure.

The sole goal of all these groups was to prevent elections.They had planned to keep Yunus for five years. The government was forced to declare elections under huge pressure. Back then, even uttering the word “election” would get you hated by the masses.

Pay close attention: Joy said the other day: they will stop elections at any cost. Joy and Pinaki want the same thing, but for the past few months they covered it up with propaganda: “Only India wants elections, because if elections happen, BNP will come to power.”

The second way this government has created this situation: Utter incompetence. Radical incompetence.

Because of this incompetence, after a mass uprising, they failed to do their most important job. That job was to ensure transitional justice.

After 15 years of brutal fascism, we gained freedom at the cost of 1,000 lives in a mass movement. To us, it felt like the end of a new Liberation War and the birth of a new country.

During the Awami League era, hundreds disappeared, three elections were directly rigged, thousands were tortured by police, RAB, and DB.The people of Bangladesh wanted justice for these injustices, punishment for Awami League and its leaders, and the dismantling of the fascist structure.

People wanted quick justice or at least some justice -- with a visible timeline, roadmap, and process -- so that we could see the entire Awami infrastructure being punished through a judicial process.

But what people saw was only the reappearance of two disappeared Jamaat leaders and the trial of Hasina.

But in districts and upazilas, the lakhs of Awami leaders who oppressed people, the torture chambers in every police station, the 500 MPs, upazila chairmen, district council chairmen, media owners, and Mughals from the three rigged elections -- has anyone been brought to justice?

No.This absence of justice was exploited by Pinaki, Elias and others. With their extreme rhetoric, they showed people a dream of justice.

They talk about "finishing them off," sending mobs, setting fires.People saw justice -- or the hope of justice -- a kind of justice -- in their language, extremism, and discourse.

What we call a mob was actually driven by a deep desire for justice, not destruction.

From the very first day after Hasina’s fall, I kept repeating three things:

One: In the very first week, freeze the bank accounts of all MPs, district/upazila chairmen—roughly 3,000 top leaders. Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) could execute this in a single day with one order. That would completely break the financial backbone of Awami League.

Two: Block these 3,000 leaders from leaving the country via the airport AVSEC system -- through a letter from the Home Ministry to SB (Special Branch). This would prevent anyone from escaping, and there would be no issue of who arrested whom or who took money from whom -- airlines would simply not let them exit.

But they did none of this. They just ate roasted potatoes and blamed each other.

Three: Establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This would provide justice, but also amnesty for those who did not commit criminal offenses. Supporting Awami League is not a crime. Those who did not participate in disappearances, murders, or rigged elections should have been granted amnesty.

The biggest failure of this government is failing to deliver transitional justice.

The main reason: they could not set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, they could not show even the minimum evidence of prosecuting the entire Awami machinery, and this absence of justice has left Bangladesh in permanent conflict.

Why didn’t this happen? I directly blame Mahfuj, Nahid, NCP, and the then anti-discrimination student leaders.

People who genuinely wanted justice, who fought fascism for a decade and earned credibility, who had practical experience running complex systems -- they were completely blocked from accessing power and decision-making.

Everyone walked into Waqer’s room with lists in their pockets, but when it came to who would share power, NCP gatekept for the first six months. 

It's a long story. I’ll write it all in my book Behat Biplob o Bokachodader Deshe when I return in February -- don’t worry.

They made sure no one except a few 80-year-old technocrats could get close to power. They thought they could manipulate the naive professor and run the country through him. They believed if the government became politically dysfunctional, Yunus would depend on them and they would rule.The first six months ran according to that mastermind theory.

But gradually, the naive professor saw the emptiness of NCP --  after seeing the agency of madrasa students and private university students standing in front of bullets, and the real power of DU students who didn’t let a single body fall.

He stopped relying on them.The country was run by ten advisers, of whom only three or four actually provided political support to Yunus.

The government couldn’t handle any political situation.

After a decade-long effort involving diverse forces -- left, right, Islamist -- everyone was sidelined, and the entire cabinet became almost entirely the brothers of the student leaders, captured by their Paris and New York gurus. Ultimately, a radically incompetent government played the game of running the state with rice and dal.

They didn’t run the state -- the bureaucracy did. This government was simply a pawn in the bureaucracy’s pocket. 

Many of you don’t know -- Artificial Intelligence is now accelerating human civilization. ChatGPT and Anthropic’s models now have roughly human-level intelligence. ChatGPT has PhD-level knowledge on any subject.

Human society will now evolve at two speeds.

One group will use technology, AI, machine learning, robotics, etc. and reach singularity at exponential speed.

The other group will keep killing each other over religion, nationality, power -- becoming more and more primitive.

Today, whether we like it or not, the Yunus government and poets like Shafiq bhai have ensured that Bangladesh will follow the second path.

It won’t become Afghanistan -- India won’t allow that.

Bangladesh will become like Somalia.

India and China don’t want Bangladesh to become Afghanistan -- that would be a security threat.

They want a genocide so that one crore Hindus flee to India, but they will ensure Bangladesh becomes a mob-riot, lawless, terror-filled state where no foreign investment comes, where labor and cleaners migrate abroad, but doctors and engineers don’t -- ensuring Bangladesh’s talent doesn’t compete with India’s.

How will they do it?

By exploiting the absence of justice. They will use Pinaki and Elias to prove Bangladesh is a terrorist country.

I just gave an interview to NDTV -- there too they said the same: Bangladesh has become a jihadi country.

It’s now global headlines.

Pinaki and Elias’s technique is simple:

Break all social and state institutions. Destroy public trust in anyone who opposes their politics -- shout that Waqer is an RAW agent, Salahuddin in Shillong is a RAW agent, Mirza Fakhrul is a RAW agent, Asif Nazrul is RAW agent -- anyone who wants elections is a RAW agent.

The project has succeeded.

The mental structure of Bangladeshi people has been shattered.

Trust in institutions that could have been sources of hope has been completely destroyed -- something even Hasina couldn’t achieve.

Now, at any moment, a mob can be summoned and the state paralyzed.

The potential that emerged after Hasina’s fall is now impossible. This country will become a playground for fallen Indians and Chinese.

The reason is one: a completely incompetent government -- who doesn’t even have the ability to run a grocery shop -- could have held elections in six months, but stayed 19 months under the pretext of reform (reform whose thread they couldn’t even break), taking holidays twice a week, going on vacation every Eid -- didn’t even bother with justice, which was their primary task.

I still don’t know what they achieved besides delaying elections from November 2024 to February 2026 and empowering Jamaat.

So if you want to prevent Bangladesh from becoming Somalia -- you must deliver justice.

Punish the disappearances, murders, killings, and the state capture through three rigged elections under Awami rule.

Establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Otherwise, this mobocracy won’t stop. Pinaki and Elias’s influence won’t decrease.

They will make the country so unstable with one finger signal that no Nike, Adidas, Toyota, or NVIDIA factory will ever come.

This country will become a land of bloodshed and mutual killing. Bangladesh’s only remaining destiny is to become Somalia. There is no other fate.

We have lost. Sorry.