As the Prime Minister-ship of Sheikh Hasina came to an end on August 5, a predominant sentiment in the Awami League is that there were tell-tale signs of weakening of the consultation process within the party that was built on friendship and camaraderie. The sign of systemic weakening came rather dramatically soon after Prime Minister Hasina returned from China cutting short a visit that was planned over several months. By the time Ms. Hasina returned from Beijing on July 10, the forces that would ultimately cause her overthrow had mobilised themselves.
The initial reports suggested that her abrupt return was caused by China’s refusal to provide a major financial package to Bangladesh. However, the speculation over the visit to Beijing was soon replaced by the anti-quota movement by the students who were demanding reform in the employment reservation that dedicated nearly 30% government employment for descendants of the freedom fighters of 1971.
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As the tense exchanges between the government and the students began, Ms. Hasina startled the students by calling them ‘razakars’. Ms. Hasina has a reputation for blunt talks and she has often used that to address her political opponents, but the use of the term ‘razakar” for young college students did not go down with the civil society as ‘razakar’ is a term meant exclusively for those who opposed freedom of Bangladesh in 1971 and sided with the Pakistani forces.
There were critical remarks about the Prime Minister’s intemperate language about young students on the social media which indicated that Ms. Hasina, despite her unprecedented return to power for a fourth time, was a lonely figure deserted by her finest advisers who had been with her during her journey to power over the last four decades.
The role of close advisers in shaping the younger Sheikh Hasina into a wise politician was seen more clearly during 2019 when the Government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought in the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that was aimed at giving minority non-Muslims of Bangladesh (and also Pakistan and Afghanistan) the right to seek refuge in India in case of atrocity in their place of birth.
As the Indian Parliament discussed the law and anti-CAA protests broke out in Delhi, Assam and other places, the Government of Bangladesh maintained a studied silence.
This policy of calm calculation to enhance self interest was shaped by her then close adviser Mashiur Rahman, a Harvard educated administrator with deep bureaucratic friendship within the Indian and other multilateral establishments. After her latest election victory, Mr. Rahman had not been seen in the company of Ms. Hasina giving the impression that the Prime Minister had moved on from her senior colleagues and advisers and a new younger collective of advisers would now get promoted. Mr. Rahman was retained as the Economic Affairs Adviser but his visibility went down.
A similar buzz also enveloped the profile of Dr Gauhar Rizvi, who was in the past often used to calm the frayed fabric of Bangladesh-U.S. relationship that had a history of erupting into war of words. That Hasina was increasingly getting tired of her senior colleagues and would reinvent her team with the infusion of young blood was evident in 2023 when she deactivated her Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen after he had made a few public bloopers. These gradual sidelining of the senior figures from the high table of Awami League was noticed as on critical issues Ms. Hasina’s voice became the new Information Minister Mohammad A. Arafat.
Before becoming a Minister in the new Hasina government, Mr. Arafat had become noted with his eloquent speeches in the think tank circle of Dhaka where he used to defend the policies of the Hasina government. However, his aggressive remarks in the backdrop of the anti-quota protests were ill-timed and added to the controversy created by Ms. Hasina’s own remarks on the protesters. Another younger colleague, Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud also was noticed after he made a public remark about West Bengal Chief Minister’s comment in a public rally offering refuge to Bangladesh citizens if they fled facing crackdown from Ms. Hasina’s police.
Ms. Hasina reinvented herself as the Prime Minister starting with her first stint that began in 1996 but long before that she was a street fighter who took on the forces of President Hossein Mohammed Ershad. Her struggle against Ershad was made possible because of her many progressive friends and colleagues, including Ivy Rahman, who perished when Ms. Hasina’s rally was bombed during the BNP government’s rule on August 24, 2004.
Ivy Rahman was one of the several activists of the Awami League who perished in that attack. Though Ms. Hasina governed subsequently from 2009 to July 2024, she was progressively isolated from her best advisers and at the end it was her sister Rehana who remained her closest adviser, in a reminder to their early days when in the backdrop of the assassination of their father Sheikh Mujib and her family Hasina had plunged into politics.
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