Dhaka's pivot to revenge politics
The indictment of former Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina by a tribunal on Sunday for ordering a police crackdown on protestors last year coincided with a Bangladesh Supreme Court order directing the Election Commission to restore the registration of the Jamaat-e-Islami as a political party.
The International Crimes Tribunal, set up by Hasina's government in 2009 to investigate crimes during Bangladesh's war of liberation in 1971, indicted her along with former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and senior police official Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun for what prosecutors said was a 'coordinated, widespread and systematic attack' on students and other activists whose protests led to the ouster of the Awami League regime last year. The tribunal also ordered that Hasina — living in self-exile in India since last August — should be produced before it on June 16. New Delhi has not acted so far on Dhaka's request for extradition, maintaining that the latter has not completed all the required formalities. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court order will enable the Jamaat-e-Islami, which has espoused an anti-India line, to participate in general elections whenever they are held. At the same time, the interim government headed by Muhammad Yunus has banned the activities of Awami League under the country's anti-terror law until the party's leadership has been tried by the tribunal.
All these developments are a pointer to the direction that Bangladesh is taking under the caretaker administration. It has not gone unnoticed that the order on the Jamaat-e-Islami and the proceedings in the tribunal have come at a time when political parties, especially the influential Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and the powerful army have stepped up calls for holding elections by the year-end.
Clearly, Bangladesh is sliding towards a phase that rejects the legacy of 1971, and where ideologies that are anti-India and pro-Islamist gain ground. Yunus, who has given hints of making way for an elected government by June 2026, appears to be pitting the various stakeholders in Bangladesh against each other. Rather than the churn in the country settling anytime soon, matters may take a turn for the worse, especially if the army sticks to its stand for elections to be held by December and Yunus, backed by student groups, refuses to yield. New Delhi needs to remain on guard for further complications.
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