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India Today
20-05-2025
- Politics
- India Today
Why Yunus govt, Bangladesh Islamists can't kill Awami League
"Awami League runs in our blood. We are people of the boat [Awami League symbol], we will remain people of the boat, die as people of the boat, and give birth to people of the boat," says a woman in a video that has been widely shared on social media after the Awami League was banned by the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government in Bangladesh. What the video reiterates is known widely in Bangladesh -- the Awami League isn't just a political party but a cult, and people are born into becomes all the more clear when one considers the fact that the Awami League was banned thrice earlier, but emerged stronger every time. But how does a party banned by the ruling regime of the time from active politics not just survive but return to rule?The party draws its legacy from the Liberation War of 1971 -- the very foundational ethos of Bangladesh -- and its founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, holds a cult status as one of the foremost heroes of Bengali Muslims and Hindus one of the two main national parties, the other being the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the Awami League has a 40 percent vote share. Though it might not be as organised as the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, the Awami League is present across Bangladesh with its village and mohalla has strong local leadership in all 64 districts in the eight divisions of Bangladesh. No other party, including the BNP, can boast of such a network. That is the reason why, despite its chief, Sheikh Hasina, being in exile in India, the Awami League or AL has been able to intensify protest rallies since the latest ban on May LEAGUE: BANGABANDHU'S INHERITOR OF BANGLA NATIONALISMThere is a cross-polarity at play in Bangladesh in the histories of 1947 and Ziaur Rahman, the founder of the BNP, his followers and the Islamists believe that the roots of Bangladesh are in 1947 -- when it was carved out on religious lines -- Mujibur Rahman, his Awami League and the Left parties believe the true Liberation was in 1971 -- when Bangladesh detached itself from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on the basis of Bengali was the imposition of Urdu by West Pakistan over Bengali that saw the Bhasha Juddho or language war in 1952, which culminated in the fight for liberation in there is no denying the fact that pro-Pakistan elements have always remained in Bangladesh, and have been branded Razakars, an ultimate cuss word for a Bangladeshi, Bengali nationalism has been the glue that has kept Hindus and Muslims bound Awami League has been the inheritor of Bangabandhu Mujibur Rahman's Bengali nationalism and his secular politics. The recent ban on the Awami League was the result of intense protests and lobbying by Islamists and student leaders. The AL's rivals and radical Islamists have always tried to project it as a pro-Hindu and pro-India freedom struggle from 1948 to 1971 centres around Sheikh Mujibur's life. The story of modern Bangladesh is incomplete without tomes to Mujib, and that is the legacy that the Awami League has come to Mujibur Rahman remains the tallest icon of the edifice on which Bangladesh was built was evident when Islamist mobs targeted his statues after the fall of Sheikh Hasina regime on August 5, 2024, and his Dhanmondi 32 residence earlier this mob used heavy earthmovers and flames to destroy the building in February. However, some people risked their lives and lit candles amid the Rahman enjoys a cult status among millions of Bangladeshis, and the AL stays a cult because of those intrinsic LEAGUE HAS SUPPORT OF 40% OF BANGLADESH VOTERSThat is also the reason why the Awami League enjoys an overwhelming support from Bangladeshi Hindus and other minority communities. Historically, they have been voting for the AL, despite its local leaders oppressing and grabbing land from was a sense of alienation as Sheikh Hasina hobnobbed with the ultra-right Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh, and opened Saudi-funded mosques, but the insecurity in the last few months must have reset things for the Awami just the minorities, people in general might not be as averse to the Awami League as they were five months ago, given the spiralling of the economy and a worsening law-and-order it will take much longer for the wounds to heal and the hurts to be forgiven. It was Hasina's dictatorial tendencies, crony culture, abysmal corruption among close aides, enforced disappearances and torture of opponents that made the recent AL regime highly unpopular. This wasn't the case Awami League has had traditional support from 40% of Bangladeshi voters in the last two decades, even if one ignored the elections since 2014, which, observers allege, involved large-scale the 2001 election, in which eventually the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami went on to form the government, the Awami League polled 40 percent of the votes. In the 2008 election, it was 48 question generally is, what happens to the mandate of the sizeable chunk of the voters?AWAMI LEAGURES MARRY INTO AWAMI LEAGUE FAMILIESWhat was said in the video by the woman that the Awami League runs in the blood and in families is a fact that Bangladeshis would attest even recount renowned poet Rafiq Azad as having said that "people are born into the Awami League".Awami Leaguers zealously guard their accommodative and inclusive ways, and generally marry into other Awami League people arranging matches within a community, the same can be said of the Awami Leaguers, who claim to have a general cultural and mental make-up which is distinct from that of is also the reason that it has a loyal voter base and a ban on its political activities thrice -- by Ayub Khan in 1958, Yahya Khan in 1971 and Ziaur Rahman in 1975 -- couldn't take away its life-giving latest ban on AL by the Yunus-led interim government came after the National Citizen Party -- an outfit formed by the students who led an agitation against reservation, which later turned into an anti-Hasina agitation -- and Islamist outfits blocked the Shahbag AL was banned on May 10 under anti-terrorism laws, and a gazette notification was brought out to that effect on May came nine months after Hasina and other top leaders of AL were forced to flee also holds an example that the Awami League isn't dependent on Sheikh Hasina, who is referred to as Apa (elder sister) or Netri (leader), for its went into a self-imposed exile in India after her father Mujib's assassination in 1975. While she was in exile, the public and the local leadership of AL resurrected the party and invited her back to Bangladesh to take over the reins of the party. She returned in between 1975 and 1981, the Chhatra League, the AL's students' wing, won elections in all the 29 government colleges and most of the state-run universities of Bangladesh, ousting the dominant Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal's students' the Awami League draws power from its roots, and not the top, has been on display since the ban was imposed. Earlier too, it had been holding demonstrations, rallies and May 18, videos and posts on social media claimed that AL members organised demonstrations at 39 sites in Dhaka and recaptured party offices that were taken over by the students' outfit. The Detective Branch of police arrested 11 AL members for taking out a procession in the capital's Gulistan area on May 18, according to The Dhaka and experts suggest that the political repression and ban by the Yunus government have helped the Awami League clamber out of the depths of its unpopularity. History has shown that the Awami League bounces back every time it has faced outright bans or repressive military regimes. That is only because the Awami League is a cult and the boat people give birth to Awami Watch
Indian Express
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
His govt facing heat from tribals, Himanta visits Sonapur to calm the nerves
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma Wednesday visited a site in Sonapur where an eviction exercise last September turned violent leaving two people dead and many more injured. He was at the site to inspect the area, which the state government has now chosen as a site to relocate the Assam Police's 10th Battalion from its current site in Guwahati. On September 9 last year, the Assam government had conducted an eviction drive in Kachutali village in the Sonapur revenue circle – where most of the residents are Bengali Muslims –on the grounds that the area in which they had built the houses was under the notified tribal belt of South Kamrup. Under Assam's land regulations the sale and purchase, lease, settlement in notified tribal belts and blocks is restricted to 'Protected Classes' which includes Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, Santhals, tea tribes and Gorkhas. During the course of the eviction drive, the district administration had cleared 1,050 bighas of land and around 650 families had been displaced. While tribal groups in the area had hailed the eviction, they now find themselves opposing the government's move to set up a police battalion there. The plan had first come to light in March this year, when Finance Minister Ajanta Neog presented the state government's budget for the current financial year. Announcing this decision, she had said: 'This will provide a safety net to the tribal people from encroachment of their land in that tribal belt. Additionally, this will give an opportunity to the government to develop a world-class central business district with modern infrastructure,' the minister had said During his visit to the site Wednesday, Sarma said that setting up the battalion in the site would 'keep it secure from future encroachments.' He also claimed that the government would use 'not more than 100 bighas' of the over 1,000 bighas of land in which evictions were cleared for the battalion. 'Because this is tribal belt and block land, we think that the land should either be given to landless tribals or that it should be used to set up some project that will benefit the tribal people here, like a university, a medical college, or even a museum on tribal culture. Our people will not be benefitted in any way by a security establishment here. We know because there are already so many security establishments which have been set up here and the people have not benefited from them. Instead, tribal land is only going to decrease because of this,' said Manik Ronghang, president of the Tribal People's Confederation Dimoria, referring to existing Air Force Station, SSB CRPF and ITBP campuses in Sonapur. Echoing the appeal for alternative uses of the land, Bodo Kachari Youth Students' Union Jiten Mahilary, said, 'We had been demanding that the land be freed from encroachment but now this move is like the government itself encroaching that tribal land. The police battalion is already there in Guwahati. If it shifts here, what is going to happen to that land?' In apparent response to such concerns, Sarma told reporters Wednesday that the government would try to work towards such initiatives on the land remaining after the construction of the battalion but that 'we will first secure the land and once the battalion comes, the land will be properly secured'. In the meantime, some of the families whose homes had been destroyed in the demolition continue to live in the area, either in tarpaulin sheet structures or in a nearby mosque. 'The chief minister came today and told us to leave so we don't have any options anymore. We will have to leave but we don't have anywhere to go because we are landless,' said Harun Rashed, whose family continues to live in a tarpaulin structure there.
Mint
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Mint
Owaisi calls Pakistan Army ‘liars' for misusing Quran Verse, says ‘named attack Bunyan-al-Marsoos, which means…'
Livemint Published 10 May 2025, 03:45 PM IST Mint Image Hyderabad, Telangana | AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi says, "... Pakistan has named their new attack 'Bunyan-al-Marsoos.' This is from a verse in the Quran Sharif in which Allah says that if you love Allah, then stand like a solid wall. But the Pakistan Army and establishment are such liars. In the same verse before, Allah says Why do you say such things which you don't do. They are such liars that they don't want to grasp the whole purpose of the Quran... Did they forget to stand like a wall when they were firing at Bengali Muslims in East Pakistan?..."
Indian Express
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
‘Cong should pick ‘lungi' as party symbol': Assam CM Himanta Sarma; Cong says BJP ought to make Godse's gun as its symbol
Ahead of the panchayat elections in Assam, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday took a dig at the Congress party over its distribution of 'dhotis' to people when it was in power and said the party can pick 'lungi', an attire worn mostly by Bengali-speaking Muslim men in the North East, as its party symbol instead of hand. However, in a tongue-in-cheek response, state Congress president Bhupen Bora said that the BJP could pick Nathuram Godse's revolver as its party symbol, indicating Godse's revolver was used to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. Many groups of Bengali Muslims of Assam have been at the receiving end of allegations by the BJP of being 'illegal immigrants' from Bangladesh. While addressing a poll rally at Dhemaji district on Monday, CM Sarma said: 'Ask Congress if they had free admission in colleges at their time. No. Was a fee needed for 10th standard admission forms? Yes. Was free rice given? Had the Dhemaji Medical and Engineering Colleges been built then? The answer is 'no'. There were only lungi and dhoti (during the Congress regime). That's why I ask the Congress people, they ought to change the (party) symbol from hand to 'lungi'. Congress doesn't understand anything else,' he said. Soon after, Congress chief Bora said his party considers all dresses equal, whether it is a lungi, dhoti, pajama, or trousers. 'Our perspective at Congress is inclusive. If the BJP assumes they can dictate our choice of symbol, why don't they answer why their own symbol is a lotus? They ought to replace their symbol with Nathuram Godse's gun used to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi,' he said. The panchayat elections in Assam are scheduled to be held in two phases — on May 2 and May 7 — and the results will be declared on May 11. Assam has 21,920 seats in gram panchayats, 2,192 seats in Anchalik Parishads, and 397 in zilla parishads. The panchayat polls were scheduled to be held in 27 out of 34 districts of the state, as the other seven are governed by autonomous councils. As per the State Election Commission, 1.80 crore people will exercise their franchise in the panchayat polls this year. CM Himanta Biswa Sarma had said on Friday that 348 candidates were elected unopposed in the three-tier panchayat polls and 325 of them were from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). As per reports, the NDA has already secured 37 zilla parishad (35 BJP and 2 AGP) and 288 Anchalik Panchayat (259 BJP and 29 AGP) seats unopposed, Sarma had said in an X post.
