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Fresh hope for Bangladesh

Over the past two decades, no political party and alliance in South Asia has won — in a free and fair national election — the kind of overpowering victory that the Awami League and the Grand Alliance has just scored in Bangladesh. Almost as politically significant as Sheikh Hasina’s triumph is the crushing defeat the people have handed out to Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its fundamentalist allies. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s daug hter, a gutsy political leader, led a long and hard campaign that had to overcome a series of hurdles. The scale of her success with the very high voter turnout — something like 75 per cent of 81 million voters, the majority of them women — was reminiscent of the Awami League’s 1970 landslide triumph in what was East Pakistan. If there is one standout message from this election, it is the decisive rejection of the reactionary politics of the BNP. Its alliance with the Jamaat-e-Islami repelled moderates, liberals, and secularists in town and countryside alike. During her last term in office (2001- 2006), Begum Zia wooed the fundamentalist fringe and ended up having to tackle Islamist militants of various hues. Encouraged by state support, Islamists attacked an Awami League rally addressed by Sheikh Hasina in 2004 and set off bombs across the country in 2005. The pro-Islamist orientation showed in foreign policy too. Under Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh showed little inclination to deal with the terror strikes at India from groups such as the Harkat-Ul-Jihad-al-Islami. But religious bigotry and militancy were not the only issues in this election. The two years of interim administration could not erase people’s memories of the authoritarianism, corruption, and nepotism of BNP rule.

The outcome aside, Bangladesh saw an unusually free, fair, and peaceful election presided over by the Army-backed interim administration. After January 2007, when a scheduled election was cancelled, and the ‘interim’ administration seemed intent on perpetuating itself and keeping the two major political players, Hasina and Khaleda, out of the election picture, there were apprehensions that democracy was under threat. However, a cleaned-up electoral roll — freed from legions of ghost voters and refreshed by the enrolment of large numbers of legitimate young voters — set the stage for a credible election process. Sheikh Hasina must embark on her new term as Prime Minister in the knowledge that all sections of the people have voted decisively for secular democracy and development and against religious fundamentalism and militancy. She must realise, in all humility, that Bangladesh has voted overwhelmingly for a change from the old ways — and that a huge burden of responsibility has been placed on her shoulders. The people of India, who have tremendous goodwill for the Awami League, will wish her success.

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