By developer [ This article was originally written for the October 2024 edition of our newsletter. We have now crossed a year since the overthrow of the Sheik Hasina government, and many of the conclusions made here still hold true.]
Soon after the collapse of the Sheik Hasina regime, the army began releasing prisoners from Bangladeshi jails. Many of those released were right wing reactionaries. In a matter of days, the ban over the reactionary islamist organization, Jamaat I Islami was lifted, and many formerly criminal right wing bourgeois leaders of the BNP were released and rehabilitated. This was a deliberate effort by the army.
With the Awami League gone, the bourgeoise of Bangladesh has been scrambling to restore order, and create a new order which can best serve their material interests. The revolutionary movement which overthrew Sheik Hasina’s regime, could barrel into something further that may lead to their own expropriation. To stop this, is the chief objective of all actors involved now, the army, the Jamaat, the bourgeois opposition BNP, and even the foreign powers of India, China, and the US.
Restoring the forces of Islamist reaction is the best way to pacify and derail the revolutionary developments in Bangladesh, for it strikes at the unity of the youth and working class, and presents a bourgeois alternative which Bangladesh’s oppressive capitalist class and world imperialism can work with. The interim government leadership under Mohammed Yunus is fully on board with this conspiracy.
The conditions are now set for the next phase of the revolutionary struggle in Bangladesh.
The economic condition of Bangladesh :
Bangladesh, like most semi-colonial economies, is locked into an adverse economic bracket. In most cases, semi-colonial economies function around certain sectors which have an outsized influence over the economy, whether it’s extractive industries, or around agricultural industries, or labour intensive manufacturing, like textile.
In the case of Bangladesh, it would not be an exaggeration to say it runs on it’s textile industry. The textile industry accounts for most of Bangladesh’s export earnings, accounting for a major chunk of direct and indirect employment. Aside from the textiles, Bangladesh’s economy is dependent on agricultural exports, particularly rice and fish, and the export of labour in the form of migrant labour. Labour remittances account for another major source of income for the impoverished economy.
Over the fifteen years of Sheik Hasina’s reign, Bangladesh was transformed into the textile sweatshop of the world. It was run like a dictatorship under the mask of a parliamentary democracy. Sheik Hasina’s iron fisted rule was tailor made to serve the interests of the garment factory bosses, and for the major international fast fashion brands, to keep their profits going. The police and paramilitaries were in place to ensure the Awami League’s rule, and keep the workers in a state of terror.
For most of the fifteen years, Bangladesh’s economy grew rapidly, most capitalist thinkers lauded the economic growth of Bangladesh. However, the character of the economy did not change, it remained trapped within the economics of cheap labour, whether it is supplying cheap labour for the textile sweatshops, or providing migrant labour for Gulf States, India and South East Asia. All the while, the elites organized within the Awami League continued to enrich themselves at the expense of the masses.
This set up remained profitable but vulnerable. Once the COVID pandemic hit the world economy like a whirlwind, it wreaked havoc on peripheral economies like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The Bangladeshi bourgeoisie had lost access to it’s markets as the remittances from the gulf states started to dry up, the orders for fast fashion from western fashion brands started to get cancelled, and inflation started to spiral. The economy of Bangladesh was bad enough to begin with, but worsened once the Russo-Ukrainian war began. Suddenly, wheat became more expensive, as did oil. Both these added to the pressures of inflation and further damaged the economy of Bangladesh.
The economic crisis of Bangladesh was especially among the youth who found their prospects drying up. The situation was doubly difficult for educated youth to find a well-paying job, with better prospects being found outside the country rather than within Bangladesh and it’s sweatshop economy. While it had not yet reached the breaking point like Sri Lanka, it was heading in that direction. The rising discontent of it’s youth and working class was channelled into the students led uprising that ultimately toppled the Awami League government and forced Sheik Hasina to flee the country.
The new government that has since come in place is only an interim government, unelected. It’s mandate flows entirely from the legitimacy given to it by the protests that overthrew Sheik Hasina. The Nobel prize winning economist Mohammed Yunus was the chosen candidate of the students and youth, as someone unconnected with the previous regime, and at least perceived to be clean from the corruption of mainstream bourgeois politics. Neither does Mohammed Yunus have the blemish associated with the army which had ruled Bangladesh for a prolonged period from 1976 to 1991.
In the two months that he has been in power, there is little to suggest that Yunus will live up to the high expectations that have been placed upon him. Bangladesh’s economic prospects have only grown more dire, youth unemployment remains high and is getting higher, the garment workers remain unpaid and exploited just as they were before the Hasina regime was overthrown, and Bangladesh’s debt situation has not only not improved, it appears to be actively worsening.
Bangladesh is saddled with growing external debt, so far in this year Bangladesh has paid $3.3 billion in foreign debt servicing. Problems of repayment are mounting, especially in the face of collapsing exports. A recent move by the new government to ban Hilsa exports to curb inflation, backfired. Hilsa fish is one of the prime exports of Bangladesh to India, in the face of the mounting debt servicing problems, they have been compelled to reopen exports, much to the chagrin of ultra nationalist Bangladeshis who celebrated the ban.
About $1 billion dollars are owed to Indian power generation companies alone, with billions more owed to financial institutions like the Asian Development Bank and IMF. China is the third largest single creditor with India following close by. With exports and remittances still faltering, debt repayments are becoming increasingly unsustainable.
The situation with the garment workers has not improved either. Soon after the ouster of Sheik Hasina, there were two major protests which rocked the country. The first was the strike by Ansars who are civic volunteers working in the rural sector. The second came in the form of garment workers in Ashulia industrial hub.
Before the students embarked on their struggle, it was the garment workers who had struck against the regime. It was they who first rallied in the aftermath of the 2011 Rana Plaza collapse. The garment workers were enthusiastic in their support for the youth uprising. Yet, today they remain in a limbo. Factories are closed, dues remain unpaid and workers are starving. The twin pressures of unemployment and rising inflation are gnawing away at the savings of millions who are dependent on this most important of Bangladesh’s industries.
It goes without saying that Yunus and the interim government is as incapable of solving the problem of the garment workers as it is in solving the problem of unemployment.
Political crisis :
The autocracy of the Awami League had restructured the Bangladeshi state in a way that the bourgeoisie would become dependent on them. In essence, the Awami League political structure became an inseparable part of the Bangladeshi capitalist state, securing most institutions within it’s control, and subsuming a large portion of the Bangladeshi capitalist class into itself. It’s fall came not because of contest with other elements of the bourgeoisie, but because of the intervention of the masses into politics. The Awami League could never be removed through the normal functioning of bourgeois democracy, because they had ensured there could not be any normal functioning democracy in Bangladesh.
As such, the fall of the Awami League regime created an unexpected political vacuum, one which threw the bourgeoisie into a state of confusion. The army was the only institution the Awami League could never extend complete control over, and could act in an independent way, in the absence of the Awami league in power.
In the days of the protests leading up to the long march in Dhaka, power in Bangladesh was in the streets, in the hands of the masses of youth, students and workers. The bourgeoisie had to maneuver to ensure that a revolution did not take place. The only political option then available, would be resurrecting the BNP and the reactionary islamist parties. In one of the first acts after ousting Sheik Hasina, the military installed an interim caretaker government, and proceeded to free islamists who had been jailed by the Awami League regime. The islamist political parties like the Jamaat i Islami saw the ban imposed on it lifted, and the BNP whose leaders had been placed under arrest, returned to active political life. Both parties were infamous for their corruption and gang violence, and stood discredited. It was not too difficult for the Awami League to persecute both, as neither had much credibility left in the eyes of the people.
However, with the Awami League thrown out, there was no other bourgeois alternative left. The army leadership comes from a new generation of officers who rose in the aftermath of the Bangladesh Rifles Mutiny, that destroyed the officer corps of the old Bangladeshi army. The new leadership had little connection nor political understanding of the old generation. The new leadership had neither the ambition nor the ability to be the representative organization of the Bangladeshi bourgeoisie. Yet, resurrecting the discredited bourgeois parties seemed near impossible.
The intermediate solution to this, is the formation of an interim caretaker government to create conditions for an election to take place. The leadership of this new caretaker government has gone to Mohammed Yunus, a figure the Bangladeshi bourgeoisie can trust, and a fellow member. Yunus had his own political project which failed completely. The famous grameen bank which is the darling of the bourgeois press, only added to the debt burden of the masses of the poor of Bangladesh while barely improving their lives. Yet, the mythmaking of the impact of grameen bank did not cease, not even when cases of coercion to enforce debt payments surfaced and suicides of debtors.
However, Mohammed Yunus was someone who had the halo of a nobel prize, and disconnected with the corrupt mainstream parties of Bangladesh. He was someone who could be projected as a neutral arbitrator, to represent the caretaker government. Yunus is not known for any political acumen, nor does he have much experience. It is but natural that he would pivot to the influence and advise of existing bourgeois alternatives to stabilize the class rule of the bourgeoisie. So far, a key pillar of influence has been the Jamaat i Islami, which seeks to recover it’s position as a ‘kingmaker’ of Bangladeshi politics, in alliance with the BNP.
In the 2 months since the overthrow of the Sheik Hasina regime, there has been a spate of attacks against Hindus. While not all of the attacks were communally motivated, a lot of it was. This was the immediate aftermath of restoring the Islamist reactionaries. The attacks served two purpose, it created conditions for sowing communal divisions in Bangladeshi society, and provide a distraction for the masses to turn their ire away from the bourgeoisie, and kept the Hindu minority in a state of terror. Both served to strike at the solidarity of the people which was key to mount the revolutionary mobilizations against Sheik Hasina.
The attacks on the Hindus inadvertently helped India’s media legitimize Sheik Hasina and the Awami League in the eyes of Indians, thus helping to isolate the revolutionary movement in Bangladesh from India. This had the additional impact of helping the forces of Hindutva to target muslims on the basis of retaliating in revenge for attacks on Hindus. Reactionaries on both sides grew stronger as a result, and secured the interests of the bourgeoisie.
In the long run, both the Indian bourgeoisie and Bangladeshi bourgeoise desire a resumption of the status quo. This runs against the desire of the masses of Bangladesh, who stand opposed to any concessions to Indian capital at the expense of national interest. The attempt by Bangladesh to use Hilsa exports to try and equalize it’s relations with India, and it’s eventual failure is but a small example of the inability of the Bangladeshi bourgeoisie to deliver any economic sovereignty, even under the leadership of Nobel prize winner Mohd. Yunus.
In fact, it is quite unlikely that Bangladesh can ever truly come out of the system that the Awami had created over the last 15 years of it’s rule. India’s economic power and influence has only grown, as has the penetration of imperialist capital into Bangladesh. The best that the bourgeoisie of Bangladesh can offer is the choice between one imperial overlord or another, and with Bangladesh being practically surrounded on three sides by India, it’s hand is strongest among all powers.
The army and the interim caretaker government is consciously restoring the status quo as existed before 2006 when a BNP led government ruled Bangladesh. The rule of the bourgeoisie will continue but in a slightly changed form, the working class of bangladesh will continue to be viciously exploited, Bangladesh will continue to remain under the thumb of imperialist capital, and in the bargain, non-muslim minorities who had been the target of systematic discrimination will continue to remain marginalized.
The winners from such a status quo would be India and imperialist capital which benefits from keeping Bangladesh as a sweatshop of the world. To ensure this, they are willing to sacrifice the people of Bangladesh, especially the minorities.
Economic crisis :
It is being reported that the revolution and it’s aftermath caused $400 million in losses to Bangladesh’s garments sector. Some businesses pulled back to India which saw a double digit rise in exports in this sector. Mainstream media, and especially Indian mainstream news media, has painted the revolution as a deep conspiracy against Indian interests, with no regard to what the people of Bangladesh actually thought about the Awami League and Sheik Hasina, which India backed to the hilt.
The fact is, the economic troubles that the bourgeoisie is witnessing today did not start with the revolutionary mobilization, but years before with the COVID Pandemic. The pandemic hurt Bangladesh’s garment industry massively, with orders being cancelled by the main importers in Europe and the USA. The economic downturn in these countries further hurt Bangladesh’s exports. This had a domino effect over every other sector in the economy.
With industries shuttering livelihoods were lost, the textile factory bosses shifted the burden of the losses to the shoulder of workers. They were laid off, their wages withheld, entire families were pushed into poverty left with no income. As investments dried up, and government found itself cash strapped, an unemployment crisis started to emerge.
Adding to the pressures on the economy was the shock from the Russo-Ukrainian war, following which there was a worldwide inflationary situation, owing to the rise of fuel prices and grain prices. The impact this had on the majority of the world’s poor cannot be underestimated. The youth of Bangladesh found itself in a difficult situation, out of work and faced with rising cost of essential commodities, dependent on sectors which were still suffering from the impact of COVID. While the economic situation in Bangladesh wasn’t as bad as Sri Lanka, it was still bad enough to give rise to the mass discontent we saw on the streets in August.
The Awami League’s propaganda of pitching Bangladesh as a ‘rising tiger’ of Asian economies was shattered by reality. However, that reality has not yet changed. The new government is failing to present solutions for the fundamental weaknesses of the Bangladeshi economy, much of it owing to the legacy of partition which drew East Pakistan’s borders. Bangladesh remains trapped in unequal trade relations with India, which only adds to it’s difficulties. The Awami League had further made it dependent on power supply from Indian hydro-electric and thermal power corporations, many linked with the infamous Adani group which has close ties with the BJP. The government is now saddled with hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, a lot of which is owed to Indian power companies. This is debt the government finds itself unable to pay.
Add to this is the inflationary situation, which remains adverse. The political turmoil has not helped the economic situation, nor can Mohd. Yunus’ government solve it. Another loan, or a bailout by the IMF may give short term relief, but in the long run it will only help Bangladesh sink further into dependency and create conditions for the next crisis to be worse than the one in the present. Both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh prove that the bourgeoisie have no real solution to the needs of the masses.
It has not been long since the fall of the Hasina regime, and the new government finds itself struggling on every front. The situation is particularly grim in the textile sector, which had not fully recovered from the impact of the COVID pandemic and is already dealing with the impact of the volatile political situation in the country. The sector which powered Bangladesh’s economy for the better part of two decades and generated direct and indirect employment for a tenth of the population is still dealing with lockouts and bankruptcies. The workers were the first to challenge the Awami League regime, and they are once more on the warpath.
The strike which began in September saw the workers demanding higher wages and better working conditions. By the end of September 60 garment factories were shut in the face of the strike. The protests reached a peak when the workers blocked a highway in protest of one of their comrades being shot dead by the police. The strike resulted in the garment companies conceding to all of the demands raised by the unions following which a semblance of normalcy returned to the industrial belts of Ashulia, Savar and Gazipur. Most factories became operational again, but structural issues remained and still remain.
The economic conditions remain volatile, as does the political situation. In such conditions, it is but a matter of time before the garment workers erupt into struggle again. As of writing this article, garment workers blocked the Aricha-Dhaka highway demanding wage hikes and protesting arbitrary cuts to wages by the factory management.
Towards Socialist Revolution for true liberation :
Class struggle in Bangladesh is characterized by three core contradictions, which are born by the adverse conditions of it’s birth. The first is the contradiction between the bourgeoisie which feels compelled to impose dictatorship to secure it’s rule and further it’s material interests, and the masses which demand democracy. The second, is the bourgeoisie’s desire to impose an islamist state, while the masses desire a secular society where all Bangladeshis can live in peace and security irrespective of religion. The third contradiction is between a bourgeoisie which is constantly compelled to align itself with foreign capital to secure it’s rule, while the people demand a sovereign and independent state.
At the center of these political contradictions, is the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the working class, youth and peasantry. Bangladesh was created by revolutionary struggle between the workers, peasants and youth of Bengalis in Pakistan, and the Pakistani bourgeoisie. What would become the Bangladeshi bourgeois played an opportunistic role, and acquired the leadership of the workers and peasants, with the help of India. The new bourgeoisie proved to be as corrupt, dictatorial and exploitative as it’s predecessors.
The creation of a secular constitution was one of the key achievements of the Bangladesh liberation war, but that was soon done away with once the threat of a working class revolution became more apparent after independence. The declaration of Islam as a state religion was the first step in the institutionalization of the discrimination of non-muslim subjects, and the rehabilitation of Pakistani era members of the ruling class. The Constitution remains largely the same since it’s amendment under General Zia ur Rahman.
The turn to islamism distanced Bangladesh from India, but did not achieve independence from imperialism generally. In time, as India’s own economy developed, it could reassert it’s influence over Bangladesh through trade and investment. The era of military dictatorship ended in 1991 with the fall of the Ershad regime, but what followed was a chaotic period where the heiresses of Sheik Mujibar Rahman and General Zia vied for power. Their highly corrupt and bonapartist style of politics caused enormous hardship to the people, and merely perpetuated the exploitation of Bangladesh for the benefit of imperialist capital. India too benefitted from the opening of the economy.
This period of chaotic democracy was marked by pitched fights between coalitions led by the two main bourgeois parties of Bangladesh, the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. The former gathered Stalinist parties in it’s alliance, while the latter mobilized reactionary islamic forces to bolster it. Both parties were responsible for the marginalization of Hindu minorities and inflicting enormous suffering on the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. However, only the Awami League claimed to be the defenders of Hindu minorities, gaining the favour of India and the vote of the Hindus in the process.
The period of chaotic bourgeois democracy was marked by pogroms against Hindus in 2001 and 1991 which took the lives of hundreds and effectively divided the country on the ground of religion. When the BNP’s second term ended, the masses had had enough of the politics of the right wing, and supported the Awami League for a second term. This began the second era of dictatorship, this time under the leadership of the Awami League. The Bangladeshi bourgeoisie and India had worked to turn the country full circle back to the state of affairs that existed in 1972, when Sheik Mujibar Rahman began instituting his one party rule over the country.
The experience of the last 53 years of independence has proven one thing clearly, that the bourgeoisie can only perpetuate the enslavement of the Bangladeshi people to imperialism. They will perpetuate their exploitation and torment while enriching themselves. They will either turn to open or hidden dictatorship, or will undergo the cycle of violent chaos which characterized the period of ‘free’ bourgeois democracy. The minorities of Bangladesh get the worst of the deal, not only suffering from the transformation of Bangladesh into a giant sweatshop for garment companies, but also being subjected to communal violence done with a view to consolidate the power of one of two bourgeois parties. The capture of Hindu owned land organized largely by the Awami League and the capture of indigenous land by settlers in the Chittagong Hill Tracts are used to enrich the bourgeoisie at the expense of the minorities, adding another layer to the suppression of both communities.
A truly free Bangladesh can never be achieved with these people in charge. They have turned the country into a sorry prison, a symbol of poverty. The revolutionary struggle waged by the people of Bangladesh in 1971 has been led into the gutter by the Awami League, and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and the successive dictatorships have wrecked much of the gains of the liberation war. The failure of the bourgeoisie to fulfil the democratic aspirations of the people is clear from the periodic revolutionary upheavals in Bangladesh, and the desire to end the toxic status quo. At the end, only a socialist revolution can resolve the core contradictions of Bangladesh.