‘In my starting is my finish.’ 

There isn’t any state of affairs on the earth that can’t be defined by poetry generally, T.S. Eliot’s particularly. Sheikh Hasina, one of many longest-serving heads of the federal government on the earth, has demitted workplace after a month of bloodshed in Bangladesh. Her life appears to be coming full circle-the former Prime Minister has sought refuge in India and is prone to come to Delhi.

The start is that this. Humiliated by the West Pakistan institution regardless of decisively successful the 1970 parliamentary elections, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman – Hasina’s father – gave a name for Independence and after a 12 months of bloodshed, Bangladesh got here into existence. Mujib was killed; a horrible magnificence was born.

Independence Is A Horrible Factor

Independence is a factor of magnificence. It is usually horrible. Hardly ever does it come into being within the absence of violence. This holds extra succinctly for South Asia than every other a part of the world, or at the least it feels so given the sheer numbers. In India’s public creativeness, 1971 is all about Mukti Bahini and the Indian armed forces becoming a member of arms in birthing Bangladesh. It is about Indira Gandhi and Sam Manekshaw.
After Yahya Khan cancelled the Pakistan Nationwide Meeting on March 1, 1971, greater than 300 ethnic Biharis have been murdered by Mujib’s supporters even earlier than the latter’s name for mobilisation. Inside a month, the Pakistan institution launched Operation Searchlight to cull Awami League supporters in East Pakistan. This was touted as a respectable state motion to punish conspiracy and unrest. 

This fast reckoner is vital to grasp how even the noblest political causes have their genesis in questionable actions and their motives. They usually have a legacy of blood. Hasina and a few of her members of the family have been rescued in 1975 by Indian forces after Mujib’s erstwhile compatriots and comrades turned towards him. Mujib was murdered in his residence on August 15, 1975, together with six members of his quick household, together with his spouse, brother and sons. It was the identical outdated story of Brutus stabbing Caesar; 32 Dhanmondi was the brand new Largo di Torre Argentina.

As soon as hailed as a messiah, Mujib had been going through criticism on a number of counts: corruption, nepotism, mismanagement of the 1974 famine, favouritism, and so on. He was accused of turning into what he as soon as opposed – a dictator. This has been Hasina’s historical past and legacy. Fleeing Bangladesh for security as soon as once more, Sheikh Hasina could also be harking back to it.

It Was By no means Going To Be Simple

Ever since its inception, Bangladesh has witnessed election-time violence between the ruling Awami League and the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Get together. Issues round Bangladesh’s capability to conduct free and truthful elections have loomed massive over electoral processes. The variety of clashes between the supporters of the 2 events within the run-up to the 2024 elections greater than tripled from the 2018 elections. Hasina’s fourth consecutive time period was not going to be simple by any means. As predicted, the outcomes have been disputed by the BNP and different opposition events. She dealt with the costs like all astute politician. The coed-led protests over quotas in authorities jobs turned out to be her Achilles’s heel. South Asia, as a complete, is kind of forgiving of politicians and regimes. However solely to a sure extent. So long as the governments are seen to be at conflict solely with their political and ideological opponents, the voters could not care. When the assault reaches their doorsteps, folks rise. They could not reach overthrowing a regime at all times, they make their intent felt. 

The civil unrest in Bangladesh, due to this fact, is an accretion of a historic political feud between the 2 largest events, the army’s fixed hankering for energy, anti-incumbency, and a real concern for the deteriorating participatory democracy within the nation. Including to this combine is the curious case of secularist authoritarianism. The so-called ‘Bangladesh mannequin’ is hailed by the institution in India, a secular republic, and decried by Pakistan. However there have been some real issues about how Awami League has been utilizing secularism as a calling card to cull all types of dissent. Put up-Islamism, as proposed by Hasina’s occasion, stays a Holy Grail venture for Bangladesh: ever elusive, at all times used for mass mobilisation, by no means attained. 

A Deja Vu Second

The Sheikh household has now seen and skilled all of it – from all of the attainable vantage factors. They’ve been each the oppressed and the oppressor. The hunter and the hunted.

It is a deja vu second for Bangladesh. And it is each a deja vu second and a second of reckoning for India. Brutal and bloody regime adjustments are inevitable when motive and rapprochement fail. The brand new order could not at all times be according to the expectations; it could even be worse. However the want to overthrow the dysfunctional, perceived or actual, order is an all-consuming ardour. 

To finish it with Eliot’s verse: 

‘In succession
Homes rise and fall, crumble, are prolonged,
Are eliminated, destroyed, restored, or of their place
Is an open discipline, or a manufacturing facility, or a by-pass.
Outdated stone to new constructing, outdated timber to new fires,
Outdated fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.’

(Nishtha Gautam is a Delhi-based writer and tutorial.)

Disclaimer: These are the non-public opinions of the writer