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BANGLADESH experienced its first transition from autocratic rule after the fall of the regime of president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in August 1975. The second instance of transition from autocratic rule commenced with the fall of president Ershad in 1991. The third transition from autocracy to democracy has started with the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime on August 5 this year.

The nature and duration of the three autocratic regimes mentioned above differ widely. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman ruled the country for around three and a half years till he was killed and his government toppled in 1975. Thereafter, the transition to democracy under an elected government took a long time. With a short interlude of only three months under president Khondoker Mushtaq Ahmed — following the killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman — the country entered the transitional phase under the charismatic leadership of General Ziaur Rahman, who steered the process under a softcore Martial Law regime. Although he had to tackle a series of military coups in the cantonments, he enjoyed mass popularity and faced little or no resistance from people in general. Ziaur Rahman amended the constitution of the country to restore the multi-party democratic system that was eliminated by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in January 1975.Ìý

However, Ziaur Rahman decided to enter politics and, accordingly, floated a new political party under his leadership. The second general elections of the country were held in 1978, in which his party, namely, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, emerged as a strong political party with a wide popular base. Although relegated to the opposition bench, the leaders of the Bangladesh Awami League were happy to regain a role in national politics.Ìý

President Ershad’s autocratic rule came to an end when he resigned in 1991, in the teeth of a powerful political movement, after ruling the country for nearly a decade. General Ershad was the chief of the army and, in 1983, brought down an elected government mandated to be in power for five years till 1983. Because of this military coup, the country could not experience a transition from democracy to democracy and relapsed to autocratic rule once again.

Transition from president Ershad’s autocratic rule to democracy was a case of pacted or negotiated transition. The handover of power was smooth, and the transitional phase was managed by an extra-constitutional interim governmental system, which was referred to as ‘caretaker government’. While essentially an application of the doctrine of necessity, the model was later accepted by all political stakeholders, and, accordingly, the parliament led by Begum Khaleda Zia modified the constitution of the country in 1996 to permanently provide for caretaker government prior to general elections for electing a new government.Ìý

The world has experienced a high rate of transition to democracy in different countries since the end of the Second World War. Unfortunately, reversal to autocracy was not infrequent. It is to be recognised that Bangladesh overcame the difficulty of building self-enforcing democracy by innovating a political arrangement as noted above. It is a matter of record that the system of ninety-day ‘caretaker government’ facilitated and managed an acceptable transition from democracy to democracy. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party came to power under the leadership of Begum Khaleda Zia in 1991, the Bangladesh Awami League came to power under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina in 1996 and Bangladesh Nationalist Party again came to power in 2001 under the leadership of Khaleda Zia through elections held under caretaker governments.Ìý

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Success of a caretaker government and transition from democracy to democracy depends on the personalities involved. Also, as experienced in many countries around the world, the role of the military and the role of the foreign powers in the context of international and regional geopolitics need to be factored in for understanding the dynamics that determine the development and sustainability of democratic institutions.Ìý

An entirely free election alone is not the only sign of a successful transition to democracy. However, free elections constitute the necessary condition for securing the next democratic regime. The outcome of the 1991, 1996 and 2001 elections, held under the auspices of caretaker governments, proved to be acceptable for national and international communities.

On the contrary, it is frequently argued the caretaker government headed by chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, which assumed office in January of 2007, did not act fairly as a consequence of which the outcome of the general elections, scheduled to be held in April 2006 and actually held towards the end of 2008, became questionable. As it has been alleged, the military, under the command of General Mainuddin Ahmed, executed the hidden agenda of reinstating the Bangladesh Awami League to power under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina while ousting the Bangladesh Nationalist Party under the leadership of Khaleda Zia from the political scenario. It is presumed that one day the tenure of the Fakhruddina-Mainuddin government will be studied as a prelude to dictatorship.Ìý

It would not be an injustice if the regime of Sheikh Hasina, enduring over fifteen years, is termed fascistized dictatorship. No wonder that many take pleasure by ranking Sheikh Hasina alongside Gerardo Machado, Chiang Kai-shek, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Paul Kagame, Kim Il-sung, Hugo Chavez and Jorge Rafael Videla. All of them created police states and ruled their respective countries pursuant to their will and goals.

The term ‘police state’ has evolved over a long period of time since 18th-century Prussia. Today, police states are typically characterised by a highly centralised form of authoritarian government, pervasive state surveillance, coercion and extortion, and covert impunity for repression, torture and corruption. The police force is militarised and employed for social control, repression of the opposition and suppression of dissent. The judiciary is subjugated and is left with no choice but to listen to the dictates conveyed via the attorney general. There is hardly any respect for civil liberties and human rights. The Human Rights Commission and the like are rendered redundant. The media degenerates to serve the purpose of the ruler. A regime of intimidation prevails in all spheres of social and political life, leading to self-censorship. The citizenry as well as the officials of the state apparatus is required to align their attitude and behaviour with the ideology of the ruling dictator. Any deviation is brutally muted. The principle adopted was: If you don’t like a dog, give it a bad name and hang.

Sheikh Hasina, once considered to be an icon of democracy, successfully transformed Bangladesh into a police state since the formation of her government in January of 2009. It will demand systematic research to identify the milestones of the transformation process, their chronological order and interconnectedness. When she fled the country on August 5, after ruling the country with an iron hand for nearly 16 years, Bangladesh has essentially been rendered into a country not much different from Francoist Spain.

Large scale killing of army officials in the BDR headquarters in Dhaka, obtaining a decree from the Supreme Court declaring caretaker government system ultra vires to the values entrenched in the constitution of the country, hurried abolition of the caretaker government system from the constitution, ruthless suppression of opposition politics in every possible way, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killing, crackdown on Islamic forces in the name of fighting terrorism, strict punitive measures for dissent and criticism, implementation of megaprojects without following due process for generating large amount of wealth via kick-backs, legal impunity for side-tracking the procurement process, plundering of banks and smuggling of black money out of the country, promotion of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as an idol, etc, are apparently elements of one thread. Ìý

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The ouster of Sheikh Hasina from power in the morning of August 5 came through an undaunting revolt of the people, spearheaded by the young students of the country. The mighty regime of the Awami League crumbled in a trice. Internationally reputed figure Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus formed an interim government without the slightest resistance. The military did not stand on the way, although, admittedly, it was they who had arranged a safe flight for Sheikh Hasina to flee to India. However, the scenario of 2024 widely differs from that of 1975, the year in which Sheikh Hasina’s father’s Sheikh Mujibur Rahman regime was toppled, on many counts.

One can observe that the sudden end of the Mujib regime in August 1975 left a weak legacy to tackle during the transitional phase. Foremost of all, the military came forward to initiate and facilitate the regime change. Bangladesh had a negligible role in the international and regional geopolitical scenario, and there was almost no raising of the eyebrow among the foreign powers, including India. There was no private media to agitate, directly or indirectly, against the change. There was no social media through which to allow ventilation of anger by the Mujib supporters. Admittedly, the economy was in poor condition, but its basic fabric had not been distorted or shattered. As to the popular support, the activists of the Awami League were mostly unarmed and had little financial capacity to stage a counterrevolution. Most importantly, the military had no interest in politics or rent-seeking.

On the contrary, the legacy of Sheikh Hasina is pretty strong and capable of staging a counterrevolution. Hasina supporters believe that if their mistress could return to Bangladesh, she could grab power once again. Hasina’s legacy comprises a divided society rife with the culture of hatred and cancellation; a supportive community across all levels and sectors — rich with arms, money and muscle power; a police force full of officials personally loyal to Hasina’s ideology; an army commanded by generals with personal allegiance to the fallen prime minister; a civil administration dominated by Hasina supporters who upheld and facilitated the myth of development; and a judiciary submissive to the dictates of Hasina. In addition, there are hundreds of businessmen who upheld the principles of the fascist regime; a broad-based media that facilitated the erosion of democratic values and establishment of fascism; and a wide body of intellectuals and cultural activists who believe in Mujib’s one-party democracy and promoted him as the ‘greatest Bengali in a thousand years.’Ìý

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It would not be an easy task to pinpoint a certain event or time that caused Bangladesh’s democracy to slide into dictatorship since 2009, but the leadership under Sheikh Hasina is a good starting point. She had certain radical goals and plans up her sleeve that included sticking to power by hook or by crook, plundering national wealth in the name of development, and the establishment of an environment of intimidation and subjugation of the judiciary as well as the military. She saw it through that all democratic constitutions crumbled under her will and shrewd strategies. She successfully created a large pool of Awamiphiles across all sectors of the nation.Ìý

It has been observed that the nature of a political regime depends on the personal characteristics of its leader. It has been said that Joseph Stalin used to poke his nose into everything and instil fear in his subordinates. Sheikh Hasina was a good copy of Stalin made in a domestic mould. She created an environment of intimidation and established a mafia regime by all means. She was ingenious in spotting that mega-projects based on suppliers’ credit and foreign loans could be sources of a big amount of kickback. Later on, she chose banks as a better source of funds to plunder and syphon out of the country. The economic capital of the nation that built up over a long period was plundered away to a great extent.

She had an obsession with the death of his father and other members of the family who were killed in the early hours of August 15, 1975. With little care for the armed struggle in 1971, she believed that it was her father who gifted the nation with an independent state. She never forgave the followers of his father, who went silent and didn’t take to the streets to protest the killing. She considered the killing of her father a betrayal of the Bengali nation and consistently harboured prickliness about it. This made her vengeful. It cannot be forgotten that she evicted her predecessor, former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia, from her home in 2010. The latter was officially allotted the residence on humanitarian grounds following due process after former president Ziaur Rahman was assassinated in a military coup in 1981.

Sheikh Hasina had little love for the country. She just needed power to keep ruling the country and extract its economic wealth. She demonstrated a lack of respect for others. She picked up people with criminal orientation and promoted them with a view to establishing despotism. She was unabashed in her falsification of facts and use of manipulated statistics to cheat the people. She was a psychopath who believed that the country and its wealth belonged to her. Also, she believed that winning a free and fair election was not essential for a legitimate right to power; rather, an election should be staged as required by the constitution, and people should be made to accept it through propaganda. She did not hide her mind and said, ‘I want power; I need absolute power.’

The history of Bangladesh would certainly have been different if the Bangladesh Awami League, after winning the elections held in December 2008, chose any other leader else than Sheikh Hasina as the prime minister of the country.

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SOCIAL scientists around the world have tried to pinpoint the characteristics and dimensions of change in and from authoritarian rule since the breakdown of long-enduring authoritarian regimes in Spain and Portugal in the 1970s. Venezuela has proved a difficult case for achieving a democratic system. The world witnessed with dismay how the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ that spurted out in 2011 eventually actualised only in Tunisia, while other countries ended up with military coup d’etat (Egypt) or bloody civil wars (Libya, Syria, and Yemen).Ìý

Conceptualising the transition experience is a difficult task. A lot of factors affect the process of transition from autocracy to democracy. There are a lot of challenges to overcome, foremost of which is to tackle the legacies of the autocratic regime. Although the prospect for enduring democracy is not a far cry, it is indeed difficult to achieve.

An entirely free election after a prolonged period of dictatorial rule is the acid test of the transition to democracy. However, the management during the interim period is critically important.

The interim government led by Mohhamad Yunus, formed in the style of caretaker government, has many challenges to face to pave a way towards self-reenforcing democracy. The agenda before his government is long. One of the firsts is to tackle the legacies of the Sheikh Hasina regime in a strategic way so that any attempt at a counterrevolution can be thwarted at once. A socio-political environment needs to be created that will rule out catapulting Sheikh Hasina back into her chair.

Every dimension of the state has suffered profound erosion during sixteen years of despotic rule. They need to be repaired before an election is held. Over sixteen years, the regime of Sheikh Hasina has actively facilitated diverse public authorities to coordinate on extra-constitutional activities, eventually transforming the politico-institutional setting into one of autocratic rule and kleptocracy. Democratic values destroyed by the Sheikh Hasina regime need to be restored and recreated. Separation of powers is to be restored and nurtured. Impunity for corruption and misdeeds needs to be addressed for establishing the rule of law. There is no doubt that reform of the constitution, or writing a new constitution ab initio, is needed to prevent the rise of autocracy in the future. Radical thoughts are needed for it.

The influence of the international environment and foreign actors on regime change critically matters given the geopolitical scenario that has evolved in the first quarter of the 21st century. Political scientists around the world largely believe that United States policy towards regime change can play a significant role.Ìý

Political leadership between authoritarianism and democracy matters in a significant way. Bangladesh is lucky to have Professor Yunus as the helmsman. He not only enjoys the trust of the nation; he also enjoys the support of world leaders and international institutions. It is reasonable to hope that he will be able to achieve Bangladesh a favourable status in regional geopolitics. Also, support of the United States may play a crucial role, as illustrated in the recent history of different countries.

It is encouraging to note that US deputy secretary of state Richard Verma, who previously served as the US ambassador to India, recently said that decisions on elections and interim government are for the Bangladeshi people to make. With emphasis, he remarked, ‘I think the most important thing is to try to support democratic, peaceful, lawful transition in Bangladesh rather than its future direction. Our role is to support them in their democratic journey.’  

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Faizul Latif Chowdhury, former civil servant, is professor (adjunct), Independent University Bangladesh.