Opinion | Sheikh Hasina: When The Hunted Is Also The Hunter

'In my beginning is my end.' 

There is no situation in the world that cannot be explained through poetry in general, T.S. Eliot's in particular. Sheikh Hasina, one of the longest-serving heads of the government in the world, has demitted office after a month of bloodshed in Bangladesh. Her life seems to be coming full circle-the former Prime Minister has sought refuge in India and is likely to come to Delhi.

The beginning is this. Humiliated by the West Pakistan establishment despite decisively winning the 1970 parliamentary elections, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman - Hasina's father - gave a call for Independence and after a year of bloodshed, Bangladesh came into existence. Mujib was killed; a terrible beauty was born.

Independence Is A Terrible Thing

Independence is a thing of beauty. It is also terrible. Rarely does it come into being in the absence of violence. This holds more succinctly for South Asia than any other part of the world, or at least it feels so given the sheer numbers. In India's public imagination, 1971 is all about Mukti Bahini and the Indian armed forces joining hands in birthing Bangladesh. It's about Indira Gandhi and Sam Manekshaw.
After Yahya Khan cancelled the Pakistan National Assembly on March 1, 1971, more than 300 ethnic Biharis were murdered by Mujib's supporters even before the latter's call for mobilisation. Within a month, the Pakistan establishment launched Operation Searchlight to cull Awami League supporters in East Pakistan. This was touted as a legitimate state action to punish conspiracy and unrest. 

This quick reckoner is important to understand how even the noblest political causes have their genesis in questionable actions and their motives. They often have a legacy of blood. Hasina and some of her family members were rescued in 1975 by Indian forces after Mujib's erstwhile compatriots and comrades turned against him. Mujib was murdered in his residence on August 15, 1975, along with six members of his immediate family, including his wife, brother and sons. It was the same old story of Brutus stabbing Caesar; 32 Dhanmondi was the new Largo di Torre Argentina.

Once hailed as a messiah, Mujib had been facing criticism on several counts: corruption, nepotism, mismanagement of the 1974 famine, favouritism, etc. He was accused of turning into what he once opposed - a dictator. This has been Hasina's history and legacy. Fleeing Bangladesh for safety once again, Sheikh Hasina may be reminiscent of it.

It Was Never Going To Be Easy

Ever since its inception, Bangladesh has witnessed election-time violence between the ruling Awami League and the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Concerns around Bangladesh's ability to conduct free and fair elections have loomed large over electoral processes. The number of clashes between the supporters of the two parties in the run-up to the 2024 elections more than tripled from the 2018 elections. Hasina's fourth consecutive term was not going to be easy by any means. As predicted, the results were disputed by the BNP and other opposition parties. She handled the charges like any astute politician. The student-led protests over quotas in government jobs turned out to be her Achilles's heel. South Asia, as a whole, is quite forgiving of politicians and regimes. But only to a certain extent. As long as the governments are seen to be at war only with their political and ideological opponents, the voters may not care. When the attack reaches their doorsteps, people rise. They may not succeed in overthrowing a regime always, they make their intent felt. 

The civil unrest in Bangladesh, therefore, is an accretion of a historical political feud between the two largest parties, the military's constant hankering for power, anti-incumbency, and a genuine concern for the deteriorating participatory democracy in the country. Adding to this mix is the curious case of secularist authoritarianism. The so-called 'Bangladesh model' is hailed by the establishment in India, a secular republic, and decried by Pakistan. But there have been some genuine concerns about how Awami League has been using secularism as a calling card to cull all forms of dissent. Post-Islamism, as proposed by Hasina's party, remains a Holy Grail project for Bangladesh: ever elusive, always used for mass mobilisation, never attained. 

A Deja Vu Moment

The Sheikh family has now seen and experienced it all - from all the possible vantage points. They have been both the oppressed and the oppressor. The hunter and the hunted.

It's a deja vu moment for Bangladesh. And it's both a deja vu moment and a moment of reckoning for India. Brutal and bloody regime changes are inevitable when reason and rapprochement fail. The new order may not always be in line with the expectations; it may even be worse. But the desire to overthrow the dysfunctional, perceived or real, order is an all-consuming passion. 

To end it with Eliot's verse: 

'In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old 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 author and academic.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author