On Aug. 5, 2024, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, facing massive protests against her government, fled the capital of Dhaka for India, where she remains in exile. She faces serious charges in Bangladesh, including crimes against humanity, corruption, and contempt of court. The country’s interim government has sought her extradition and revoked her passport; India, which considered Hasina an ally, has not responded to Bangladesh’s request.
Students and activists marched in the streets throughout the summer of 2024—initially opposing the High Court reinstatement of quotas for government jobs for the descendants of Bangladeshi freedom fighters, which were effectively state patronage for children of supporters of the Awami League, Hasina’s party. In a country with high youth unemployment, students resented that.
But Hasina failed to read the mood of the nation. She ridiculed the protesters, calling them razakars, a pejorative term for those who collaborated with the Pakistani armed forces during Bangladesh’s independence war in 1971. The protests against Hasina grew, and the police and paramilitary used disproportionate force against demonstrators; hundreds of people died, and there were massive human rights violations.
The political transition in Hasina’s wake has been chaotic. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, an 85-year-old economist known for pioneering microcredit (and also condemned by Hasina), took over as the chief advisor of the interim government. He assembled a coalition of civil society activists, technocrats, administrators, and politicians to govern the country. There was some optimism in the country because people had real hope for political change.
For decades, political power in Bangladesh has oscillated between two dynasties: that of Hasina, whose Awami League led the country from 1996 to 2001 and again from 2009 until last year, and her father, independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who governed from 1972 to 1975 (that year he was assassinated in office as president); and that of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whose leader Khaleda Zia was prime minister from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2001 to 2006 and before that, her husband, Ziaur Rahman, as president from 1977 to 1981, when he too was assassinated in office. Bangladeshis have long yearned for a so-called minus-two solution: a government without either the Awami League or the BNP at the helm.
Since Yunus took office a year ago, the mood in Bangladesh has soured. Human rights abuses continue, and some of his political opponents are in jail. Fundamentalist Islamism has resurfaced as a threat to liberal democracy and women’s rights, economic growth has faltered, and U.S. tariffs threaten the country’s garment exports. The interim government has delayed elections, which may now take place between February and April 2026. With the Awami League banned and probably unable to compete in elections, it will likely be a lopsided contest.
To be sure, Bangladesh has suffered years of misrule. Hasina had a long stint as prime minister, but only her 2009 electoral victory was free and fair. Widespread allegations of vote rigging plagued the government in the three elections that followed, two of which were boycotted by the principal opposition parties. Corruption hollowed out institutions, and unemployment rose.
Bangladesh’s politics are exceptionally divisive. The country is dominated by two parties that detest each other and are unable to function in a bipartisan manner. After a decade and a half of Awami League rule, many opposition politicians want revenge. Indeed, Bangladeshi prosecutors have filed crimes against humanity charges against Hasina over last summer’s violence in a special tribunal. Hasina has no plans to return to the country to face charges, and India is not about to hand her over; if the trial proceeds, it will be in absentia and thus lack legitimacy.
When Hasina was ousted, there was a palpable sigh of relief in Bangladesh. Human rights defenders thought that they would be able to operate more freely, that an inquiry commission would find answers about—and release—people detained for years without trial and that the families of many people who had been disappeared would get some closure. Yunus had support from civil society, and it seemed that the rule of law would prevail and Bangladesh’s unrestrained paramilitary forces would be held accountable—and security sector reforms would be initiated.
Though some people expressed fear that Islamist fundamentalists would attack religious minorities in Hasina’s absence (she had drawn support from Hindus and others), there was also hope that Yunus would deal with fundamentalism firmly. Many people also expected the interim government to crack down on corruption and try to bring back some of the wealth siphoned away from banks by influential politicians and businesspeople.
But the last year has been disappointing on several fronts, and the aspiration that the democratic clock would reset remains just that. Though undoing the mess of 15 years of Hasina’s rule will take time, the Yunus administration has proceeded at a lethargic pace. Reports to revitalize the bureaucracy lie unattended. Democratic reforms have been slow, and activists fear that religious fundamentalists will impose their will to roll back women’s rights if the once-outlawed Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami significantly increases its seats in the parliament and becomes influential in the new elected government.
Women’s empowerment has been an achievement of successive Bangladeshi governments, and the country abounds with organizations that have championed women’s rights. Female literacy is on the rise, and women’s labor force participation rate has increased compared with neighboring India. But those gains are at risk as fundamentalist parties such as Jamaat-e-Islami and organizations such as Hefazat-e-Islam flex their muscles. Members of Hefazat-e-Islam and other Islamists have already been protesting recommendations by a state body to give equal inheritance rights to women.
Jamaat-e-Islami has never won more than 13 percent of the popular vote in Bangladeshi elections, but it is becoming more popular, holding large public rallies. Meanwhile, members of Hefazat-e-Islam have marched in the streets calling for Islamic laws. These groups flaunt their bigotry and insist on gender norms that are at odds with Bangladeshi society.
Such political challenges are best addressed head-on by leaders with a political mandate. The officials in the interim government may mean well, but they lack legitimacy. They have also had to rely on law enforcement officials who are viewed with suspicion because of the violent suppression of students and protesters last year. Yunus’s main task was to steer the country toward elections, but because progress has been sluggish, anti-democratic forces are regrouping.
In the prevailing inertia, the BNP and the fundamentalist movements have begun to assert themselves. The BNP has allied with Jamaat-e-Islami in the past. Should the Awami League not be able to field candidates, it is unclear whether that alliance will hold. The National Citizen Party, formed by the student activists who rose against Hasina, might also be a force to reckon with. Elections are too far away to know for sure.
In the meantime, score-settling is taking over. Several intellectuals, lawyers, and activists—many of whom are Awami League supporters and some of whom had campaigned for stern punishment of Islamist fundamentalists and others who had collaborated with Pakistani forces in the 1971 war—are now in jail. Some now face outrageous charges, including aiding genocide.
While the civil society leaders who have spoken out for human rights in the past but who stayed silent during the government’s violent response to the student protests need to be held accountable, jailing them under repressive laws undermines the interim government’s claim to turn a new leaf from Bangladesh’s culture of revenge-driven politics. The government seems powerless to stop the witch hunt and has contributed to it by detaining many people under grave charges. They include an actor and businesswoman, journalists, a leading politician, a filmmaker and human rights campaigner, academics, and senior editors.
Most of these people have been arrested on murder or attempted murder charges over cases of political violence, based on scant evidence drawn from “first information reports” or complaints filed by those injured during violent acts during the protests or in its aftermath or their relatives. Some of those arrested are seen as beneficiaries of Awami rule. Prosecutors have argued against granting the detainees bail, and the courts have complied. Such arbitrary arrests were the hallmark of Awami League rule; they are now appearing in another form.
It is widely accepted that law enforcement authorities killed at least 800 people during last year’s protests, and it is quite possible that some officials affiliated with the Awami League were involved. But there is little credible evidence to suggest that all the individuals now in jail are implicated in the violence. Their only crime seems to be that they supported Hasina’s party.
The regression in human rights in Bangladesh is one of the cruelest ironies of the post-Hasina era. During her rule, the infamous Rapid Action Battalion and other security agencies were responsible for hundreds of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and arbitrary detentions. The new government pledged to reform these institutions and hold perpetrators accountable.
As Mahfuz Anam, the editor of the Daily Star, asked recently: “We repeat, we have successfully destroyed Hasina’s power-monopolising and freedom-stifling regime. But what have we replaced it with?”
The tragedy of Bangladesh’s current situation is that the political divide is Manichaean. People are sympathetic only to their own cause. So, Awami League supporters are appalled that statues of Mujib, Hasina’s father, have been toppled and his home burned but have little to say about the hundreds of people who were killed last year. The Awami League’s opponents only speak of those deaths and are unwilling to acknowledge the grievous harm done to Bangladesh’s history, in seeking to erase Mujib or his legacy.
Bangladesh needs to move beyond its retributive cycle; yesterday’s victims must not become today’s perpetrators. Justice, not revenge, should be the guiding principle.
Nothing would please Yunus more than to shift the focus to less contentious issues, such as economics. Encouraged by the stability he speaks about, multilateral lending agencies have resumed loans to Bangladesh. Inflation has fallen in the past year from nearly 12 percent to below 9 percent. But U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20 percent tariffs, which are set to go into effect on Aug. 7, will hurt Bangladesh’s garment exports, about a fifth of which go to the United States.
Worsening relations with India also present a problem for trade. During Hasina’s rule, Bangladesh enjoyed a warm relationship with India. The longtime leader’s fall presented a quandary for New Delhi, which quickly raised concerns with Dhaka about threats to Bangladesh’s Hindu minority. Some revenge-seeking groups attacked Hindu property in the days after Hasina fled, and the attacks had as much to do with religion as the perception that Hindus had largely backed the Awami League. Regardless, that is no justification for persecuting a minority. The moderates who hoped to foster a pluralistic and secular Bangladesh now find themselves on the defensive. Yunus has reached out to China and Pakistan for friendship, which neither India nor the United States will view kindly.
The toughest task for Yunus is to get Bangladesh’s political parties to agree to ground rules and an election timeline. Political parties are multiplying, and the myopic ban on the Awami League could end up turning the former ruling party into a martyr. There is still a reservoir of support for the Awami League, even if it is less visible, and preventing the party from contesting elections could hand Bangladesh on a platter to corrupt or fundamentalist forces. Voters should decide how much the Awami League should be punished. Encouraging younger supporters of the party who may wish to make a clean break with the Hasina years to be politically active would be the right step for the Yunus administration, but it is not possible if the party is deregistered and stays banned.
The future need not be bleak. Bangladesh’s main virtue is that the country operates in spite of its government and not because of it due to its vibrant civil society. Its resourceful people know how to survive and thrive. The road ahead for Bangladesh is full of challenges. The hopes that were kindled last July may have dimmed, but they have not been extinguished. The dream of a democratic renaissance will require more than the fall of an autocrat; it will demand a sustained commitment to rebuilding institutions, protecting rights of all, and fostering inclusive politics.
Until then, Bangladesh remains a nation in waiting—hovering between the shadows of its past and the fragile promise of a better future.