Dhaka: The revolutionary graffiti on the walls of Dhaka have not faded yet and television channels still occasionally play distressing visuals of young students who were felled by police bullets during the quota protests. On November 8, the rickshaw that had carried the bullet-riddled body of one of the protestors to hospital was sent for display at the July Revolution Museum.
But exactly three months since Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took charge as the chief adviser to the interim government in Bangladesh, audacious hope has been replaced by the first signs of scepticism even as the government, faced with an uncertain law and order situation and recalcitrant inflation, is feeling the heat.
On a question about inflation on the news channel News24, Mohammad Abul Kalam Azad Majumder, deputy press secretary to Yunus, said: “We are working on it and nobody can doubt our intent and earnestness. We are looking for ways to cut out middlemen so that consumers can benefit.”
The interim government has said at multiple fora that the fact that they have been able to repay debts without dipping into the reserves is one metric of their success. They are also wearing the “no corruption” badge on their sleeves.
On the streets, disillusionment is just kicking in about the high rates of inflation; rumour mills are also working overtime, speculating about another political upheaval in the country on the back of Donald Trump’s re-election as US president.
Says Saidul Islam, who has a saree shop in Banarasi Pally in Mirpur: “I do not know what is happening to the country. I had taken to the streets to protest too and when Yunus arrived, I was hopeful. But now what it has come to is we are trying to hide behind him and hoping that our creditors will not ask for their money back. When Hasina left I was happy. But look where we are. Everyday, vegetable prices are through the roof.
“In India you pay Rs 10-15 for a piece of cauliflower. We pay Tk 100 [Rs 70.6]. Even pumpkins and radishes cost close to Tk 100 per kg. We used to buy eggs for Tk 120 per dozen; now we are paying Tk 160. I am beginning to think ‘yes she was corrupt, but at least our lives were better’. It is a Friday and normally I have customers queueing up outside my shop. Today there is nobody. Now I am hearing Hasina may come back because she is friends with Trump.” Latest government figures peg food inflation at 12.66%.
It so happens that days after Trump was declared the US president-elect, Awami League supporters who had been mostly under the radar for the last three months started circulating an invitation on social media for a meeting on November 10. They were eventually thwarted by student organisations and political parties.
The invitation, which did not mention the Awami League, says below the date: “Representatives of international media including the BBC, CNN, TRT World, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle [and the] Telegraph will be present. Army and police will not create any trouble. Anyway, they are under pressure internationally. Everybody can come without fear.”
The government retaliated immediately with statements on social media saying that no “fascist party” would be allowed to hold protests in Bangladesh. But Awami League supporters now have a spring in their step that had been missing all this while.
There is an element of uncertainty not just about when the next election will happen, but also about whether it will be an organic process or if it will precipitate more unrest.
Also read: Bangladesh Must Now Face Up to the Risk of Democracy
The government’s ability to get things done is constantly called into question with a slightly derisive “NGO government” tag. In an interview to the news channel Ekattor, environment and forests adviser Syeda Rizwana Hasan said: “What is the harm in being an ‘NGO government’ if we can give this country what the ‘GO government’ could not?”
But Dhaka is by no means a city on the boil as many reports seem to suggest. The city is going about its business as usual, but there is an element of insecurity.
In the wake of the protests, policemen have been at the receiving end of public ire for their role in the killing of young protesters. This has caused the force to avoid many of its key functions, including traffic management, making Dhaka’s normal traffic congestion far worse. Citizens feel unsafe and businessmen also feel the impact of this insecurity as they blame recurrent worker unrest on antisocial elements.
There is distrust and disappointment with India, and the portrayal of Bangladesh in large sections of the Indian media has caused outrage. Attempts at conversation, particularly with Dhaka’s elite, will occasionally be thwarted by the question: “How do I know you are not RAW?” The Research and Analysis Wing is India’s foreign intelligence agency.
A city in the making
From towering skyrises to multi-level roads and the newly inaugurated Dhaka Metro, the capital of Bangladesh is a city under construction. The elevated expressway that has drastically cut travel time to and from the airport is a matter of great pride among residents. The third terminal of the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport is also expected to open in the coming months.
Behind closed doors, the credit for transforming Dhaka into a modern and international city is generously given to Sheikh Hasina, but always with the proviso that corruption levels had become unacceptable and the way the last elections in the country were conducted was the last straw.
“She had vision, she transformed the city. Look at this 300-foot road that we are driving on. It was her idea. It is true that corruption levels were very high, but I would still say she was the victim of a conspiracy that she failed to detect,” says a businessman who did not want to be quoted.
Others cite the example of the Mirpur and Kazipara metro stations that had been damaged during the July-August protests to underline the level of corruption. The managing director of the Dhaka Metro had said that the damage would cost Tk 300 crore to repair. Eventually it took less than Tk 20 crore.
Bangladesh’s biggest foreign exchange earner, the country’s readymade garments (RMG) sector, is seeing continued tremors of an essentially political nature, as worker unrest resurfaces and government sources blame owners’ political affiliations for these disturbances.
A senior government official says: “The RMG sector of Bangladesh remains competitive across the world. Export increased 7% year-on-year in September after the July-August uprising. So you can imagine how robust the sector is. August was admittedly topsy-turvy; in some places police were not on duty. Things stabilised in September.
“The unrest in some factories is because of the political connections their owners harboured with the previous regime. Because of those connections, they got cheap loans to run the factory and they were not competitive at all. They had productivity issues.”
Owners on their part say the unrest is a sign of the government’s lack of a handle on the law and order situation in the country. There are murmurs also of some sections of the police owing allegiance to the deposed government, the one that government spokespersons and sundry media channels have now taken to calling the ‘fascist government’.”
In Photos: Dhaka in a ‘New’ Bangladesh
Eye on elections
All traces of the Awami League have been wiped from the streets of Dhaka, even though the interim government has clarified that it is not in favour of a ban against the party, which had been in power since 2009 – a year that many say was when the last free and fair elections happened in the country.
The streets are plastered with posters of Zia Ur Rahman – the founder of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and of his son Tariq Rahman, who is currently based in London.
The BNP took out a rally on November 7, which is observed as National Revolution and Solidarity Day. It is seeking elections soon but is not ready to take to the streets yet with that demand. It has also made it clear that it does not want any political party to be banned.
BNP leader and former minister Gayaswar Roy says: “We want elections, but we do not want the people to say that we are greedy. On the reforms our position is very clear; whatever reforms the interim government can build consensus on, they can do. If that is not achieved, then they have to leave that work for the elected government.”
There is also hope for early elections given the importance an elected government would hold for Washington, even if a Trump government may be less friendly to Dhaka than the Democrats.
There is also the heightened activity of the recently unbanned Jamaat-e-Islami on the streets of Dhaka, even though political observers say they may not have that wide a voter base in order to become a potent political force when elections do take place.
“The people of Bangladesh are God-fearing; they are not blinded by religion. That is why this country can never have a fundamentalist government,” said a senior Bangladeshi politician.
Abantika Ghosh is a journalist and public policy professional. She was recently in Dhaka for a project.
