The banning of Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party while the nation is on the boil amid student-led protests about government job quotas that have morphed into something much larger has put the ruling Awami League on a razor’s edge.
The Awami League, which has been in continuous power for the last 15 years thanks to three consecutive controversial elections, has always portrayed Jamaat-e-Islami and its Bangladesh Islami Chhatrashibir student wing as political bogeymen.
Blaming Jamaat for episodic unrest has often allowed the Awami League to distract from its own flaws or to incite politically expedient communal tensions over the past decade. The strategy has helped create a strong stigma around the Islamist party.
To be sure, this stigma is partly of Jamaat’s own making. The party supported the Pakistani junta during Bangladesh’s liberation war and many of its top leaders were sentenced to death for their roles in crimes against humanity.
The punishments were handed down during the Awami League’s first of four consecutive terms, from 2009 to 2014. Although the trial process was controversial, Jamaat has never publicly apologized for its support of Pakistani oppressors during the 1971 liberation war.
Additionally, the party’s student wing, known in short as Shibir, has also been involved in significant and well-documented “heinous” activities, particularly in the country’s southeastern region, including the major port city of Chattogram.
These activities are often reported and sometimes exaggerated by mainstream media, especially under the Awami League’s rule.
However, the narrative of faulting Jamaat and Shibir for all of Bangladesh’s problems and ills has lost its effectiveness as the public has become increasingly skeptical of this now hackneyed storyline.
The timing of the ban on Jamaat is significant. Widespread protests are still shaking Bangladesh giving the Sheikh Hasina administration the biggest challenge of its 15-year tenure.
Instead of addressing the root causes of public dissatisfaction, including the erosion of democracy and voting rights, the Awami League government has blamed Jamaat and the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) for vandalism and arson attacks on state properties including the metro rail line.
As serious as the attacks on government property have been, focusing on economic loss rather than the over 200 lives lost – primarily students and ordinary people who were killed by live security force bullets – has put the government out of touch with public perceptions.
Public anger remains unresolved and even those who oppose Jamaat’s far-right politics and support secular rights now view the ban on the party as a “distraction” from the real issue, which they believe is holding the government accountable for what some are calling a “student genocide.“
Moreover, the ban is likely to have little impact on the Awami League’s domestic politics at this point.
Jamaat, which had a taste of political power during the BNP-led coalition government from 2001 to 2006, has been functioning largely as an underground organization since the Election Commission withdrew its registration 11 years ago after a Supreme Court ruling.
Many Jamaat and Shibir activists have already left the party to join other right-wing groups or even the Awami League, potentially to undermine the party from within, as some top Awami League leaders have suggested.
Some of these former Jamaat members have also established new political entities such as the Amar Bangladesh Party (AB Party).
The AB Party, which is a classic right-of-center European-style political organization with several leaders trained in England, aims to distance itself from Jamaat’s historical stigma by developing a modern right-wing political narrative.
Jamaat and Shibir leaders and activists will likely either create a new ultra-right-wing Islamist party or attempt to infiltrate existing parties, including the Awami League, in response to the ban.
However, forming a new party may be challenging due to the stringent registration process enforced by the subdued Election Commission.
With the Jamaat ban now in place, the ruling party is likely to escalate its repression and might label individuals – even those who are apolitical – as Jamaat-Shibir and subject them to legal harassment.
But what real benefit will an official ban provide, particularly at a time when the government’s own popularity wanes amid its brutal suppression of the student-led protest – the type of repression that South Asian history shows has the potential to spark regime change?
Faisal Mahmud is an award-winning journalist based in Dhaka. He is a recipient of Jefferson Fellowship and Konrad Adeneur Stiftung Fellowship.