Four months earlier, in January, the Bangladesh military had installed a puppet technocrat government through a bloodless coup and declared a “state of emergency.” The junta’s emergency rules suspended parts of the Constitution, made any criticism of the government or the military a punishable offense, put a blanket ban on political activity, and sharply curtailed press freedom. The military intervention brought an end to gruesome street-battles between two feuding political camps led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Awami League, and at first many Bangladeshis welcomed the de facto coup.

But skyrocketing prices, a devastated economy and rampant human rights abuses have changed their minds. Over the past year, the military has set up torture and detention facilities across the country and targeted political parties with an “anti-corruption” witch hunt that saw the arrests of more than 400,000 people, including two former prime ministers who lead the two biggest political parties.

The military intelligence agency, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, or DGFI, which remains the driving force behind the de facto military rule, led a campaign to establish control over civil and political affairs, carrying out overt and covert operations against opposition parties and members of the media.

After my arrest, I was taken to a torture facility set up by the directorate inside its Dhaka headquarters. Thus began my 22-hour ride on the torture train, as my captors — high- and mid-level DGFI officers — tortured me, interrogated me and forced me to sign false confessions. I was questioned at length about my work as an editor for the Dhaka-based Daily Star newspaper, as a news representative for CNN in Bangladesh, and as a consultant researcher for Human Rights Watch.

In all these jobs, I obviously talked too much. As a journalist, I reported and commented on extra-judicial executions and torture by the Rapid Action Battalion, a paramilitary force; persecution of Ahmadiya Muslims (a heterodox sect of Islam) by extremist-Islamist groups with the active patronage of intelligence agencies; military repression in the region known as the Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeaster Bangladesh; and, perhaps most dangerous, sponsorship and patronage of Jihadist outfits by the DGFI and the National Security Intelligence agency. As a consultant for Human Rights Watch, I documented Bangladesh military involvement in extra-judicial executions and torture, systematic curtailment of press freedom, and rampant human rights violations carried out by the security forces under the “state of emergency.”

So I became a target for a junta that considered itself above criticism, even above the law. The military labeled me an “enemy of the state.” In the torture chamber, five or six DGFI officers took part in nightmarish torture sessions, using batons, boots and fists to inflict serious injuries on me. I saw sophisticated torture equipment. When I was moved out of a soundproof torture chamber, I could hear other detainees, locked inside cells, screaming and moaning in pain. I was forced to record false confessional statements on paper and video, admitting to imaginary terrorist, treasonous acts, and implicating my friends, associates and colleagues. Only when I fell sick from the torture were my blindfold and handcuffs taken off — briefly. I was constantly humiliated, exposed to obscene verbal abuse and racial slurs. My captors kept threatening me with extra-judicial execution.

News of my arrest sparked an outcry. I was fortunate that CNN, The Daily Star and Human Rights Watch stood by me and worked to secure my freedom. A network of bloggers and activists engineered a global campaign demanding my release. Foreign governments lobbied the Bangladeshi authorities. Within 24 hours of my detention, in an unprecedented move, the DGFI set me free. I went into hiding with my family. Eventually, we were allowed to fly out of the country and found a refuge in Sweden, where the authorities offered us political asylum.

I was not the first or last person marched into a torture chamber in Bangladesh. But I have the opportunity to detail my survival, while hundreds, if not thousands of stories relating to inhuman torture and Kafkaesque detentions in Bangladesh remain untold.

I am tempted to remind foreign governments that the abuses happening in Bangladesh in the name of “reform” and “anti-corruption” are possible thanks to their complicity and complacence. The support of donors like the United States and Britain, eager to address political paralysis and corruption but naïve about our history with military governments, has been crucial in providing legitimacy to an illegal, unconstitutional arrangement. Supporting a monster to kill a demon might work for computer gamers, but in politics and diplomacy it is usually disastrous.

It is time for Bangladesh’s friends in the United States, Britain, and European Union to support our struggle for democracy and pressure the military to end its “state of emergency” and declare an early date for free and fair elections. Military torture centers should be shut down and extra-judicial executions ended. And every perpetrator of human rights violations should be prosecuted and punished. No one else should experience what I went through.

And this piece of information is not from the nightmare I had last night that largely dealt with an editor who drank fifteen liters of laxative. My source, as a matter of fact, can be best described with the phrase “horse’s mouth” or the very next thing to it: mouthpiece of the military, staunchly pro-government, Bengali daily Amader Shomoy, itself.

Without further ado, a quick translation of the Amader Shomoy lead story [Monday, December 17, 2007].

Iajuddin to leave post before elections: Army chief Moeen may become the new president

Azahar Ali Sarkar: President Professor Iajuddin Ahmed may leave his post at his own will before the parliament elections. Army chief General Moeen U Ahmed may become the new president. Before taking oath as the president, General Moeen U Ahmed will step down as army chief. However, though he will leave the post of army chief, he will remain serving as the supreme commander of the military forces, as the president. On top of that, the new president will have more power. The new president will have the power to sack an elected prime minister, his/her cabinet and to dissolve the parliament. All of these are from different sources.

According to sources, from the beginning of the new year, different business groups, professional organizations and political parties will start demanding that Moeen become the president. The demand may gain even more momentum by March. In that context and in a special situation, in the interest of the country and its people, the army chief may take over presidency.

Sources also inform: politicians, businessmen and general public believe that a free and fair parliamentary election is not possible under President Iajuddin Ahmed. Because, before Fakhruddin Ahmed, as the chief adviser of the caretaker government Iajuddin Ahmed took some controversial steps. For those reasons, his acceptability as a president had suffered among the people.

On the other hand, in different seminars and meetings General Moeen has repeatedly confirmed that personally he has no such ambitious hope. Even he doesn’t know of any armed forces member who has such ambition. But to help the civil administration and to protect peace and sovereignty of the country, armed forces remain determined to carry out any greater duty. According to constitution experts, the president, due to in sight events, may take reference from the Supreme Court to appoint a temporary president following due legal procedure as stated in clause 106 of the constitution. But in this case, this has to be endorsed by majority MPs in the next parliament session.

Constitution analysts also observe, the Supreme Court has advisory authority over any crucial issue concerning the people of the state. If at any point of time, the president feels that a legal question involving such a crucial issue has come up or has the chance to come, and is so important that advise from the Supreme Court is necessary, then he can send it to the Appellate Division for consideration. This division then can advise the president and comment on this issue after proper proceedings and hearings. Based on this, the president can take the decision by himself and if needed he can even appoint a temporary president, analysts claim.

According to intelligence agencies, family and other sources, President Iazuddin Ahmed wants to resume teaching before next election. He himself doesn’t want to hold the post. He has already been requested by several reputed universities in home and abroad to teach in their institutions. Though he is more interested in running a university established by him. Aiming that he already took all preparations to run a university in Dhaka.

[Emphasis added.]

Now, going back to Islamabad, historians at BBC have recorded the adventures of General Pervez Musharraf, arranged in a chronological order. Money picks.

1999 October — Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif overthrown in military coup led by General Pervez Musharraf…

…

2000 December — Nawaz Sharif goes into exile in Saudi Arabia after being pardoned by military authorities.

2001 20 June — General Pervez Musharraf names himself president while remaining head of the army. He replaced the figurehead president, Rafiq Tarar, who vacated his position earlier in the day after the parliament that elected him was dissolved.

…

2002 January — Musharraf announces that elections will be held in October 2002 to end three years of military rule.

…

2002 August — President Musharraf grants himself sweeping new powers, including the right to dismiss an elected parliament. Opposition forces accuse Musharraf of perpetuating dictatorship.

2002 October — First general election since the 1999 military coup results in a hung parliament. Parties haggle over the make-up of a coalition. Religious parties fare better than expected.

…

2004 April — Parliament approves creation of military-led National Security Council. Move institutionalises role of armed forces in civilian affairs.

…

2004 December — President Musharraf says he will stay on as head of the army having previously promised to relinquish the role.

So here, we have a general: present and future. One eventful evening he and his army takes over a corruption engulfed South Asian country in a bloodless coup. It comes amidst a rising fear of rampant Islamist militancy and is backed by international actors and supported by a section of the “civil society.” The general appoints a former World Bank member to head a cabinet hand-picked by the military HQ. Attempts to exile one former prime minister to Saudi Arabia and another to US follow. The army employs a formula to remove two top leaders — icons of bitter rivalry — from the political scene. The military-led interim government promises elections next October. Preparations taken for the establishment of a “National Security Council.” Key national institutions are taken over by former army officers, militarized. The military is set to facilitate the formation a new political party led by a section of the “civil society.” To reap benefits of the vacuum created, major Islamist parties gear up to become the main opposition in the country.

And you are thinking, I am talking about Pervez Musharraf. I am talking about General Moeen U Ahmed and the undeclared martial law in Bangladesh. Well, if you are still eager for a “Pakistan link,” General Moeen is indeed a graduate of PAF Public School, Sargodha — a military school in Pakistan. Did two generals read the same history book? Hmm… good question.

Anyway, if things go as planned, as I said, sometime in 2008, General Moeen U Ahmed — a military dictator, a bank robber — will become the president of Bangladesh.

Not surprising, at all, given what he told BBC in April.

Bangladesh’s army chief says the country should not go back to being run by an “elective democracy.” He said democracy in Bangladesh had so far led to corruption, rights violations and criminalisation threatening the state’s survival.

Not surprising, given the advocacy by the general — presiding over a darbar of other pro-Jamaat-e-Islam/Islamist generals — for “a new brand of democracy.”

I reckon Bangladesh will have to construct its own brand of democracy, recognising its social, historical and cultural conditions, with religion being one of several components of its national identity.

Not surprising, given the blessing for the junta from the “leader of the free world.”

US President George W Bush has lauded a drive in Bangladesh against corruption and terrorism as the country’s army-backed interim government prepares to hold a general election late next year.

Not surprising, given the fact that in 11 months Bangladesh has already turned into a hellhole.

– Fundamental rights suspended.
– Extra-judicial murders.
– Mass torture.
– Crackdown on press freedom.
– Mindless eviction.
– Ban on “politics.”

And if that is not enough, I will take the burden of issuing a prophecy on what the future holds for Bangladesh. Well, not really, because Brad Adams — Asia Director of Human Rights Watch — has already done that, written a preview. As a matter of fact, that was written on October 10, 2003.

Pervez Musharraf’s four-year rule in Pakistan has led to serious human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch charged today in a letter to the Pakistani president. On the fourth anniversary of the military coup that brought General Musharraf to power, Human Rights Watch called on him to immediately return the country to constitutional rule.

Human Rights Watch pointed out in its letter that military agencies have frequently tortured and harassed political opponents, critical journalists, and former government officials. The past four years have also seen a rise in activity by extremist religious groups and an increase in sectarian killings in Pakistan, in part due to the Musharraf government’s policy of marginalizing mainstream opposition political groups. Opposition legislators have told Human Rights Watch they have been beaten, harassed and subjected to blackmail for opposing Musharraf’s policies.

“In Pakistan, the judiciary has been emasculated, political parties rendered powerless, and extremist and sectarian religious parties strengthened under Musharraf’s rule,” said Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division. “General Musharraf should transfer power to a legitimate government now.”

…

The growing influence of extremist religious elements has impinged on the rights of women and religious minorities. Laws regarding rape and honor killings still discriminate against women. The number of blasphemy cases registered has risen while discrimination and persecution on grounds of religion persist.

……………

We all need to take a pause… and think… do we really want to see another junta strangling democracy and people’s struggle in yet another country, watch helplessly when yet another military monster feasts on people’s blood. How many Asma Jahangirs will be kicked behind the bars while Motiur Rahman Nizamis will roam around free? Can we handle one more Pervez Musharraf or Than Shew? If not… then… an abortion is of absolute urgency, in Bangladesh.

……………

As I am writing this, Bangladesh celebrated its Victory Day, on December 16. Someone left a comment in a blog.

Bengalis are fortunate to get liberation from this brutal army, we are not *sigh* — A Pakistani. December 16, 2007.

Are we really… liberated from the brutal army?

Arnold Zeitlin — Visiting Professor, Department of Journalism, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies — recently circulated an email detailing his recent visit to Dhaka, that summarizes and analyzes a lot for many of the uninitiated in the Bangladesh story. Republished in a slightly edited form, with permission from the author.

……………

I am in Dhaka, Bangladesh, for four days to attend the wedding festivities of Maneeza Hossain, the daughter of my long-time Bengali friend, Anwar Hossain Manju, owner of one of the largest Begali-language daily newspapers in the country and a former minister and parliament member for more than 20 years. I came not only because of the wedding, as happy an occasion as it has been, but the occasion presented an opportunity to see many friends in a short time and get an idea of what is going on in the country.

As usual, Bangladesh is in a parlous, if somewhat indifferent state, as the result of an odd, behind-the-scenes martial law coup imposed when the country’s caretaker president declared a state of emergency after a political deadlock prevented national parliamentary elections in January.

The top figure in the country is a civilian known as the chief advisor to the reconstituted caretaker government, also described as the interim government. Behind closed doors, according to common knowledge, sits the army commander in chief. To many, how this arrangement works is a mystery.

“We do not know who is calling the shots,” one of my friends, a senior minister in Khaleda’s government who has held high posts in other regimes, told me at breakfast. I was astonished. If he does not know, who does?

I was told that under the commander in chief, who apparently occupies no position in this quirky, mirky martial law regime, sit five brigadiers making decisions. No, someone else told me, it was the colonels, without whose commands the troops in the field would not move. “It is the majors,” a third party insisted.

Whoever is making the decisions; it was the army who called Bangladesh’s United Nations representative back to sit in the caretaker government as advisor on foreign affairs. A retired foreign secretary told me that.

When the New Age daily newspaper printed a story about military phone taps that military did not like, the army called the reporter who signed the story and ordered him to report to military headquarters. When the reporter told his editor, Nurul Kabir, Kabir ordered him not to go.

When an army major called Kabir and ordered him to appear with the reporter, Kabir countered with an invitation for the major to stop around the New Age office any time for a chat.

Then a colonel ordered Kabir and reporter to appear. Kabir was reminded that since the state of emergency had withdrawn constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights, he could be arrested and brought (presumably in chains) to headquarters. Kabir said he responded with the same invitation to the colonel.

The colonel then explained politely that he had some things to show Kabir and bringing them to his office would be awkward. So, Kabir went, withstood two hours of lecturing, then returned to his office and banged out a half-page article headlined “…the right to say no,” which in the time honored tradition of Bengali intellectuals he started with a quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche:

I understand by “freedom of spirit” something quite definite — the unconditional will to say NO, where it is dangerous to say NO.

Kabir still sits in his office untouched but knowing without doubt the army calls the shots and this subterranean martial law acts softly, the big stick so far unwielded. He and many others wonder why the need to scrub fundamental rights. As he stated in his article:

Questionable is the proposition that suppressing the fundamental rights of millions of people is the prerequisite to the streamlining of the corruption-ridden politics, anti-people bureaucracy, anarchic economy and obscurantist education, etc… but the rulers, particularly those who are not the product of a sound process of democratic polity [A reference to the military, of course: My insertion] always love to believe that they can do without the consent of the people…

In the manner of military regimes that take office by force, the interim or caretaker government has been aloof. Although it is committed to creating election reform, it so far has not consulted the public or with the major political parties. Partly as a result, the two political parties have started at a low level to talk to each other, although Khaleda Zia, leader of the BNP, the last prime minister, and Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami League, prime minister before Khaleda, hate each other, an affair that has deadlocked Bangladesh politics for 16 years. They last agreed to 1991 when they joined forces in the streets to oust the military ruler, General Ershad, in a people’s power uprising.

At any rate, some Bangladeshis insist the new united nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon gave his assent to the military role because the military came to him beforehand. The Bangladeshi army enjoys a profitable status as a supplier of peacekeeping troops, up to 13,000 forces, to the United Nations. Its leaders felt their status would be damaged and profits lost if it openly declared a military coup.

As one politician from the opposition Awami League political party explained to me, common soldiers get a bonus equivalent to $100-$200 after three years service as a peacekeeper. Officers get up to $400. Officers are carefully rotated so as many as possible get a shot at the money. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the figures.

Issues such as an electoral roll that evidently had millions of false or outdated names led to the election deadlock. The Awami League charged that in handing over the government to a caretaker before the election — as mandated by the constitution as a measure to rule out favoritism by the government in power — the ruling Bangladesh National Party (BNP) made sure the caretaker president and the election commission agents in the field were its pocket. The Awami League eventually put up candidates, although it felt the system guaranteed it would lose a rigged vote. It then withdrew from the campaign in the absence of reform.

A key figure in the BNP government insisted that election lists, election commissions and field agents do not decide an election. The voters decided, he said. He pointed out the BNP held power in the 1996 election, and the Awami League won. In 2001, the AL held power when it handed over to the caretaker, and the BNP won. I remember covering the 1991 election won for the first time by the BNP. Sheikh Hasina was stunned that she could lose and insisted fraud won for the BNP.

Elections in Bangladesh often are circuses of vote buying and candidate and voter intimidation by party goons who occasionally kill. They also, said my friend, are festive times. “Bangladeshis love elections,” he said.

The task of compiling a legitimate, updated election list is a major priority that seems easily achievable for the interim government. On the proclaiming of the emergency, the caretaker also took on the issue of corruption, which is widespread in Bangladesh. Usually ignoring the corrupt nature of American politics, the sheer volume of which involves more money than everywhere in the world combined, Transparency International, a Berlin-based organization the news media loves to quote, has proclaimed Bangladesh number one on its list of corrupt states.

The government has frozen bank accounts, threatened to withdraw passports to prevent tax evaders from fleeing the country and generally made a lot of people uncomfortable. The daily newspapers are filled with accounts of this or that politician or businessman being raided or having an SUV (always described as “luxurious”) seized. One politician was charged with having a false license plate on his vehicle, another keeping in his home sheets of roofing tin to be used for relief operations, hardly the kind of corruption that has siphoned millions if not billions from the public.

The corruption search benefits from the suppression of fundamental rights (searches are warrant-less, arrests and seizures of property are arbitrary) and has been popular. It seems also to delay the effort to produce a fairer election scenario with new voter lists, perhaps ID cards for voters, more careful regulation of party agents, etc. Parties and many others are growing restive about the government not declaring a new date for election.

The corruption search so far has been small time, although a few big political names have been involved, including Saifur Rahman, a former finance minister who has been active internationally on Bangladesh’s behalf, Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, a powerful, well connected but disliked by many, advisor to the last prime minister, Khaleda, and her political secretary, Haris Chowdhury (no relation; half the Bangladesh population is named Chowdhury). The last two have been arrested.

I once had dinner with Haris, who came to my friend Manju’s house, with his chum, Tarique Rahman, the son of Khaleda, a figure who held no public office but was the prince-ling, the most powerful person in the BNP next to his mother. He has been laying low. Many are waiting for his arrest, partly as evidence of the creditability of the caretaker’s intentions to root out corruption.

The arrest of Tarique would bolster the popularity of the caretaker and perhaps mask the impatience for setting a new election date. In fact, circling tantalizingly around the entire issue is the position of Khaleda and, to a lesser extent, Hasina. People speak openly of getting them both out of the country. Getting the proof of corruption on these figures, as well as anyone else caught in the net, would be difficult to show convincingly in court. That is a circumstance that could undermine the caretaker’s efforts to root out corruption in a society that has been corrupt from independence in 1972.

When I showed one of my friends in BNP a story full of anonymous sources and musings in the local English The Daily Star about senior BNP leaders split with Khaleda over their advice that she own up to mistakes and clean up the party, he said it was not news. “We’ve been telling her that for five years,” he said.

However, the interim regime has been cautious to a fault. In a list of 50 figures whose bank accounts were frozen, 23 of those listed with political party affiliations were from the BNP, 21 from the Awami League, although the BNP has been in power 10 of the past 15 years, twice the time of the AL. Someone carefully balanced the list.

Coming to Bangladesh as I do, from time to time, it is discouraging to see the signs of great wealth in Dhaka, the tall, glass-lined towers that clutter Dhaka and make the city a monument to black money, against the background of abject poverty, the tens if not hundreds of thousands of ragged bicycle rickshaw pullers who scratch out subsistence working every day for pennies as their fathers or even grandfathers did when I first came to Dhaka in 1969. The Daily Star estimated 85,000 registered rickshaws cluttered the roads, with, perhaps another 400,000-500,000 more unregistered. With an estimate of three pullers to each rickshaw working in shifts, Manju said, imagine someone able to organize the anger or desperation of these more than one million pullers in Dhaka as well as those who labor outside the capital.

By the way, that some one is unlikely to be Muhammad Yunus, the presiding genius of the Grameen Bank micro-credit scheme who has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to give the poor, mostly women, small loans (at high interest) to start businesses and lift themselves from poverty. He has announced he will start a political party. Hardly striking terror into the hearts of hardened if sidelined Bengali politicians, he has become the target of derision and criticism.

I found no one who took him seriously as a political force. In discussing a new book that researched the impact if micro-credit, another friend, Rehman Sobhan, for four decades one of the country’s most influential economists and thinkers, declared the borrowing money cannot solve the problem of poverty. A survey reported in the book of 2,501 rural borrowers at effective interest rates of 27 to 31 percent claimed 39 percent were unsure of any change in their access to food and 70 percent had no access to better medical care.

Manju and I, with his new son in law, Hasan, a Lebanese, and an older one, Imtiaz, drove the 30 kilometres from Dhaka to Manju’s rural retreat near an area called Savar. All along the way were the remains of shacks and shanties that had been torn down ruthlessly by the caretaker regime in a drive to rid the country of illegal structures. Many had been the homes of poor people, many of who now lived under tarpaulin and blankets in makeshift shelters along the roadside. Manju, who built the road when he was communications minister in the Ershad and Hasina governments, said he always had been bothered by these structures but he never did anything about them because he worried about where those who lived in them would go. They were now torn down without regard to where those sheltered by them would go.

Bangladesh is replete in illegal structures, some as tall as 20 or more stories, many luxury buildings in Dhaka erected illegally on protected wetlands. While some action is being taken delicately in the direction of these more expensive structures, it appears to the faux military regime easier to take out their dictum against illegal structures on the poor.

Editor Nurul Kabir said the drive has continued all over the country, alienating the poor. He said the interim government has alienated both the poor and the very rich. That same drive up to Savar and back in the same day demonstrated another aspect of Bangladesh that receives less notice but is a surprising facet of the country’s condition. Factories, textiles, electronics among others, have sprung up all along the already crowded roadside, noticeably more than the last time I travelled that road in May 2005. A garish amusement park with a giant ferries wheel, erected by the builder of luxury towers in Dhaka, is a centrepiece in one trading town.

Bangladesh curiously prospers in some sectors. A friend I met last in 2004 was then building his second garment factory to fill orders in his markets in Ireland the Britain. This was in the face of predictions then that the end of quotas which had protected Bangladesh’s garment export trade were ending, leaving Bangladesh and other poor garment-producing countries to fend off competition from rising China. My friend’s factory not only has prospered, he is building a bigger one, 120,000 square feet, to provide him the wherewithal to enter the American market.

At the wedding festivities, I met Manju’s son in law, Imtiaz, who returned a couple of years ago to live in Dhaka with Manju’s daughter, Tareen. He gave up a six-figure job at Goldman Sachs and a New York apartment to make the move. He said after some adjustment he thrived in the textile business and is now excited at the prospect of building a factory to make plastic piping for the first time in Bangladesh.

At the same occasion, I met the son of the minister of education in Khaleda’s most recent government, a man who left a luxurious McLean, Virginia, home that I had visited, after 30 rich years as a World Bank executive, to return to politics in Bangladesh. The son grew up in northern Virginia, attended Langley High School but has returned to Bangladesh to be with his parents. He, too, was excited by the business prospects he finds in his somewhat unaccustomed homeland.

Like him was a Bengali economist who has worked for years in Washington for the IMF. He wants to leave his wooded home in Great Falls, Virginia, and his $150,000 a year job, to start an economic think-tank in Bangladesh that he estimates will pay him no more than $7,000 a year.

More people like them see Bangladesh as a land of opportunity. Their experience was an eye opener to someone who has seen intelligent Chinese decide over the past six years to remain in the United States because they had no incentives to return to their homeland.

My short time has been informative and refreshing. Bangladesh has no role other than on the margins of globalization, perhaps not even that in the likelihood no solution is found to political deadlock and corruption and present problems fade away to be replaced by even more urgent problems. Elections alone cannot resolve Bangladesh’s circumstances.

But, in 1971, one finger that rose in admonishment of these entrenched powers was of the Sheikh. Throughout February-March, East Pakistan was virtually ruled by a leader with seven million people rallied behind him. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman emerged as a dot of difference on the world map.

In March, 1971, (sceptics please reread your history books) no bank transaction was cleared and not a single wheel moved without Sheikh Mujib’s nod, while politicians in Jinnah caps, the army and diplomats were driven out of the scene, at least for the month of rebellion. Nine months of struggle for liberation, somewhat symbolically led by the Sheikh, gave birth to Bangladesh — a secular, democratic, and non-aligned state.

It took about four more years for the combined powers that had been defeated in the liberation war to cook a plot, and hit back. On a bleak August morning thirty years ago, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was brutally assassinated. And in the following years, religion, military, and imperialism took the driving seat of Bangladeshi politics once again. Bangladesh, post-Mujib, took a bumpy flight away from its secular, socialist, democratic promises.

A country that earned its freedom fighting a fallacious notion of religious nationhood, soon became a country with a constitution proclaiming its faith in the Almighty. The military dictators who succeeded Mujib have made sure that religion plays a key role in Bangladeshi politics. Islam was to become the state religion and houses of worship became the Friday offices of a President. In the recent past, we have even witnessed how headscarves can be used as election tools. As I am writing this, religious extremism and sectarian persecution are building to new heights with Jihadist outfits mushrooming around the country.

Bangladesh, post-Mujib, became a helpless population ruled for decades by the generals in khaki. Military rules that succeeded the Sheik’s assassination forced the country backwards and turned Bangladesh into a replica of Pakistan under Ayub or Yahiya. They were to lay the foundations for the nation to be perceived as “the most corrupted country” in the world. And they were to curtail freedom of press in its totality. Our days spent with the military rule can be labeled as our days of disgust and despair.

And then, there are ambassadors and high-commissioners who somehow manage to act like modern day viceroys in Bangladesh. Post-Mujib, Bangladesh was to become hostage at the hands of imperialist designs. Diplomats from Gulshan are now puppet-masters, while the Secretariat and Minto Road dances to their tune.

Sheikh was Allende (Chile), Mossadegh (Iran), and at the same time, as many of us keep on arguing, he was “a failed statesman” and “a leader who won the war but lost the peace.” As if post-Sheikh Bangladesh has been blessed with a parade of successful statesmen. Post-Sheikh, name one leader who outsized or outgrew or out-performed him. Anyone? None. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is the icon of Bangladesh’s fight against mullahism, military dictatorship, and imperialism.

On that fateful August morning this convergence of powerful interests struck back and brutally assassinated Mujib. They successfully took their revenge but one thing that is for sure — Mujib will outlive his assassins.