Who Is Responsible for the Failure to Curb Covert Awami League Anarchy?

Stalin Sarkar

Chaos has suddenly begun on the streets over garment workers’ demand for higher pay. In the name of a movement, people are burning, breaking and setting fires. Responsible ministers of the government say the banned Awami League is creating this chaos in the name of workers. They also say some garment owners and a former state minister are behind the unrest.

The question is why banned Awami League leaders and activists get this chance under the banner of garment workers. Who created this situation? The ruling BNP and the opposition Jamaat point fingers at each other for making room for the “rehabilitation of the Awami League.” The leader of the opposition has said, “We have forgiven the Awami League.”

The prime minister’s advisers, ministers and state ministers have offered “reconciliation.” Some businessmen and industrialists announced three days before the July uprising of 2024 that they would keep Ms. Sheikh Hasina in power for life. They even said they would stay with her after death. Their agents now sit in key posts of the present government, while party leaders who suffered oppression for one and a half decades stay far from power.

Words like “reconciliation,” “forgiveness,” “a soft attitude toward the fascist Awami League” and “the bowing spirit of important people toward Delhi” have made Hasina’s oligarchs inside the country reckless. Ms. Hasina has announced, “I will return in December.” Since then, hidden Awami League leaders seem to be preparing the ground for her return by creating disorder under the banner of garment workers. BGMEA says 670 garment factories have already been shut.

Ms. Taslima Akhter, an influential garment workers’ leader and wife of State Minister Mr. Zonayed Saki, has warned the government. She said, “A wage board for garment workers has been formed. We must be careful that democratic demands and the garment workers’ movement are not pushed in a different direction.” It looks like an attempt to cut a canal and bring in a crocodile. The government and the opposition are busy throwing mud at each other.

It echoes the song of the Baul singer Mr. Abdur Rahman Boyati, which says, “You wound one key and left, and it keeps running all my life.” Ms. Hasina, who sits in Delhi and has been sentenced to death, has said she will return in December. Disorder has started in order to prepare the ground for that return. Yesterday, nearly a dozen leaders said there is a conspiracy behind the garment workers’ movement. They include the home minister, ministers, state ministers, the prime minister’s advisers, a political secretary, the BNP secretary general and the leader of the opposition.

Home Minister Mr. Salahuddin Ahmed said, “Garment owners who are involved in the politics of the Awami League, whose activities are banned, are also working behind the unrest. It is sad that some industry owners, former members of parliament and a former state minister are involved in the workers’ protests.” His realization sounds like the lines of the great poet Michael Madhusudan Dutta. In those lines Arindam says in sorrow, “Now I know how Lakshman entered the city of demons. Alas, father, is this act right for you?”

The Awami League holds one procession after another, yet the police stay silent. Fires are set on the streets and bad incidents happen. Still, the powerful ministers and state ministers act as if the government elected by the people can do nothing. Are they Anjuman Mofidul Islam, or is this the ghost inside the mustard seed? Does someone inside the government create room to revive the banned Awami League?

If not, why are law enforcers silent when intelligence says an owner, a former MP and a former state minister are involved in the protests? Ms. Hasina, the president of the Awami League, has announced she will return in December. It has caused sharp debate and tension in politics for many days. Political analysts and fugitive leaders of the party say on social media that the announcement may be a political trick to energize activists. Diplomatic and government sources say formal extradition from India is not easy and carries legal and regional complications.

Even so, most people linked to the Awami League are brainwashed in the Baksal spirit. Some of them would leap into fire like insects if Ms. Hasina gave the order. Gopalganj district is still under Awami League control, which proves it. There are allegations that even elected BNP MPs protect Awami cadres there. NCP leaders were beaten by Awami League leaders and had to return to Dhaka in an army vehicle.

A few days ago, the slogan “Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu” rose as the long march led by Jamaat passed through Gopalganj on its way to Khulna. So the effort to create chaos over Ms. Hasina’s December return is an open secret. Yet some responsible ministers have slept while awake all this time. Mr. Rashed Khan, political assistant to the prime minister, said, “Jamaat is heating up the streets, and the Awami League is entering the workers’ movement and setting fires.”

He said the chaos began after the Jamaat chief said at the long march, “We will smash everything of the government.” He asked whether Jamaat can avoid blame for this. The responsible people of the government may try to hide their failures by blaming others, but they cannot fool the people. Some timely decisions of the government stand beside some open failures. The whole world faces an economic crisis, and its waves have hit Bangladesh.

Even so, some important steps in power and energy have won praise. Those in charge could not publicize these positive works. The economic crisis continues from the past. Unemployment is rising because foreign investment is not coming. One garment factory after another is closing, and working people are losing jobs.

The fascist Awami League left the banks hollow. The responsible people of the government take no step to tell the public about these matters. They compete with each other in running a business of postings and transfers in the administration. Talk of crores of taka changing hands in postings and transfers has caused a storm of debate on social media. Officials who follow the fascist Awami League or the spirit of Delhi are placed in key posts if they pay.

Though this is a political government, everything now depends on bureaucrats, and they take advantage. The law and order situation is disastrous. Ministers and state ministers give more weight to bureaucrats than to party activists. The government is moving toward separation from the ruling party. Tested leaders and activists, from the center to the grassroots, are ignored.

Ms. Ferdousi Ahmed Bristi, a reserved seat MP and a tested member of the BNP family, was forced to resign after vandalism at Radda Hospital in Mirpur. The Election Commission declared her seat vacant within three hours of her resignation. Mr. Ishraq Hossain, a member of the BNP family, had to resign as state minister. He had run with a pistol in hand, by mistake, while trying to catch drug users in his constituency. In the administration, the opposite has happened.

Police Inspector General Mr. Ali Hossain Fakir announced, “We will do crossfire once we get the government’s order.” It caused sharp reaction, and people from all sides demanded his resignation. The prime minister’s adviser, several ministers and the BNP acting secretary general made the government’s position clear. They said, “The government does not believe in extrajudicial killings.” Even after speaking against the law and the government’s stand, Mr. Ali Hossain Fakir stays in his post.

Home Minister Mr. Salahuddin Ahmed even said, “The IGP is a simple man, so he spoke of crossfire.” The question is what this means. The political government has become more eager to protect bureaucrats than its own party. Yesterday, after meeting BGMEA and BKMEA leaders at the Secretariat, the home minister said the government sought help from factory owners. He said, “Some owners shut factories on purpose. We asked the owners’ leaders to give us a list of them.”

He added that the government also asked for names of labor leaders and groups involved in creating unrest. The Home Ministry and the police have named contact persons. He said, “We do not want any factory to close. Those who act against workers’ interests in the name of a workers’ movement will be dealt with firmly. No real worker is involved in this unrest.” The question is how many of the Awami League leaders and garment owners who are causing chaos on the streets under workers’ banners have been arrested.

But look at what the people saw on the streets. So called workers in Mirpur, Savar, Gazipur, Narayanganj and garment areas across the country are protesting for higher pay and allowances. The home minister says some garment owners and a former state minister are inciting the protests. Yet police were seen attacking workers in the style used to stop the July uprising of 2024. During that uprising, people saw the cruel act of police throwing bodies of protesters from police vehicles onto the road.

In the same way, protesting garment workers are now caught and thrown to the road in a brutal manner. Those scenes are spreading on social media. Is this brutality meant to make protesters more aggressive? Mr. Maruf Kamal Khan, a senior journalist who supports the BNP, has a statement that went viral on social media. He said, “As a BNP follower with long experience in journalism, I never saw one leader of the ruling Awami League sympathize with BNP.”

He continued, “Yet I now see many leaders of the ruling BNP sympathize with the Awami League.” His words make the picture inside the BNP clear. Thousands of Awami League leaders, including Ms. Sheikh Hasina, have fled since losing power. Efforts at home and abroad to restore a refined Awami League with so called clean image leaders have failed. The party shows not the slightest regret after the killing of 1,400 students and people.

Yet there is false sympathy for that same Awami League. The leader of the opposition has declared, “We have forgiven the Awami League.” Leaders of the ruling party, even the prime minister’s advisers and ministers, say they will give the Awami League justice. In the name of political reconciliation, they promise to settle disputes and rebuild friendly ties. Analysts say BNP ministers, state ministers, MPs and the prime minister’s political advisers raised reconciliation mainly because of their distance from leaders who suffered for 18 years.

Those leaders faced oppression on the streets under the fascist Awami League. Some spent years in jail, some stayed in hiding, and some slept on court verandas. Most of them found no place in government after the February election. Instead, people with no link to the party hold most key posts in the present government. Even the prime minister’s media cell has no place for senior journalists who support the party.

Most of those near the prime minister do not know the country’s journalists or party leaders, and the media cell is the same. So the BNP as a party is moving away from the government. There is more. After the prime minister’s Japan visit, a fault was found in his aircraft on the way home. It caused uproar in the country, yet the prime minister’s press wing did not seem to treat this sensitive and dangerous news as important.

After he returned, the press wing said he could have flown home on another plane after the fault. It said he did not leave other passengers behind at Narita airport and fly home alone. To them, that seems bigger news than the technical fault in the prime minister’s aircraft. Mr. Mahdi Amin, adviser to the prime minister on labor, employment, expatriate welfare and overseas employment, and spokesperson of his office, voiced concern over the chaos in the name of the garment workers’ movement. He said, “The plan of a banned political party to create instability by using the workers’ movement will not succeed.”

He continued, “Efforts by aides of the fallen dictator to turn workers’ wage demands in another direction through provocation and sabotage are not acceptable. Attacks and arson at factories and attacks on police vehicles and buildings go against workers’ interests. We already have evidence that fugitive evil forces are trying to use the workers’ movement to create unrest. If factories are damaged or closed, workers will suffer most, unemployment will rise and the economy will suffer.” He said those involved in sabotage will soon face the law.

He asked workers not to listen to confusion, rumors or provocation. He said this labor friendly government will always stand with workers for any reasonable right, given the garment sector and the wider reality. Dr. Shafiqur Rahman, chief of Jamaat, said a deep conspiracy may lie behind the unrest in the garment industry. He said, “The government must take a firm stand against those trying to destroy industries. About 600 factories have already been declared closed.”

He added, “We cannot rule out a deep conspiracy to destroy the opportunity the garment industry gets before winter.” While chaos goes on in the name of the workers’ movement, the ruling BNP and the opposition Jamaat blame each other sharply. They accuse each other of seeking the rehabilitation of the fascist Awami League and of a secret deal with the party. The BNP says Jamaat has made a secret political deal with the Awami League. Jamaat says the BNP’s top leaders are making the Awami League’s political rehabilitation easy by withdrawing cases. Analysts say both sides publicly vow to stop the Awami League’s return, but their blame game strengthens the Awami League’s oligarchs.