Boiling BD politics

Almost six months after fleeing Dhaka in the face of a popular uprising, former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina's reign of terror continues to eat away at the reputation of her father, Sheikh Mujeebur Rehman, who is widely considered the nation's founder. In true tinpot dictator fashion, Hasina, who has found refuge in India, recently gave a speech from the comfort of her adopted home, calling for her supporters to take on the interim Bangladeshi government. Even before her speech got completed, protesters, including several who were affiliated with the student groups that forced Hasina to flee, attacked and destroyed the historic home of Sheikh Mujeeb. While protesters have already been attacking several sites and monuments associated with Hasina and Sheikh Mujeeb, this is by far the most prominent.

India - and Hasina's allies - are going out of their way to blame the interim government and its six months in charge for problems that are actually the culmination of Hasina's 15 years of authoritarianism, suppression of dissent, and budget fudging. It is also worth noting that the Students Against Discrimination movement and other activist groups have also taken a stand against the cult of personality surrounding Mujeeb, which Hasina and her party fueled. While decades of state propaganda portrayed Mujeeb as a beacon of democratic values, a cursory look at the country's history shows that his premiership quickly saw democratic backsliding to the point that he had turned Bangladesh into a one-party state, complete with his own private army and death squads, and was further consolidating power at the time he was assassinated.

Mujeeb's supporters conveniently breezed past most of the events in the years between Bangladeshi independence up to his assassination, painting Mujeeb as the independence leader who died for his country, rather than someone whose decision-making was taking Bangladesh down a dark path. So in a way, Hasina really did do her best to carry on her father's mission.