Commentary
BNP’s Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman returned to the
country on December 25 after spending 17 years in exile. At a reception held in
the capital’s “300 Feet” area to mark his return, he said, “I have a plan for
the people of my country.”
He said he wants to build a safer Bangladesh for
everyone, encompassing people of the hills and the plains alike—Muslims,
Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, and all others. This, he said, is his dream.
During the army-backed caretaker government of
2007–08, Tarique Rahman was arrested and subjected to torture. He was later
forced into exile in the United Kingdom. At that time, public memory was still
raw with the rampant corruption of his mother Khaleda Zia’s outgoing government
and the misdeeds of his own parallel power center, the so-called “Hawa Bhaban.”
As a result, the BNP suffered a crushing defeat in the national parliamentary
election held in December 2008.
Since then, it remains unclear whether BNP’s top
leader Tarique Rahman has undergone a positive transformation. However, it has
become clear to everyone over the past year and a half that the vast majority
of his party’s leaders and activists have shown no change whatsoever (in a
positive sense). Even without being in power, they have begun a frenzy of
extortion and land grabbing. According to the human rights organization Ain o
Salish Kendra, 43 people were killed in internal conflicts within the party in just
the first six months of this year (https://www.dw.com/bn). How Mr. Tarique
plans to rescue the country from the brink of destruction with such reckless
leaders and activists is a huge question.
It is true that even after Hasina’s fall, during Dr.
Yunus’s so-called second phase of independence, the people of the hills and the
plains—especially the indigenous hill peoples—are not doing well at all.
Insecurity prevails everywhere, both in the hills and the plains. Lawlessness
and mob violence have tarnished Yunus’s image and have almost erased the
distinction between his tenure and the Hasina era. For this reason, many may
wish to feel reassured by Tarique Rahman’s “I have a plan” speech promising a safer
Bangladesh. But he has not clearly stated what that plan actually is.
We would like to place a few questions before him.
Does his plan include the hills and the hill peoples? For the past 50 years, an
undeclared military rule has been in effect in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
There is still a massive presence of military and paramilitary forces there.
Due to daily military patrols and search operations, the indigenous hill people
are forced to live in extreme insecurity. In the year and a half since Hasina’s
fall, three major communal riots have taken place in which seven indigenous
hill people were killed, several injured, and hundreds of homes and shops
reduced to ashes. In their own homeland, the hill peoples are today not only
minorities; they are forced to live as second-class citizens. What does your
“plan” include to free them from this condition? Do you have a plan to withdraw
Operation Uttaran or end the undeclared military rule and establish genuine
democratic governance in the hills?
Under the fascist misrule of Hasina, many indigenous
hill people were forced into exile, just like you. Even after her fall, during
Dr. Yunus’s tenure, many were compelled to leave the country due to insecurity.
They still have not been able to return home. What does your “plan” include to
ensure their return to their homeland?
Even 28 years after the signing of the 1997 Chittagong
Hill Tracts Accord, peace in the hills remains elusive. Do you have a plan to
seek a political solution to the accumulated problems of several decades
through new political dialogue to establish peace in the hills?
Above all, does your “plan” include issues such as the
withdrawal of the army from the Chittagong Hill Tracts, rehabilitation of
settlers in the plains, constitutional recognition of the indigenous hill
peoples and their land rights, establishment of self-governance in the hills,
an end to human rights violations, and justice for all killings?
At the reception meeting, Tarique Rahman said that,
like American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream,”
he has his own “I Have a Plan.” In his “I Have a Dream” speech delivered at the
1963 March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. said that even 100 years after
Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, “the
Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself
in exile in his own land.”
The condition of the indigenous peoples of the
Chittagong Hill Tracts today cannot be said to be better than that of African
Americans in the United States in 1963. Even 54 years after Bangladesh’s
independence, the hill peoples remain subjugated by every measure—still bound
in chains of injustice, discrimination, oppression, and repression. Will
Tarique Rahman be able to free them from this state of captivity?
(28 December 2025)
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