Pranab Chakma
The seventeenth-century English poet John Milton wrote
in the fourth book of his celebrated epic Paradise Regained (1671): "The
childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day." Just as the morning
sun foretells the nature of the day ahead, so too do a government's earliest
actions reveal the character of its rule. In light of the BNP government's
conduct since coming to power — led by Tarique Rahman through the thirteenth
national parliamentary election held in February 2026, following the extraordinary
mass uprising of July–August 2024 — Milton's words feel strikingly apt.
Did the students and citizens who shed blood in the
name of change only to find the party they helped bring to power rowing against
that very tide? The administrative and political decisions of the past two
months point uncomfortably in that direction.
During the eighteen months of the interim government's
tenure, 133 ordinances were promulgated with the aim of reforming the state's
institutional framework. Among the most significant were ordinances concerning
judicial independence, human rights protection, the prevention of enforced
disappearances, and anti-corruption measures. Yet almost immediately upon
assuming office, the BNP government has cast the future of these reforms into
doubt.
As many as 16 critical ordinances — including the
Referendum Ordinance 2025, the National Human Rights Commission Ordinance 2025,
the Enforced Disappearances Prevention and Remedy Ordinance, and an amendment
to the Anti-Corruption Commission Act — lapsed automatically after 12 April,
having not been tabled in parliament within the required timeframe.
This can hardly be attributed to administrative
oversight; it bears all the hallmarks of a calculated political strategy. The
intent to dismantle the ordinance establishing an independent secretariat for
the Supreme Court, and to revert to the old, opaque system of judicial
appointments, is unmistakable. With these ordinances now void, the largely
ineffective Human Rights Commission Act of 2009 — a law that proved impotent
throughout years of authoritarian rule — has been effectively restored.
BNP's electoral slogan was "Bangladesh
First." Its nine core pledges and 51-point manifesto committed to building
a just and humane Bangladesh. Yet since taking office, the party appears to
have positioned itself against its own manifesto. BNP Secretary-General Mirza
Fakhrul Islam Alamgir had publicly vowed to honour every electoral promise to
the letter — but the reality on the ground tells a different story. The retreat
from reform once in the seat of power is disturbingly reminiscent of the Awami
League under Sheikh Hasina, where the consolidation of absolute control was
always the overriding objective.
For the past decade and a half, BNP itself was among
the gravest victims of enforced disappearances in Bangladesh. Yet today, in
power, the party is showing little appetite for implementing the very ordinance
designed to prevent such abuses. Its reported desire to exclude
"detention" from the legal definition of enforced disappearance —
justified in the name of national security — and to require prior government
approval before any investigation into the security forces can proceed, mirrors
precisely the arguments deployed during the Hasina era.
The same pattern is visible in the judiciary. The move
to repeal the ordinance establishing an independent panel for the selection of
judges represents a serious threat to judicial independence, echoing the very
politicisation of the courts that became a hallmark of the previous government.
Law and order presents an equally troubling picture.
The deaths of nearly fifty people in mob lynchings in the first three months of
2026 alone speak to a state failing in its most fundamental duty to its
citizens. Rather than reforming the police, efforts to recast it as a partisan
"nationalist police force" amount to nothing more than the same old
political capture dressed in new clothing.
A glance at the situation in the Chittagong Hill
Tracts reveals that the change of government has brought no change in fortune
for the region's people. As under the Awami League, the political problems of
the Hill Tracts continue to be managed not through political dialogue but
through military force and organised criminality. The government appears to
have struck an arrangement with Santu Larma — retaining him as Chairman of the
Regional Council, an unelected state position — while his armed cadres wage fratricidal
violence on its behalf. On 17 April, Santu Larma's armed cadres murdered
Dharmashing Chakma, a central leader of the Democratic Youth Forum, in his own
home in Kutukchhari, Rangamati. It is as though Santu Larma has been awarded a
contract to sustain internecine conflict in exchange for keeping his official
seat.
History is an unforgiving witness: in Bangladesh,
whichever party comes to power with an overwhelming parliamentary majority
eventually begins to regard itself as above the law. After the mass uprising of
1990, BNP itself strayed from the roadmap agreed upon by the three-party
alliance. Is it now repeating the same mistake in the Bangladesh that emerged
from the uprising of 2024?
The only way to honour the debt owed to the martyrs of
the July Revolution was to seal off, once and for all, the path to
authoritarianism through genuine state reform. The equivocation over the
ordinances and the drive towards centralising power constitute a betrayal of
that debt. There is still time for BNP to course-correct. If the party fails to
return to the path of reform — if it does not honour the promises made to the
people and the commitments enshrined in the July Charter — history will not forgive
it. If the light of dawn carries the warning of a storm, one cannot reasonably
hope for calm by nightfall. The mirror of history stands clear before BNP. If
the party knowingly continues to follow in Sheikh Hasina's footsteps, it ought
to be able to perceive, however dimly, where that road must lead.
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