Sheikh Hasina : Biting the ballet

Of the many images of Sheikh Hasina to pour out of Bangladesh till last month, perhaps the least controversial, if not the best loved, is that of her cooking chicken pulao on her son Joy’s birthday: Masterfully stirring a wok of meat on the burner with a wooden spatula in one hand and keeping a watchful eye on a pot of rice at the same time.

A red-and-white checked apron tied tightly over one of the innumerable Dhakai saris in her collection completes the no-nonsense portrait of a matriarch who knows exactly what she is doing and what the result would be.

It’s strange therefore, if not downright sad, that the current picture is far from savoury.

KT illustration by A U Santhoshkumar

And yet, it shouldn’t have been. After all, here’s a leader whose party ruled the country for the last five years, for the second time. It won the third election this month, and with thundering majority — 232 out of 300 seats, a feat that any dictator would be proud to emulate.

Yet uneasy lies the grey-haired head that has carried the aspirations of a nation of nearly 160 million people since 1981, when she took up the mantle of her assassinated father Mujibur Rahman and led his party, the Awami League.

Her victory has been dubbed the bloodiest vote in the nation’s four-decade-old history. It saw the opposition boycott the election, allowing Hasina’s party and its allies to win virtually uncontested. A three-day general strike and a fresh bout of arrests marked the election aftermath and now, less than a week later, the international community — the UN, US, Europe and Australia — are urging for re-elections.

So what will Sheikh Hasina dish out now? Despite her assertion that the opposition will have to leave its “terrorist activities behind” if it wants to hold talks with her government, she is caught in a bind.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of former PM and Hasina’s archrival Khaleda Zia will continue the paralysing public protests until Hasina agrees to fresh elections. Moreover, it will take part in the new ballot only if Hasina steps down before that and allows a caretaker government, headed by a neutral caretaker PM, to oversee the exercise.

The BNP had raised the same demand before the January 5 elections, but it was rejected unceremoniously by Hasina. If she is forced to listen to the opposition now, she will lose face heavily.

On the other hand, if she doesn’t, she could lose her new government that is bound to be paralysed by the incessant protests.

Before she takes any decision, perhaps Sheikh Hasina would do well to take a trip down memory lane.

She needs to go back to the 1980s, when Bangladesh was under the military dictatorship of Gen H.M. Ershad. The adversity united her with Khaleda and both their parties strove together for free and fair elections.

The solidarity bore fruit in 1991 when following Ershad’s departure, a caretaker government oversaw elections. Khaleda’s party emerged as the victor and then the two begums began battling each other for power.

What followed is just what’s happening today, only with Hasina and Khaleda trading places. Hasina’s Awami League began staging protests against Khaleda’s government and in 1996, boycotted the elections, demanding they be held under a caretaker government.

Predictably, Khaleda refused and won a landslide victory as the Awami League stayed away. Hasina then condemned the polls as a “farce”. Does that sound similar?

Four months later, Khaleda was forced to call re-elections under a caretaker government, as demanded by Hasina, and the latter won.

Now Hasina is refusing to follow the tradition she herself once helped implement but is expecting the opposition to play ball.

How did a young democratic leader gradually change into one with shades of a dictator? Call it, if you will, her political legacy from her father.

Mujibur Rahman led Bangladesh’s battle for independence and became the first president of the fledgling state. Yet in four years’ time he became increasingly autocratic, imposing one-party rule, declaring a state of emergency and empowering a hated militia.

On August 15, 1975, the discontent erupted in a violent coup. The father of the nation was gunned down in his official residence along with most of his family members and aides.

Khaleda too has a legacy of violence that makes her and her enemy sisters under the skin.

Her husband Ziaur Rahman, one of the rulers of Bangladesh during the unrest following Mujibur’s murder, was also assassinated by disgruntled army men.

Violence has remained integral to Bangladesh’s unstable politics. Hasina herself survived a grenade attack in 2004 that killed nearly two dozen of her supporters.

Leading a nation born out of anger, blood and repression is a perilous task. If Hasina doesn’t take heed from history and bury the hatchet with her enemies, she will be jumping from the frying pan into the gunfire.