Pakistan’s political machinations and resurgence of Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh ahead of 2024 polls

Bangladesh is readying for the general elections, tentatively scheduled for January 2024. This has seen political parties initiate their mass contact programmes in the form of rallies, and protest movements, especially led by the Opposition. The Opposition parties led by Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami are raising questions on the transparency of the forthcoming elections, which could be seen as a precursor to their habitual resort to street violence in case of their usual below par electoral performance.

What is more prominent is how the Islamist forces led by Jamaat-e-Islami have started mobilising through extended patronage of Pakistan, per se, its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

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While Pakistan-Bangladesh relations have seen the light of late, the same has not graduated to any significant level as Bangladeshi citizens still await an official apology from Islamabad for the genocidal crimes of its army.

Pertinently, whilst the Pakistani elite led by the army establishment may have made peace with its humiliating defeat in 1971, they have not stopped their desires to nurture local actors in Bangladesh that could accord it a semblance of strategic capital against its delusional consideration of India as its greatest adversary.

It continues to employ its Machiavellian machinations to affect the political affairs in Dhaka by influencing and exploiting sponsored actors on the Islamist terrain. In recent years, Pakistan has employed a soft approach through media narratives, a charm offensive through information operations, and the Islamist card by offering an umbrella to multiple Bangla Islamist groups led by Jamaat.

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As part of its charm-cum-information offensive, Pakistan Army pushed for Imran Khan’s government outreach to Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina in 2020 to create favourable narrative towards Islamabad and influence Dhaka’s regional policy, especially its relationship with India.

Though the campaign faltered before taking off, Pakistan uses third-party actors to ensure its messaging gets a hearing.

In such a scenario and as part of its soft approach, Pakistan Army’s ISI has attempted to influence various opinion-makers and leaders of Bangladesh, including media personalities and organisations to create doubts among the masses on the leadership of Sheikh Hasina, often portraying her government as the clientele of India, and dent Indo-Bangla relations.

The local media’s exploitation to this end assumes significance, given it gives credence to this narrative while also providing favourable coverage to political actors such as Jamaat-e-Islami, which retains unquestionable affinity with Pakistan.

It would be good to remember that the Pakistan Army, which committed the horrific crime of genocide against the Bengali-speaking population of the erstwhile East Pakistan, was humiliatingly defeated during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971.

During the war, Jamaat staunchly defended the idea of a unified Pakistan and was accused of conniving with the Pakistani Army in committing crimes against the Bangla people.

To that effect, some of its high-profile activists and leaders, such as Motiur Rahman Nizami and Abdul Quader Mollah, have been executed following their indictment by the Bangladeshi government’s Crimes Tribunal that investigated the role of suspects in prosecuting locals during the war. Pakistan vehemently condemned the execution of the Jamaat leaders.

Though Bangladesh’s Supreme Court revoked the registration of Jamaat in 2013 following its widespread street violence targeting government installations, private properties, and religious spaces of the Hindu minority, it astutely maintained its political relevance by fielding proxy political entities such as Bangladesh Development Party and Amar Bangladesh Party in the elections.

As the January 2024 elections near, Islamabad has succeeded in pushing the United States to pressurise Sheikh Hasina to facilitate the re-entry of this pro-Pakistan political outfit into the political space of the country under the ruse of demonstrating her commitment to delivering a free and fair election.

This is a complementary gift to the Pakistani Army for effectively returning Islamabad to the American sphere of influence by orchestrating Imran Khan’s removal from Pakistan’s premiership following his flirting with Russia and so-called strategic autonomy.

As such, Jamaat-e-Islami has returned to the political scene under its banner and demonstrated its popular support by organising multiple political and protest rallies since June 2023.

However, it took little time for this party to return to its tradition of confrontational politics, which has seen it fight with law-and-order agencies during its anti-government rallies.

This is intriguing, considering that this confrontational approach has not proven beneficial for Jamaat or Bangladesh. Furthermore, as the BNP intensified its demands for the conduct of the forthcoming election under a caretaker government akin to Pakistan, it received wholehearted support from Jamaat.

The Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government axed Bangladesh’s caretaker government mechanism in 2011 by promulgating legislation to this effect, a move resisted by BNP and its allies ever since.

In all, it appears that these parties are raising the ruse of caretaker government establishment because of their self-skepticism on their ability to dent the electoral prospect of Sheikh Hasina.

The Bangladeshi prime minister’s governance track has seen Bangladesh’s economy undergo a whirlwind transformation with improved Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Human Development Index (HDI) and overall better quality of life, even better than its neighbours and far better than Pakistan, which remains at the precipice of impending economic default.

This development also shows how much Islamabad may be involved in attempting to influence events in Bangladesh to its advantage. The resurgence of Jamaat’s confrontational politics raises questions about whether Pakistan is actively supporting or encouraging such actions, as it suggests a coordinated effort to destabilize the political landscape in Bangladesh.

The days ahead for Bangladesh’s development trajectory are tricky as the resultant political landscape will determine whether the country stays on this path of progress or returns to the days of street violence.

The author is the chairman of Law and Society Alliance, a New Delhi-based think tank. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.

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