From Hasina’s trials to Dhaka’s tribulations: Yunus marks a turbulent first year in charge

On August 8, 2024, Bangladesh’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus was sworn in as the interim chief adviser of the country. With the oath-taking ceremony, Yunus and his interim government inherited a turbulent Bangladesh, whose former Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina , had just fled the country after her government was ousted by violent protests.

It has been one year since that day, and Yunus is still struggling to stabilise a country, which continues to remain in a constant state of turbulence. Throughout this year, the Yunus regime attempted to bring reforms and change in all sectors, including the areas of the electoral system, governance, press freedom, economy, judiciary, and improve law and order. However, cases of minority oppression and soured ties with decades-long allies crumpled the hopes.

While Yunus banned the party with the largest mass base in the country, Hasina’s Awami League, the second-strongest Party in Bangladesh - Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) - also expressed discontent over delays in announcing elections. On August 5, the Bangladeshi chief adviser eventually confirmed that the elections will be held in February next year. Here’s how Yunus performed in one year in the office.

Law and Order

While Yunus and his interim government took Bangladesh out of a riot-like situation, the weakened police infrastructure due to violent protests caused persistent outbursts of violence and atrocities, especially against the minorities in the country.

There have been multiple instances where women belonging to minority religious groups have been raped or killed. Some of these instances of violence were politically motivated as well. Party workers associated with Hasina’s Awami League claimed that they have been facing all sorts of atrocities at the hands of what they are calling “goons of the ruling regime”. When Firstpost asked an Awami League worker , who asked to remain anonymous, he had a simple response in Bangla: “The country’s situation is bad.” He said there have been multiple attacks on Hindus and other minorities in the country.

“Robberies, rapes and contract killings have become common in Bangladesh. People are avoiding going out for this reason, especially Awami League workers. We are living like prisoners,” he told Firstpost.

Instead of acknowledging the situation, Yunus brushed off the accusation and unleashed attacks on international media, especially the Indian media, accusing multiple news outlets of spreading “fake news”.

Economy

After Hasina left, Yunus’s regime sought help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to recover the country’s economy, which had been ransacked due to the protests. To meet the IMF’s economic reform conditions, the Nobel laureate launched a wide-ranging series of institutional, fiscal, and monetary measures.

With this goal in mind, his administration appointed Ahsan H Mansur, a former IMF economist, as governor of Bangladesh’s central bank. Soon after stepping into his new role, Mansur introduced policy measures designed to tame soaring inflation and a worsening banking crisis, including hiking interest rates, replacing the boards of 11 troubled banks, initiating efforts to recover bad loans, and repatriating laundered money.

While these steps marked a strong start to the economic recovery, the results have been mixed. Although after Hasina’s departure, inflation has eased from 11.6 per cent in July 2024 to 9.05 per cent as of May 2025, the youth unemployment remains a pressing concern.

In May this year, it was reported that Bangladesh’s unemployment rate had surged to its highest level in recent years amid ongoing economic and political instability. According to the latest quarterly labour force survey released today by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the country’s unemployment rate stood at 4.63 per cent in the October–December quarter of the current fiscal year.

This marked a 3.95 per cent spike recorded during May 2024, when Hasina was in power. In light of this, the number of unemployed people in the country has risen to 27.3 lakh, which was up by 330,000 from 24 lakh in the same quarter of the previous year.

While the Yunus regime attempted to stabilise the country’s economy after Hasina, it still wasn’t able to reduce unemployment rates, which affects the future of students who brought him to power in the first place.

Foreign Policy

Yunus took advantage of the “anti-India sentiments” that were brewing in Bangladesh even while Hasina was still in power. After Hasina’s party was elected back to power, an ‘ India out ’ campaign took over Bangladesh, with people boycotting Indian goods.

After coming to power, Yunus catered to the sentiments. While India called for stability in Bangladesh, Yunus challenged the territorial integrity of India by talking about the ‘Chicken’s neck’ corridor, the link between India’s mainland and its seven northeastern states.

While cosying up to China, he referred to the North East as a landlocked region, inviting Beijing to take part in a river conservation project. Not only this, Yunus starts to mend ties with Pakistan, the same country which was responsible for causing atrocities against Bengalis in East Pakistan before it became Bangladesh. Apart from this, the Rohingya corridor project was condemned by many within the country, with critics raising concerns about Bangladesh’s sovereignty. Hence, Yunus managed to isolate Dhaka from a traditional ally and instead made it more vulnerable to a resource-hungry nation.

Accusation of promoting fundamentalists

In June this year, Bangladesh’s Supreme Court restored the registration of the country’s largest Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami. Following the 2013 judgement, on December 7, 2018, the Election Commission issued a gazette officially cancelling Jamaat’s registration. The party soon appealed the High Court’s ruling.

The party has been known for its radical propaganda and involvement in extremist activities. Recently, Nahid Islam’s newly formed group has been accused of hooliganism as well, with Awami League party functionalities often calling them the Jamaat’s B-Team.

Overall, the law and order situation of Bangladesh continues to remain at a deplorable state. We often hear cases of rape and mob lynching, given the fact that the July uprising and the changes that followed dismantled the police infrastructure in the country.

Hopes for elections amid uncertainties

As the country marked the first year of Hasina’s ousting, Yunus announced that the elections would be held in February 2026. However, before this announcement, there was turbulence between the Yunus government and the BNP.

Former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s party, along with other old Bangladeshi parties, demanded that the Yunus regime conduct elections this year. However, the chief adviser kept on pushing the date, arguing that reforms need to be implemented before conducting polls.

Things reached a boiling point when Yunus said that the elections would be held before June 2026, with BNP calling out Yunus’ timeline as too late. Many also questioned whether the elections would be fair or not, since the Awami League, which still had significant mass support, is banned and out of the race.

Hence, any election that will take place in Bangladesh would not be inclusive. Hence, Yunus has a big challenge in his hands.