Bangladesh: Independence to the Present

Independence to the Present

The movement for greater autonomy gained momentum when, in the Dec., 1970, general elections, the Awami League under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (generally known as Sheikh Mujib) won practically all of East Pakistan's seats and thus achieved a majority in the Pakistan National Assembly. President Muhammad Agha Yahya Khan, hoping to avert a political confrontation between East and West Pakistan, twice postponed the opening session of the national assembly.

The government's attempts to forestall the autonomy bid led to general strikes and nonpayment of taxes in East Pakistan and finally to civil war on Mar. 25, 1971. On the following day the Awami League's leaders proclaimed the independence of Bangladesh. During the months of conflict an estimated one million Bengalis were killed in East Pakistan and another 10 million fled into exile in India. Fighting raged in Dhaka, Chittagong, Comilla, Sylhet, Jessore, Barisal, Rangpur, and Khulna. Finally India allied itself with Bangladesh, which it had recognized on Dec. 6, and during a two-week war (Dec. 3–16) defeated the Pakistani forces in the east. Sheikh Mujib, who had been chosen president while in prison in West Pakistan, was released, and in Jan., 1972, he set up a government and assumed the premiership; Abu Sayeed Choudhury became president.

Rejecting Pakistan's call for a reunited country, Sheikh Mujib began to rehabilitate an economy devastated by the war. Relations with Pakistan were hostile; Pakistan withheld recognition from Bangladesh, and Bangladesh and India refused to repatriate more than 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war who had surrendered at the end of the conflict. Armed Bengali “freedom fighters” fought Bihari civilians in Bangladesh, particularly after Indian troops withdrew from Bangladesh in Mar., 1972.

Tensions were eased in July, 1972, when President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan (who assumed power after the fall of the Yahya Khan government) and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India agreed to peacefully settle the differences between their countries. Pakistan officially recognized Bangladesh in Feb., 1974. Subsequently, India and Pakistan reached consensus on the release of Pakistani prisoners of war and the exchange of hostage populations.

Bangladesh was gradually recognized by most of the world's nations. It joined the Commonwealth of Nations in 1972 and was admitted to the United Nations in 1974. In 1972 the country's major industries, banks, and shipping and insurance firms were nationalized. Despite Mujib's popularity as the founder of independent Bangladesh, high rates of inflation and a severe famine (1974) resulted in a governmental crisis. In 1975, after becoming president under a new constitutional system, he was assassinated in a military coup; after two additional coups later in the year, Maj. Gen. Zia ur-Rahman emerged as ruler, beginning a period of military control that lasted into the 1990s.

In 1981, Zia was himself assassinated in a failed coup attempt; his successor was replaced (1982) in a bloodless coup by Lt. Gen. Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who assumed the presidency. In an effort to gain legitimacy, Ershad later resigned his military office and won a disputed presidential election. He was forced to resign in Dec., 1990, amid charges of corruption, for which he was jailed (1990–96, 2000–2001).

Elections held in Feb., 1991, brought the Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) to power, and Khaleda Zia ur-Rahman, the widow of Zia ur-Rahman, became prime minister. An extremely strong cyclone in April, 1991, killed more than 138,000 and devastated coastal areas, especially in the southeast. In 1994, nearly all opposition members of parliament denounced Zia's government as corrupt and resigned their seats. After a series of general strikes called by the opposition, parliament was dissolved in Nov., 1995; major opposition parties also boycotted the ensuing Feb., 1996, elections. Zia was returned to power, but the opposition mounted protests; she resigned and an interim government headed by Habibur Rahman was installed.

New elections held in June, 1996, resulted in a victory for the opposition Awami League, led by Hasina Wazed, daughter of Bangladesh's first prime minister. As she struggled with the country's ongoing economic problems, a series of opposition-led strikes, beginning in 1998, once again paralyzed the country. In July, 2001, a caretaker government headed by Latifur Rahman was appointed in advance of parliamentary elections in October. Zia and the BNP won a landslide victory in the voting, and she again became prime minister. In 2003 the Awami League began a series of rallies and occasional strikes to mobilize opposition to the government. Deadly attacks on rallies in Aug., 2004, and Jan., 2005, provoked a series of nationwide and local strikes and protests by the League, which accused the government of trying to assassinate Hasina Wazed.

Some 200 minor bomb attacks occurred in 60 cities and towns on Aug. 17, 2005. The attacks appeared to be the work of militants who favor the establishment of Islamic rule in Bangladesh; two militant groups had been banned in Feb., 2005. In the months following the attacks the government moved to arrest members of the groups, and Islamic extremist mounted additional attacks, including ones involving suicide bombers. Awami League efforts to undermine the government in 2006 included a “blockade” of Dhaka in June that resulted in clashes with the police, and led to a 36-hour general strike. Meanwhile, in May and June, there were protests and rioting by garment workers over working conditions; a number of factories were burned, and hundreds were vandalized.

Zia's government resigned in October in preparation for the Jan., 2007, elections. The issue of who should head the caretaker government in the intervening months became a contentious one in the weeks proceeding the resignation, and the BNP, Awami League, and other parties failed to reach an agreement, leading to violent clashes between the parties' supporters. In the end, President Iajuddin Ahmed appointed himself chief adviser to the interim administration. Continuing disagreements over the handling of the elections led to sometimes violent demonstrations and transportation blockades by the Awami League and its allies, and in Jan., 2007, that 14-party alliance announced that it would boycott the elections.

After the United Nations and European Union withdrew their support for the election, the president declared a state of emergency, resigned as chief adviser and appointed Fakhruddin Ahmed, an economist and former central bank governor, to the post, and postponed the elections. The Awami League and its allies halted their protests as Fakhruddin Ahmed formed a cabinet. The new government, which was backed by the military, subsequently moved to clean up the electoral rolls and attack political corruption. A number of prominent political and business figures were arrested on corruption charges, and Hasina Wazed and other political leaders were charged with murder in connection with political violence. The government moved in April, 2007, to exile Wazed and Khaleda Zia, but then reversed itself. Wazed and then Zia were subsequently charged with corruption.

The president's term ended in Sept., 2007, but Ahmed remained in office in the absence of a functioning parliament. During July–Sept., 2007, Bangladesh experienced two spells of extensive and devastating flooding due to monsoon rains, and in November a cyclone caused extensive damage in the southwest, killing more than 3,000. There was a brief maritime standoff in the Bay of Bengal between Bangladesh and Myanmar in November when Bangladeshi naval vessels confronted Myanmarese oil-and-gas exploration ships in disputed waters.

In Dec., 2008, the government finally ended the state of emergency two weeks before new parliamentary elections; both former prime ministers subsequently campaigned. The Awami League won the vote in a landslide, and in Jan., 2009, Sheikh Hasina Wazed became prime minister, ending interim rule. Zia and the BNP asserted the election was rigged, but foreign observers called the contest credible. Paramilitary border guards mutinied in Feb., 2009; the uprising was centered at the Bangladesh Rifles headquarters in Dhaka. More than 70 persons were killed, most of them regular army officers assigned to the forces who were murdered by mutineers; some 6,800 were ultimately convicted of involvement in the mutiny, and more than 150 sentenced to death.

In June, 2010, the BNP mounted a protest strike against the government, and there also were protests by textile workers over low wages. Wage protests recurred in late July, marked then by riots; in August a number of labor leaders were arrested on charges of inciting violence. A new series of opposition-sponsored protests and strikes were mounted in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, 2014, and 2015 several members of the opposition, mainly from Jamaat e-Islami, an Islamist party aligned with the BNP that had opposed Bangladesh's independence, were convicted of committing war crimes during the war for independence. (Jamaamt e-Islami was also declared illegal.) The opposition claimed the trials were politically motivated, and the series of verdicts, most of them involving death sentences, led to strikes and rioting by Islamists. Beginning in 2013, there was series of deadly attacks by Islamists on academics, secular individuals, members of religious minorities, and others that continued in subsequent years.

In Apr., 2013, the collapse of a building housing garment factories in Savar killed more than 1,100 people. Along with other incidents in 2012–13, including one in which more than 100 were killed in a fire, the worst industrial disaster since the Bhopal gas leak (1984) focused international attention on poor working conditions, limited worker rights, and low pay in the garment industry, Bangladesh's most important export industry. There were a number of protests and worker unrest in response to the collapse, and the government promised improvements in working conditions and worker rights.

In Nov., 2013, the government resigned prior to the establishment of an all-party government and the setting of the Jan., 2014, election date, but the opposition demanded the appointment of a caretaker government. The opposition ultimately boycotted the elections, and the campaign and vote was marred by violence. Amid a low voter turnout, the Awami League and its allies won undisputed control of parliament; Hasina Wazed again became prime minister. The BNP subsequently called for a nationwide strike and rejection of the government, but the situation remained relatively quiet until Jan., 2015, when the BNP mounted a transportation blockade against the government that continued until April; more than 150 people died in violence that accompanied the strike.

In July, 2016, there was a deadly attack against foreigners and others in Dhaka and another against Sunnis celebrating the end of Ramadan in Kishoreganj. The attacks marked an escalation of the small-scale Islamist violence against individuals that had begun in 2013, and the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Dhaka attack. In Aug.–Sept., 2017, monsoon rains were particularly intense, and roughly a third of the country flooded as a result.

Conflict in Rakhine State, Myanmar, in which government forces burned the villages of the Rohingya minority, led some 700,000 Rohingya to flee into SE Bangladesh beginning in Aug., 2017; as many as 300,000 were already in the area prior to the latest influx. A November agreement called for the return of refugees to Myanmar, but they remained in Bangladesh as few desired to return, and in 2020 Bangladesh begin holding some of the refugees on the formerly uninhabited, low-lying island of Bhasan Char, where it had built facilties.

Hasina Wazed, her Awami League, and their allies faced a united oppostion in the Dec., 2018, elections. Although Hasina and her government benefited from significant economic growth since 2009, she was also seen as increasingly authoritarian. She and her allies won in a landslide, but the campaign was marred by violence, intimidation of the opposition, and vote fraud.

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