South Asia regional editor
NurPhoto by way of Getty Photographs1000’s of individuals gathered in central Dhaka this week celebrating the anniversary of the downfall of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the promise of a brand new future for the nation.
Within the pouring rain, the pinnacle of the interim authorities, Muhammad Yunus, leaders of varied political events and activists stood united as they unveiled plans for a “New Bangladesh”.
Throughout the nation, folks waved the nationwide flag in concert events, rallies and particular prayer classes marking what some activists are calling the “second liberation” of this Muslim-majority nation of 170 million folks.
However these jubilant scenes didn’t inform the entire story within the final 12 months.
Rights teams say there have been situations of lynching, mob violence, revenge assaults, and a resurgence of spiritual extremism which threaten to derail the nation’s journey in the direction of democracy.
In the meantime, the ex-prime minister who was so spectacularly pushed from energy watches from the sidelines of exile in neighbouring India, denying her position within the lethal crackdown and refusing to return to face expenses that quantity to crimes in opposition to humanity.
“I feel we had a regime change, not a revolution. Basically, misogyny stays intact, male dominance stays unchallenged,” Shireen Huq, a ladies’s rights activist, tells the BBC.
Ms Huq headed the Ladies’s Affairs Reform Fee, one of many our bodies arrange by the interim authorities to deliver social and political modifications reflecting the rebellion’s targets of democracy and pluralism.
In April this yr, the 10-member physique submitted its report calling for gender equality – significantly over ladies’s proper to inheritance and to divorce, referred to as for criminalising marital rape and defending the rights of intercourse employees, who face abuse and harassment from police and others.
The following month, 1000’s of Islamist hardliners took to the streets in opposition to the proposed suggestions, saying they had been anti-Islamic and that “women and men can by no means be equal”.
The protesters – led by Hefazat-e-Islam, which has a consultant on the interim authorities’s cupboard of advisers – demanded the disbanding of the ladies’s fee, and its members punished for making these proposals.
Subsequently, no detailed public debate was held on the fee’s proposals.
“I used to be disillusioned that the interim authorities didn’t assist us sufficient once we had been subjected to a number of abuses by Hefazat-e-Islam,” Ms Huq says.
Yunus’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the allegation.
Nayem Ali/ CA Press WingActivists say the protests had been only one instance of how the hardliners – who had been pushed to the fringes throughout Hasina’s tenure – had turn into emboldened.
They’ve additionally objected to ladies taking part in soccer matches in some elements of the nation, ladies celebrities collaborating in industrial promotional occasions, and, in some situations, have harassed ladies in public locations due to how they had been dressed.
However it isn’t simply ladies who’ve borne the brunt. Hardliners have additionally vandalised scores of shrines of minorities just like the Sufi Muslims up to now yr.
However, whilst folks like Ms Huq look to the long run, Bangladesh continues to be confronting its previous.
There is a groundswell of anger in opposition to Hasina’s Awami League-led authorities, which is accused of illegal killings, enforced disappearances, and brutal suppression of dissent.
“You might have an enormous constituency of individuals in Bangladesh who needed to see not simply accountability however vengeance and retribution,” says David Bergman, a journalist and a long-time Bangladesh watcher.
Nonetheless, he says, “one cannot proceed with the injustices that existed within the Awami League interval and simply replicate them within the present interval”.
However that’s what Hasina’s Awami League claims is occurring. It says tons of of its supporters have been lynched over the previous yr – allegations the interim authorities denies.
A number of journalists and supporters of the Awami League have been jailed for months on homicide expenses. Their bail purposes have been repeatedly rejected by courts.
Critics say there is no such thing as a thorough investigation over these homicide accusations, and so they have been saved in detention solely due to their earlier assist for the Awami League.
NurPhoto by way of Getty Photographs“It takes time for stability to return after a serious rebellion. We’re in a transitional section,” acknowledged Nahid Islam, a scholar chief who helped spearhead the protests and acted as an adviser to the interim authorities till not too long ago.
Islam agrees there are challenges going through the nation, however dismisses considerations of rising Islamist affect, saying it was “a part of a broader cultural battle” that has existed for years.
However there are additionally indicators of progress. Many credit score the interim authorities with stabilising the nation’s financial system and, opposite to fears, the banking sector has survived.
Bangladesh has met its mortgage obligations, saved meals costs largely steady, and maintained sturdy overseas trade reserves – at the moment at $30bn (£22bn) – due to remittances and worldwide loans. Exports have additionally held regular.
Then there are different, much less simply measurable issues.
Islam argues that, because the fall of Hasina, “a democratic setting has been established, and now everybody can categorical their views freely”. That’s one thing to be celebrated in a rustic formed by a historical past of political turbulence, army coups, assassinations, and bitter rivalries.
However that’s being questioned by some.
The affect of scholar leaders over the interim authorities has drawn criticism. They got the roles in recognition for his or her management within the unprecedented protests which toppled Hasina.
At this time, two stay within the cupboard, and critics say some controversial choices, such because the non permanent ban on the Awami League, had been made underneath scholar stress.
“The federal government has at occasions complied with a few of the populist calls for, significantly by the scholars, fearing extra threatening protests may in any other case erupt. Nonetheless, that was the exception slightly than the rule,” Mr Bergman says.
In the meantime, an exiled chief from the Awami League alleges that the social gathering’s supporters are being silenced by not being allowed to contest the subsequent ballot – with most of its leaders in exile or in jail.
“The elections is not going to be inclusive with out the participation of the Awami League,” Mohammad Ali Arafat, former minister in Hasina’s cupboard, tells the BBC.
In its newest report, the Transparency Worldwide Bangladesh (TIB) mentioned there had been an alarming rise in mob violence whereas extra-judicial killings and deaths in custody had endured up to now yr.
“We’ve got overthrown an authoritarian regime, however until we put an finish to the authoritarian practices, we can not actually create a brand new Bangladesh,” Iftekhar Zaman, the manager director of the TIB, mentioned through the launch of the report earlier this week.
As Bangladesh stands at a crossroads, the subsequent six months shall be essential.
Some argue that, if there aren’t any significant modifications to the chequered political system, the sacrifices of these killed within the rebellion might be rendered meaningless.
