Bangladesh looks like as a democratic country almost four months after the Sheikh Hasina government was brought down depends on whom one asks, according to an article of Indian Express.

“On August 5 this year, when Hasina landed in India seeking refuge, it marked a penultimate development in the weeks of violence that had wracked Bangladesh since July,” writes Neha Banka, a journalist based in Kolkata of West Bengal.

Muhammad Yunus was selected by protesting student leaders to take on the role of interim Chief Advisor of Bangladesh, reviving a political role that had been created in 1990 after the fall of the Hussain Muhammad Ershad government. Hasina’s escape from Bangladesh opened the flood-gates of more violence, this time directed at anything and anyone connected with her political party, the Awami League.

Here’s how Bangladesh has since performed on some key indicators.

Violence

There was a breakdown in state functioning, even basics like law and order, which Yunus was forced to acknowledge in October during an interview with Bangladeshi newspaper Prothom Alo.

While minorities in Bangladesh were never fully safe, the Hasina government’s fall made them more vulnerable in the country where Islam is the state religion.

Although the most visible stories in international media, particularly India, are on the plight of Hindu minorities, there have been reports of violence against Buddhists and indigenous groups as well.

One reason for that was linked to the fact that minorities, especially Hindus, are largely viewed as supporters of Hasina’s secular Awami League party.

When governments fall, the phase of transition is the most crucial for nation states. The subsequent vacuum and power struggles can result in autocratic seizures of power or mass protests and uncontrolled civilian violence. In their paper ‘Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions: New Data’, Joseph Wright, Erica Frantz and Barbara Geddes cite the example of the Shah of Iran’s ouster by protests in 1979 that resulted in the seizure of power by an autocratic regime led by Muslim clerics. The authors write that this as one of the many examples in their paper “illustrate the three possible outcomes when a dictator is ousted: regime survival under new leadership, democratisation, and replacement by a new autocratic regime.”

While there is no suggestion that the Yunus interim government is autocratic, what is clear is that in post-Hasina Bangladesh, street violence, violence against political and religious opponents and disruption is a reality.

Economy

Yunus was placed at the country’s helm as a symbol of change and progression, particularly for Bangladesh’s youth. One major cause of anger against Hasina was the country’s poor economic situation, which had worsened since the Covid-19 pandemic. The political instability and ongoing violence has only added to economic uncertainties. According to a report by Bangladesh’s Daily Star, inflation has been a reality in the country for the past several years, consistently exceeding 10 percent.

Elections

A big question revolves around elections in the country. There have been whispers about whether Yunus’s interim government is getting too comfortable in its role.

In September, Prothom Alo reported that the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), the main opposition party before the fall of the Hasina government, was unwilling to wait too long for elections. The BNP believed that the ‘interim government can carry out the required reforms in a short time and then embark on holding the election’, suggesting a timeline of approximately 18 months.

The interim government also faces pressures to ban the Awami League from contesting future elections. Student leaders who had become the face of ‘revolution’ are reportedly calling for the Awami League to be banned from politics.

In an interview with an Indian newspaper in November, Yunus said his interim government did not want to take ‘any decisions about the political party’, particularly given that the BNP wants all parties to contest elections. In response, student leaders who had supported Yunus threatened to call for a 'second movement' if their demands were not adhered to.

For now, Yunus and other political parties seem to be treading carefully with regard to the question of the future of the Awami League in Bangladesh.

Ties with neighbours

On the foreign policy front, while Western nations have come out in support of the Yunus-led interim government, in Bangladesh’s neighbourhood, all is not as rosy. For many in Bangladesh, the Hasina government became representative of what they considered to be India’s undue influence in Bangladesh’s politics and economy, in part due to her family’s long-standing warm ties with the country.

In September, Yunus said Bangladesh was committed to fostering strong relationships with India and its neighbours, but stressed ties must be rooted in “fairness and equality.”

In November, when US prosecutors indicted Adani Group chairman Gautam S Adani and seven others for allegedly offering bribes to Indian government officials, Bangladesh announced its decision to hire a “reputed legal and investigative firm” to assist its ‘review’ of major power generation contracts, including the Adani power trading pact.

Also, in November, a cargo ship from Karachi docked at Chattogram port, marking the first ever direct maritime contact between Pakistan and Bangladesh. This was described by the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka as ‘a major step in bilateral trade’.

A development that has been unfolding on the sidelines, which has received relatively less attention, is the ongoing conflict in Myanmar’s Rakhine state that borders Bangladesh. An escalation in the conflict will result in a spillover of refugees and violence into Bangladesh, a crisis extremely challenging for the interim government to control, even for an individual as well-accepted as Yunus.

Hasina’s future

In November this year, Bangladesh’s prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Hasina and confirmed they intended to put out an Interpol red notice for the former prime minister, former ministers in her government and her allies. While some of her former ministers and supporters had fled overseas as protests broke out, many others were prevented from leaving Bangladesh and were arrested. Following the issuance of the arrest warrant, at a public address that was held to mark 100 days of the interim government, Yunus doubled down and said “We will seek the extradition of the ousted autocrat from India.”

At the address, Yunus said, “We have already taken initiatives to try those responsible for enforced disappearances, murders and the mass killings during the July-to-August uprising.”

In conclusion

There are many inside and outside Bangladesh, including in the Bangladeshi diaspora, who believe that Yunus’s leadership is what the country needed to salvage it from Hasina and her ‘authoritarian rule’, and a much-needed reset to bring the country back on the path of political and economic stability.