They are no more in power. They are all coming up with excuses for their behaviour in office. They are afraid. They know that history has already consigned them to its dark depths, that their reputations are now in tatters. They are the men and women who have exercised illegitimate power in Bangladesh, have presided over the destruction of all the noble principles which formed the core of the country’s struggle for liberation from Pakistan in 1971.
These are the men and women on whose watch and on whose encouragement as well as indifference great crimes were committed in Bangladesh between early August 2024 and mid-February 2026. They stood by, arrogant in their use of ill-gotten power, as Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s iconic 32 Dhanmondi home was razed to the ground by their mob followers. They said not a word when the monument to the nation’s first government in Mujibnagar was destroyed in shameless acts of vandalism. They promoted the ugly, false narrative of the Awami League being a fascist organisation even as they themselves indulged in unbridled fascism. On their watch a kangaroo court tried Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in absentia and sentenced her to death.
These are the individuals who, with Muhammad Yunus, silenced the media and demonstrated nothing of conscience as their mob followers forced journalists out of jobs and occupied media houses, filling them with their admirers and acolytes. Muhammad Yunus and his advisors, all of them, pushed politicians, judges, election commissioners and journalists into incarceration, clamping on them baseless charges of their having committed murder. No bail was allowed. In the courts, mobs of lawyers supportive of the Yunus cabal physically assaulted the prisoners, pelting them with eggs and shoes and abuse in the filthiest of language. Scores of policemen were lynched by the mobs unleashed by the anti-politics of the regime; police stations were set afire and weapons were looted by vandals. Terrorists were freed from jails. Judges of the Supreme Court and High Court were forced to resign. But these men and women in the Yunus dispensation stayed silent, revelling in the humiliation of an entire nation.
Today, all these men and women without any more power to speak of are beginning to come forth with their mea culpa. They would have the nation know that they were not involved in the decisions made by Yunus and his coterie, that a kitchen cabinet to which they had no access took major political decisions, that they were not consulted over the trade and defence deals with Washington. Should the nation take them at their word? Not at all, for these are individuals who have hollowed out Bangladesh through their illegal yet arrogant exercise of power. On their watch the rule of law went fugitive in the country. Education slipped to depths from which it will take decades to recover. The Yunus regime has spoilt an entire generation of the young through teaching it the many ways in which teachers, parents, politicians and the elderly can be subjected to humiliation. In the eighteen-month occupation of the country by Yunus and his cabal, the illegality of placing restrictions on the Awami League was exercised, Joi Bangla, in the manner of the 1971 Yahya Khan occupation regime, was proscribed, the national flag was desecrated.
Around the world, Bangladesh slipped in respect. Indeed, it lost every iota of dignity across the globe. The Yunus cabal went into overdrive in ruining diplomatic ties with India. It felt no shame in cosying up to Pakistan even when the powerful men in Islamabad, yet smarting over their humiliation in 1971, gloated over the anarchy that had taken hold of a country which had defeated their army on the fields of battle in 1971. Yunus felt no embarrassment in informing Bill Clinton in New York of the ‘meticulous design’ that had gone into ensuring the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government. He brazenly informed a Voice of America interviewer that a reset button had been pressed by the young in the aftermath of the August 2024 political change. The reset button was nothing but a calculated move by Yunus and his followers to destroy the idea of Bangladesh.
At this point of time, in Bangladesh, the feeling grows that the Awami League led by Sheikh Hasina will return home and in good time ascend to power. In the last twenty-one months, the party’s public appeal has gone up in unstoppable manner. Those so-called civil society elements who once looked upon Yunus as a messiah have now begun to point to the transgressions of the regime Yunus represented. Added to the former Yunus advisors now voluntarily coming forth with excuses for their nefarious role in the unconstitutional regime, one detects not merely a sign of change but a growing sound of fear among those who once celebrated the destruction of the land.
As for Muhammad Yunus, he has now flown to Paris. One is not sure if he will return anytime soon or will return at all. The bigger thought for Bangladesh’s people is that a future democratically elected government, one underpinned by absolute loyalty to Bangladesh’s foundational principles as they were spelt out in 1971, will bring Yunus and every individual who served in his regime to justice, will make them answer for the havoc they wreaked across the country.
These men and women — Yunus, his advisors, his administrative assistants and clerks, indeed everyone complicit with him in the destruction of Bangladesh — must face the law in open court so that every future government is secure in the face of conspiracy, so that every future intrigue and internal as well as external conspiracy against the state is dealt with swiftly and harshly, so that sedition is punished for the treasonous crime it is.
Yunus and his regime waged war against Bangladesh. In the interest of the generations of Bengalis living and yet to be born, they must pay the price for the crimes they committed. The goons and gangsters and mobsters they let loose on the streets must be brought to swift justice. Bangladesh needs to be cleansed of the evil it was pushed into when its constitutionally established government was overthrown by the nation’s enemies, within and without, nearly two years ago. The idea of Bangladesh must be restored. The Spirit of 1971 must be renewed and reaffirmed in all the firmness the nation can and will muster.
Author: Syed Badrul Ahsan is a senior Bangladeshi journalist, columnist and author of several books on Bangladesh history and politics.
