Friends of Bangladesh has been reporting on and analyzing trends in Bangladesh since the Interim Government came to power after a student-led uprising in July/August 2024. For anyone who tracks or has lived in or visited the country since then, there are many obvious improvements. For example, the media is free to report as it sees fit, people can assemble and protest, new political parties are forming, the Aynaghar torture chamber has been closed, and hundreds of victims of the violence unleashed on protesters have been compensated by the government and the July Shaheed Smrity Foundation (supported in part by donations from friends of Bangladesh from around the world).
Of course, not everything is better, or is perceived to be better. For instance, many people complain about rising prices and crime. Yet even in those areas, things are not always what they appear to be (more on that below).
Perhaps most notably on the positive side of the ledger, people are expressing pride in their government and its leader, a noted intellectual, social entrepreneur, and Nobel laureate who has brought great energy as well as new ideas and style to his caretaker leadership role.
However, as one commentator recently noted, the pride in the country’s leader—Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus—has been negatively impacted to some degree by a cacophony of criticism, much of it unfair, which is possible only due to renewed freedoms to speak freely that is itself a major accomplishment of the government.
The commentator, Arshad Hussain Mamun, made these important additional points in a social media post: “The 84 year old man who didn’t topple the fascist or wanted to be the head of the interim government but came forward to take the charge from his patriotic duty. He didn’t need to do it, he has nothing to gain from it, he doesn’t have future political ambition either. The man is working like a machine. As he said, we don’t need to go to the world, the world will come to us. The UN chief is visiting Bangladesh [this week].”
“The Chinese President,” Mamun continued, “will send a special airplane to take him to China for his visit to China later this month! The interim government paid Tk. 62,000 crore [US$ 5.1 billion] of debt in last 7 months left by Hasina! Remittances [are] US$4 billion higher this year than last, national reserve reached Tk. 21,400 crore [US$1.72 billion], February saw [the] lowest inflation of last 10 months, essential prices during Ramadan remained lower than last year’s with [a] couple of exceptions! Banks have stabilised with growing liquidity. Bangladesh informed [the] IMF that she does not need the $3.5B planned financial assistance from [the] IMF anymore!”
As Mamun mentioned, a notable vote of confidence in the Interim Government recently came in the form of a 4-day visit by the U.N. Secretary General, who said during the visit, “I want to express our total commitment to the [Interim Government’s] reform process. We are here to support your reforms. We wish you all the best. Whatever we can do, let us know.”
In the meantime, the paid U.S. lobbyists hired in the United States by the former Prime Minister’s son to oppose the Interim Government’s work have been making a few small waves notwithstanding the setbacks they suffered during Prime Minister Modi’s visit the White House. The New Hampshire legislature introduced a resolution that includes some exaggerated and false claims about the Interim Government in Bangladesh. (Read it for yourself to assess the inaccuracies.) Expect to see opposition to this nonbinding resolution if the upper house of the New Hampshire state legislature takes it up.
The Guardian, a leading UK newspaper, published a recent article about the Interim Government, “Muhammad Yunus on picking up the pieces in Bangladesh after ‘monumental’ damage by Sheikh Hasina’s rule.” It sounded some hopeful notes, including this: “Yunus’s return to Bangladesh was heralded as the dawn of a new era for the country. In the six months since he took charge, senior police officers – no longer under Hasina’s protection – have been prosecuted for extrajudicial killings, secret detention centres where Hasina’s critics were allegedly tortured have been emptied, human rights commissions have been established…”
The article also anecdotally reported on the law and order situation. As in other countries, sensationalistic reporting on individual cases of crime, however horrific they may be, does not necessarily mean that lawlessness is rising. In fact, even this negative article about crime shows that in November/December 2024, murder, the most serious crime, was down 10% compared to the same period in 2023, and theft was up only 6%. Does this sound like a crime wave to you? Of course, a few other crime statistics are reported to be up more significantly.
It is important to bear in mind two things when considering these claims. First, it is widely believed that the Awami League government published falsified crime statistics that made the situation when they were in power look better than it actually was. (It clearly did this in its economic reports, and there is no reason to believe they did not adopt a similar approach to law and order.) Second, it is also widely believed that some of the crime is being committed by Awami League sympathizers as an effort to destabilize the government.
One hopeful development is the launch of the Bangladesh America Alliance, started by Bangladeshi diaspora members in the U.S. to combat disinformation on Twitter/X and through webinars published on its YouTube channel.
Finally, it was heartening to see Indian Nobel laureate Professor Amartya Sen weighing in on the situation in Bangladesh. In a recent interview with the Press Trust of India that was reported on by the Dhaka Tribune, he called Professor Yunus “a highly capable and remarkable human being” and an “old friend” who was taking “significant steps” in leading Bangladesh, including making “strong statements” about democracy and secularism. (Read the original PTI article, as republished in the Times of India, here.)
Professor Sen also cautioned India and its media about reporting on events in Bangladesh in a biased way that inflamed communal tensions. He warned, “There is nothing easier than fueling communalism by selectively amplifying certain incidents. This is how the Hindu-Muslim riots of the 1940s escalated, leading to bloodshed. We must reflect on our past and consider our future in that light. Selective publicity can be extremely dangerous. Professor Sen also praised the Interim Government for its new press freedoms, noting that newspapers are now free to take “strong anti-government positions.”
At Friends of Bangladesh, we continue to encourage people of all walks of life, especially journalists, to visit Bangladesh and see for themselves the halting but very real progress being achieved under the Interim Government. We were pleased to see some journalists and filmmakers recently visiting the country, and we look forward to what they will be reporting in the weeks ahead. Be on the lookout for an announcement of a webinar we are hosting in April where we will hear from three Americans including a journalist and a retired diplomat about their recent trips to Bangladesh. And check out the webinars of the Bangladesh America Alliance—they are excellent!
