From margins to centre stage, Jamaat’s new role in Bangladesh’s poll battle

With Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League out of the contention in the coming polls, the Jamaat (as it is popularly called in Bangladesh) is emerging as the biggest challenger to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led by Tarique Rahman, son of the late Khaleda Zia.

While the BNP is widely seen to be the winner, the Jamaat’s worst-case scenario is to be the main Opposition party in Bangladesh’s Parliament. This is a big turnaround for a party which was banned by Hasina’s government and the Bangladesh Election Commission, whose leaders were jailed or beaten or detained in the 17 years of Awami League-rule, and top leaders were sentenced to death for their role in the 1971 war crimes.

Posters of Bangladesh Nationalist Party leaders Khaleda Zia, Ziaur Rahman and Tarique Rahman at a memorabilia shop in the party office building in Nayapaltan, Dhaka. (Express photo by Shubhajit Roy)

From being completely marginalised and struggling for survival, the Islamist party, which espouses religious law to govern the country, is now hoping for its best-ever electoral performance. While the Jamaat’s top score was 18 seats in 1991, it was part of the ruling coalition with the BNP in 2001-2006, under then Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, with just 17 seats in Parliament.

This time, the Jamaat is hoping to increase its tally to 30-90 seats of the total 300 seats at stake. Some Jamaat leaders are even claiming that they may win the elections by a narrow margin.

“We are hoping to win the elections by a narrow margin, but if not, we will play the role of a constructive Opposition,” said Mir Ahmed bin Quasem, who goes by the nickname of Barrister Arman and is one of the party’s young leaders. He was in jail during Hasina’s rule, and was released after the collapse of the Awami League government in August 2024. He is now contesting from one of Dhaka’s parliamentary seats.

The party’s confidence, a year-and-a-half after the student protests toppled the Hasina regime, comes from a range of factors. Primary among these is the victory of its youth wing, the Chhatra Shibir, in student elections in universities across Bangladesh — seen as a bellwether of the party’s changing fortunes.

Sitting outside the Dhaka University’s iconic cafeteria, Modhu’r Canteen, associated with various political movements and whose owner was killed during Operation Searchlight in 1971, a group of girls said they have been watching the developments after the Jamaat’s youth wing won the campus elections.

“We have seen that they are quite active with helping out students, especially those who are in need of financial assistance,” said Nahida, a history student at the university.

Another student shared her concern about the possibility of the Jamaat’s youth wing imposing a dress code. “Ultimately, it should be the choice of the person concerned, and should not be forced,” she said.

In fact, many others, too, voiced concerns about likely restrictions on women if the Jamaat wins the coming elections. For instance, the party has proposed five-hour work days for women; many feel this would disincentivise employers from hiring them.

Earlier, Ameer Shafiqur Rahman, the party chief, had said that women would work for five hours but receive wages for eight hours, adding that the employers would pay for five hours, while the government would bear the wages for the remaining three hours. However, there is no such mention in the party’s election manifesto which promises “fair opportunities and rights for women”.

To assuage concerns, Ahmed, alias Barrister Arman, said: “We are committed to the rule of law and nobody will be discriminated against on the basis of gender or religion”.

The party has, strategically, tied up with the National Citizens’ Party, which comprises student leaders who were behind the protests that led to Hasina’s ouster. But, many feel they are only strong on social media campaigns, which has influenced Bangladesh’s Gen Z.

“They appear to be very sophisticated in their social media campaign, but my sense is that they have limited impact and may not be able to dethrone BNP,” Kazi Mohammed Mahbubur Rahman, professor of political science at Dhaka University, said.

But, whether as a party in power or in Opposition, the Jamaat-led coalition is expected to play a key role in Bangladesh’s politics after 20 years — a possibly more consequential role than in the five decades of the country’s existence.

Meanwhile, over the last few months since the Jamaat outfit came to power in Dhaka University, the famous TSC (teacher student centre), which is the cultural space of the campus, has witnessed a quiet change. A Dhaka University official told The Indian Express that the TSC, which is the nerve centre for cultural activities by different clubs run by students, has hardly hosted any “song and dance programmes”, like songs by Rabindranath Tagore or Kazi Nazrul Islam.

“We see Qawwali programmes being organised which have religious undertones, but hardly any song and dance programmes. Earlier, we would have at least one or two programmes a day, now there are almost none,” the official said. At the TSC, giant posters of the Jamaat outfit and BNP have come up, reflecting the choice of the new powers dominating the campus’s political and cultural sphere.

But, despite these fears and concerns, the TSC is filled with young couples — with nobody bothering them, at least for now.