As the clock hit midnight, the ladies held their flame torches aloft and marched into the Dhaka night time. “The folks have given their blood, now we would like equality,” they shouted above the roar of the site visitors.
For a lot of in Bangladesh, the previous few weeks have been a trigger for jubilation. The primary free and truthful elections in 17 years have been promised for Thursday, after the toppling of the regime of Sheikh Hasina in a bloody student-led rebellion in August 2024 wherein greater than 1,000 folks died.
Opposition figures lengthy persecuted and jailed are actually working as candidates, freely holding rallies for the primary time in years. The previous prime minister is languishing in exile in India and dealing with a dying sentence for crimes in opposition to humanity in Bangladesh, and her Awami League social gathering is banned from contesting the election.
But for swathes of ladies within the nation, together with those that have been on the forefront of the revolution, the hope of the election has develop into tinged with disappointment and concern, amid a resurgence of regressive Islamist politics that it’s feared will impinge upon ladies’s rights and a dearth of feminine candidates within the working.
“This was meant to be an election representing change and reform. As an alternative, we’re seeing ladies being systematically erased and their rights threatened,” mentioned Sabiha Sharmin, 25, as she took half within the midnight march. “We fear this election will throw the nation again 100 years.”
Among the many most oppressed political actions of the Hasina period, when elections have been rigged and opponents persecuted, was Jamaat e-Islami, an Islamist social gathering that believes in bringing sharia regulation to Bangladesh. It was banned and its leaders jailed, disappeared or sentenced to dying.
Since Hasina’s fall, Jamaat e-Islami has mobilised with unprecedented gusto, positioning itself as a rival to the veteran Bangladesh Nationalist social gathering (BNP) that was beforehand anticipated to make a clear sweep of the elections.
Restricted polling nonetheless suggests BNP will win the election nevertheless it seems as if Jamaat e-Islami will earn a historic share of the vote and be a big drive after the election. “Whether or not it’s as a sizeable opposition or a authorities in energy, the way forward for Bangladesh’s politics seems to be like a closely Islamist social gathering shall be at its centre,” mentioned Thomas Kean, Disaster Group’s senior guide on Bangladesh.
Critics say the resurgence of conservative Islamist politics has already begun to seep into society. In rural areas, women have been prevented from taking part in soccer by non secular leaders who termed it indecent, and girls have reported mounting harassment if they don’t cowl their hair or gown modestly.
Whereas Jamaat e-Islami has put ahead a manifesto specializing in reform, ladies’s security from harassment and clear politics, the social gathering is just not working a single feminine candidate. Rhetoric from the social gathering’s chief, Shafiqur Rahman, has had a chilling impact.
In an incendiary interview with Al Jazeera, he mentioned a girl may by no means lead the social gathering because it was un-Islamic. Feedback he made final yr then resurfaced, denying the existence of marital rape and describing rape as “immoral men and women coming collectively outdoors marriage”.
“These are the sorts of views and insurance policies you hear in Iran and Afghanistan,” mentioned Zayba Tahzeeb, 21, a physics scholar who attended the Dhaka midnight march. “Ladies’s sovereignty, our freedoms, our independence: all are at stake on this election.”
Among the many insurance policies proposed by the social gathering is lowering ladies’s working hours from eight hours to 5, with the federal government subsidising the misplaced earnings, so ladies can spend extra time at dwelling. Ladies make up 44% of the nation’s workforce, in response to the Worldwide Labour Group, the very best proportion in south Asia, and paid work is a proper fiercely guarded by ladies throughout financial strata.
The sense of frustration grew after the Nationwide Citizen social gathering (NCP), which was shaped by the coed leaders who toppled Hasina and positioned itself because the social gathering of progress, introduced in December it could be part of the Jamaat e-Islami alliance within the election. The social gathering that had cast itself as a political different with ladies on the forefront is now fielding simply two feminine candidates.
Tajnuva Jabeen, a health care provider and founder member of NCP, was one in every of a wave of ladies who left after the Jamaat e-Islami alliance was introduced – a call made with out session by a number of choose males on the prime of the social gathering.
“It was such a transparent betrayal,” Jabeen mentioned. “This was a historic alternative to create a 3rd political drive, to signify the change that so many individuals died for within the July rebellion. As an alternative, they failed the folks and silenced the ladies who led this motion. I’m sorry to say, this election won’t signify the spirit of the revolution.”
She emphasised the failures in the direction of ladies on this election weren’t Jamaat e-Islami and NCP’s alone – lower than 5% of the BNP’s candidates are ladies.
Bangladesh, which is 91% Muslim, has had a chequered historical past with secularism since its independence from Pakistan in 1971. Faith-based politics have been outlawed on the nation’s formation however dominant throughout navy rule after 1975, earlier than secularism was restored to the structure in 2011.
Analysts emphasise that many now supporting Jamaat e-Islami are merely disenchanted with the political previous guard. Since 1971, the nation has swung between two events, Awami League and the BNP, each of which have been accused of indulging in dynastic politics and rampant corruption.
Jamaat e-Islami seems notably well-liked amongst younger, first-time voters, who make up 42% of the citizens and are hungry for change. The authoritarian nature of Hasina’s regime considerably discredited secularism and made voters extra open to Islamist politics this time round, say analysts.
One of many contemporary faces of Jamaat e-Islami is Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem Arman, a barrister up for election in Dhaka. The son of an executed Jamaat e-Islami chief, he was kidnapped beneath the Hasina regime and spent eight years imprisoned and tortured in one in every of her infamous underground services. He emerged from his cell the day after Hasina was toppled, initially believing he was being dragged out to lastly be executed.
“It was systematic torture for eight years, worse than dying,” he mentioned, his voice breaking. “It felt like I used to be buried alive. However God gave me a second life. I’m right here to signify all those that have been taken to the darkish cells and by no means got here out.”
Pushing a message of reform and anti-corruption, he insisted the fears of ladies in the direction of his social gathering have been unfounded and a part of a political smear marketing campaign.
“If you speak to city elites, their speaking factors are whether or not ladies could be within the prime place of the federal government, whether or not ladies can put on no matter they need,” Arman mentioned. “These are – I’m sorry to make use of the phrase – feminist calls for. The bottom stage may be very totally different. The first requirement of the ladies on the bottom, the working class, is security and that’s our prime concern.
“Possibly within the close to future you will note ladies working on our ticket too,” he added.
In an try to display the social gathering’s dedication to ladies, hundreds of feminine Jamaat e-Islami supporters took to the streets of Arman’s constituency in Dhaka to disclaim that the social gathering would limit their freedoms.
“The insurance policies they’re proposing will enhance ladies’s lives and their security,” mentioned Sirajim Munira, 27. “I believe it is going to be good for the nation to usher in Islamic regulation as a result of it’s going to make us trustworthy and corruption-free.”
Ainum Nahar, 58, mentioned Jamaat’s grassroots have been pushed by ladies. “Jamaat empowers us,” she mentioned. But she agreed that ladies ought to by no means head the social gathering. “As an Islamic social gathering, it’s prohibited for girls to be leaders,” Nahar mentioned. “However we are going to stand behind, to encourage them, to encourage them and to maneuver the nation ahead.”
