The Bangladeshi Left Won’t Survive If It Doesn’t Change Gears
Left-wing movements and ideas have had a major impact on the history of Bangladesh since independence. But the country’s left has failed to adapt to new circumstances and now faces a choice between wholesale renovation and a slide into irrelevance.
The Left helped shape the founding vision of Bangladesh as it became an independent state. But the country’s left parties now exist on the margins of a political landscape dominated by competing forms of nationalism and pragmatic power blocs. (Farjana K. Godhuly / AFP via Getty Images)
There is a peculiar silence that surrounds the otherwise very vociferous left in Bangladesh. It is not exactly the silence of repression alone — though that has been real and often brutal — but a deeper, more existential quiet. It is the silence of irrelevance.
Once animated by revolutionary promise, shaped by anti-colonial struggle and global ideological currents, Bangladesh’s left parties now exist on the margins of a political landscape that is dominated by competing forms of nationalism and pragmatic power blocs.
Their slogans remain familiar and even omnipresent, and their critiques are often incisive. But their political presence has withered into something spectral, as though history moved on and they did not notice.
Sorry, but this article is available to active subscribers only. Please log in or become a subscriber.