The rise of mobocracy in Yunus' time
The fear of being tagged as ‘cohorts’ of the Hasina regime spread everywhere, from courts and the media industry to business communities and civil bureaucracy. The post-uprising Bangladesh gradually found itself amid a new normal, where fear of mobs shaped almost everything
On his first day in office on Wednesday, Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed categorically said "mob culture" would no longer be tolerated under any circumstances and that this practice must stop in Bangladesh.
Around a month and a half ago, it was Salahuddin, a standing committee member of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), who blasted the interim government after the attack on the offices of two national leading dailies, saying, "We wanted democracy, but we got mobocracy.
"Why should it be allowed to flourish? It is the government's weakness that has encouraged mob rule, and it must be suppressed firmly," he said at an exchange of views with editors and media personalities at a Dhaka hotel on 21 December.
Many issues and crises emerged at once. It wasn't possible to manage everything properly together. It was a period we had to go through
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Before Salahuddin's warning, BNP Chairman Tarique Rahman in his post-election press conference on Saturday clearly stated that "peace and law and order must be maintained at any cost", warning that his administration would not tolerate any anarchy.
And intriguingly, after the 12 February election, mob culture seems to have suddenly disappeared like vapour.
How mobocracies rise and rule
When globally acclaimed Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took oath as chief adviser and formed his 17-member interim government on 8 August 2024, three days after the fall of Sheikh Hasina's autocratic regime, a post-uprising Bangladesh welcomed him with the hope for a good beginning.
It's not a mob, it's a pressure group… Those who were denied basic civil liberties during the AL regime are now voicing their grievances through this group.
The way he had been showered with praises at home and abroad made people believe that "a group of nobles" had taken charge of the post-uprising Bangladesh.
Like his advisers, he took oath under the constitution to "faithfully discharge the duties of the office and to preserve, protect and defend the constitution and to do right to all manner of people according to law, without fear or favour, affection or ill-will."
The formation of his government following the opinion of the Supreme Court filled the constitutional vacuum created after the fall of the Hasina regime.
There's no such thing as mob violence in the country.
In those days full of uncertainty and chaos, it was beyond the wildest of imaginations of people at large that his government would gradually emerge as patron of "mob rule" and Bangladesh would slip into a mobocracy — the worst form of government.
But things unfolded fast.
On 10 August 2024, just two days into the tenure of the new regime, then chief justice Obaidul Hasan and five justices of the Appellate Division were forced to resign in an unprecedented manner.
The morning of 10 August foretold the happenings of the day. The then chief justice convened a full court meeting of justices of both the High Court and the Appellate Division to be held virtually at 10:30 am. The meeting was scheduled for discussing administrative matters of the judiciary.
But a rumour spread like wildfire that the chief justice was moving to stage a "judicial coup" to oust the new government.
The incident at Dhaka University has saddened us… no extrajudicial killing will be accepted at all.
Referring to the court meeting, Asif Mahmud Sajib Bhuiyan, an adviser of the government, called on Facebook for the chief justice to resign and postpone the meeting. Students, who had just days ago been protesting on the streets against the Hasina regime, thronged towards the Supreme Court premises to besiege it.
The meeting was postponed at around 10:15 am, but demonstrations had already kicked off in front of the High Court annex building.
The government did not take any move to resist the mob from marching towards the apex court building.
On behalf of the protesting students, according to a Prothom Alo report, Law Adviser Asif Nazrul told the journalists at the Secretariat, "We hope the chief justice will understand when a demand for resignation comes from the mass movement and how to honour that demand."
The law ministry, at around 2:30pm, revealed that the chief justice had resigned. Five of the seven Appellate Division justices followed suit on the same day.
This incident sent a bone-chilling signal to the entire judiciary — both higher and lower. Judges and magistrates working in the lower courts were terrified. Incidents of mob violence were rampant in the following months on the lower court premises. Attacks on arrestees and lawyers deemed pro-Awami League on the court premises were reported almost daily since, reflecting the politics of vengeance.
Incidents of mob violence continued — some in the name of the self-proclaimed "Towhidi Janata".
Six months after the July Uprising, a mob set Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's house on Dhanmondi 32 on fire on 5 February night. The mob gathered there after Hasina delivered a fiery online speech on the same day from exile in India, in which she called on her supporters to stand against the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus.
The mob, for the next two to three days, continued to demolish the burnt building with bulldozers, hammers and other makeshift tools. While law enforcement personnel were present on the premises, they did not intervene.
It is important to note that the attack at Dhanmondi 32 was not sudden. A campaign on social media to demolish the house had been mounting for days.
Along with the Dhanmondi 32 residence, protesters also set the homes of exiled leaders of Hasina's party on fire across different districts in the country.
In a statement to the media, Muhammad Yunus called the vandalism at Dhanmondi 32 "regrettable" but attributed it to "public outrage" over Hasina's speech from India about the July Uprising.
The interim government accused Hasina of insulting the uprising's "martyrs" and inciting instability.
"Her words have reopened the wounds of the July massacre, leading to the backlash" at Dhanmondi 32, read a statement issued by his office the next day.
With this, mob rule was effectively established as the status quo in the country.
In face of pressure by another mob, the Yunus government in May banned all activities of the Awami League and its associated and affiliated organisations under the Anti-Terrorism law based on allegations of killings, genocide, crimes against humanity, and other grave offences during the July Uprising. This disqualified the party from contesting the 12 February parliamentary election.
Another notable incident occurred on 18 December last year, when mobs vandalised and torched the offices of The Daily Star and Prothom Alo after labeling the newspapers as pro-India and pro-Hasina.
As many as 28 journalists were later rescued after being trapped for hours on the rooftop of The Daily Star building. Members of the law enforcement agencies were present there, but they were not instructed by the government to go for action.
These are among few of numerous incidents of mob violence. Those incidents created an environment of fear and nobody dared to strongly criticise the events. This helped the government move towards absolute consolidation of powers.
What is mobocracy?
Mobocracy can be defined as a political system in which mobs are the source of control. Or, to be more succinct, it is a government by the masses.
Webster Dictionary defines mobocracy as a condition in which the lower classes of a nation control public affairs without respect to law, precedents, or vested rights.
Cambridge dictionary defines mobocracy as rule by a mob — a large, angry crowd, especially one that could become violent.
The definitions resemble what transpired in Bangladesh in the name of protests. Almost every incident of mob violence or mob justice triggered outcry more or less.
The chief adviser's press wing, however, blasted critics and claimed framed mobs as "pressure groups" instead.
What went wrong?
When Muhammad Yunus became Chief Adviser, he found a collapsed mechanism of checks and balances.
Parliament had been dissolved by the president paving the way for him to take the office of the head of the government. Removal of the chief justice and five other justices of the Appellate Division, some critics say, terrified the judiciary, particularly the lower courts.
The fear of being tagged as "cohorts" of the Hasina regime was ruling supreme everywhere from the media industry to business communities and civil bureaucracy. The post-uprising Bangladesh gradually found itself in a new normal where fear of mobs shaped almost everything.
But it was a fertile ground for people who love to exercise power without accountability. The chief adviser not only exercised the country's executive powers, he also exercised the nation's legislative powers through the president who had nothing to say as his fate hung in the balance.
Yunus's government gained the authority to enact laws at supersonic speed. It advised the president to promulgate 130 ordinances in only one and a half year, beating the record of the Fakhruddin Ahmed-led caretaker regime between 2007-08, which promulgated 122 ordinances.
A quick analysis of the records show no past parliaments have been able to make so many laws within such a short amount of time.
The interim government even made the president issue the controversial July Charter Implementation Order. Before the promulgation of the order, it had been mired in controversy as legal experts questioned the jurisdiction of the president to issue such an order.
It later created a political deadlock on the oath taking day of newly elected members of the parliament as Jamaat-e-Islami and NCP-led alliance MPs took two distinct oaths of office — as members of the parliament under the constitutional provision and members of the Constitution Reform Council.
But BNP-led alliance MPs took oath as members of parliament only while abstaining from the latter oath, citing the absence of any such provision in the constitution.
Legal experts also questioned the government's law-making speed. In their views, the constitution allows the president to make law only through ordinances to meet the urgency in absence of the parliament.
It is clear that all the powers of executive and legislative lay in the hands of the Yunus government and their exercise of said power was unchecked. The state of judiciary during the Yunus government did not look bright either.
What happens in such a situation?
Let us rely on the most famous quote on the separation of powers by Montesquieu, a French judge, intellectual, historian, and political philosopher, who warned in in his 1748 book "The Spirit of the Laws" that liberty is lost if legislative, executive, and judicial powers are united in one person or body.
"There would be an end to everything, were the same man or the same body, whether of the nobles or of the people, to exercise those three powers, that of enacting laws, executing the public resolutions, and trying the causes of individuals," he wrote.
More than a hundred years later, British historian Lord Acton warned that authority often leads to moral decay and unethical behaviour, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
The collapse of the checks and balances gave birth to the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina.
Almost for the same reasons, and additional incidences of rampant mob violence, Bangladesh slipped into a mobocracy during the rule of Yunus.
Interestingly, both Yunus and Hasina hold grudges against each other and both used state powers against each other, political analysts say.
And the result is the same: people suffered.
With elected MPs sworn in and a new cabinet formed on Tuesday, the role of Yunus as the head of interim government came to a formal end.
But his departure was strikingly unceremonious and he remained largely out of the public eye since his last day in office — a sharp contrast to the fanfare and warm welcome that greeted him at the airport 18 months ago.
