Bangladesh - History

From its earliest pre-history Bangladesh has been subject to waves of migration and the incursions of regional – and later European – powers. An Indo-Aryan population, Hindu in belief, arrived between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago and the evidence suggests a flourishing, sophisticated civilisation.

The Moghul dynasty, conquering the territory in the 16th century, spread Islam widely through the country. The following successions of arrivals were the Portuguese, Armenians, French and British, who established military and trade outposts. In 1757 a British force defeated the local army of Nawab Siraj-ud-Dwola and set in train 190 years of British rule.

In 1947 East Bengal and Sylhet (then part of Assam) came to independence out of the UK’s Indian Empire, as the eastern part of the Muslim state of Pakistan. From the start, East Pakistan was beset by problems. In particular, it resented the dominance of its richer and more powerful though less populous partner, West Pakistan, from which it was geographically separated by about 1,600km of Indian territory. Political control, language and economic policy were among the large areas of disagreement. In 1949 the Awami League was established in East Pakistan to campaign for autonomy.

Protests and violent demonstrations followed the declaration, in 1952, that Urdu was to be Pakistan’s official language. Bengali was finally accepted as the joint official language two years later. By the mid-1960s, continued under-representation in the government administration and armed forces and a much less than fair share of Pakistan’s development expenditure gave rise to the belief by many in East Pakistan that the only remedy was greater autonomy and thus more control over its own resources and development priorities and politics.

In 1970, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of the Awami League, won an electoral majority in Pakistan’s general election on a platform demanding greater autonomy for East Pakistan. At the same time Zulfikar Ali Bhutto gained a majority in the West. Despite Mujib’s victory, he was prevented by the Pakistan authorities from becoming prime minister of the combined state.

The Awami League then issued its own plans for a new constitution for an independent state, as a result of which the Pakistani army took control and Mujib was arrested in March 1971 after a fierce crackdown. This precipitated civil war, with an estimated 9.5 million refugees fleeing to India as a result, and led to military intervention by India on the side of the Mukti Bahini (Bengali ‘freedom fighters’) at the beginning of December. Two weeks later, Pakistan forces surrendered and the separate state of Bangladesh emerged. Sheikh Mujib returned from captivity in Pakistan in January 1972 and became prime minister.

Instability in the new state was compounded by floods, famine, the assassination of Sheikh Mujib in August 1975 – shortly after he became president – and a succession of military coups, with martial law and frequent states of emergency. After a coup in 1975, Major-General Ziaur Rahman (Zia) assumed the leadership and in 1978 he became president. The 1979 general election brought his Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to government. The country then enjoyed a period of economic and political stability. But in 1981 President Zia was murdered in an attempted coup.

In 1982 the then army chief, Lt-General Hossain Ershad, assumed power after another coup and became president in 1983. In May 1986 elections were held in violent conditions and boycotted by the BNP under Zia’s widow, Begum Khaleda Zia. Ershad’s Jatiya Party (JP) won and the Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Sheikh Mujib, boycotted parliament. Ershad won presidential elections in October 1986, and he lifted martial law and reinstated the constitution.

The following year was marked by riots and strikes, a state of emergency, thousands of arrests, and house-arrest for Begum Zia and Sheikh Hasina. A general election of March 1988, boycotted by the opposition, returned the JP with 238 seats, and the state of emergency was lifted. Then ensued devastating floods covering up to 75% of the country and making tens of millions homeless.