The death of Bangladesh’s fallen dictator

For the past thirty eight years, Hussein Muhammad Ershad was always in the limelight in Bangladesh. Now that he is dead at the age of eighty nine, interest in him has gone up by a good many degrees. That is only natural, for the man who as chief of army staff seized power in Bangladesh in March 1982 and then held the country in his iron grip for the next nine years played a pivotal role in giving ever newer twists to politics. Indeed, his ambitions of taking charge of the country emerged soon after the presidential election which saw Justice Abdus Sattar assume power in the aftermath of the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman, Bangladesh’s first military ruler, in November 1981. General Ershad had no qualms about violating discipline when he publicly demanded, soon after the election, the formation of a national security council comprising the chiefs of the three armed services.

But, that was not enough for Ershad. He led a bloodless coup d’état on 24 March 1982 and sent President Sattar and his government packing. In the near decade that followed, Bangladesh’s political opposition, led by the Awami League’s Sheikh Hasina and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s Khaleda Zia, never gave him the legitimacy he craved. He held elections in 1986 and 1988 that were a travesty of constitutional politics. Following in the footsteps of General Zia and Pakistan’s Ayub Khan, he formed his Jatiya Party, drawing into it, through blandishments and sometimes threats, politicians who were unable to resist the temptation of exercising political power. Of course, they lived in politics but by Ershad’s leave. The reputations of such veteran political figures as Ataur Rahman Khan and Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury were ruined for good when Ershad appointed them to the office of prime minister, one after the other, and then, their usefulness exhausted, showed them the door.

 The Ershad era in Bangladesh’s history was a long story of the corrupting of the political process, which had already been in a wounded state since the violent coup which had taken the life of the country’s founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in August 1975 

The Ershad era in Bangladesh’s history was a long story of the corrupting of the political process, which had already been in a wounded state since the violent coup which had taken the life of the country’s founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in August 1975. Into Ershad’s Jatiya Party came prominent figures from both the Awami League and the BNP. He roped journalists and businessmen into his camp, appointing them to important positions. If that was a measure of how he destroyed reputations, there was also the truth of how his politics further undermined the secular nature of Bangladesh. He was thus carrying the dark legacy of General Zia forward when through dictatorial fiat he decreed Islam as Bangladesh’s state religion and switched to Friday from Sunday as the weekly holiday. Shortly after seizing power, he went to the small village of Tungipara to offer prayers at the grave of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. And yet he ignored the immorality manifest in permitting the assassins of the country’s founder to form a political party and take part in elections. His grip on the media was asphyxiating, demonstrated by the ‘advice’ proffered by his officials on a nightly basis to newspapers whenever uncomfortable news items looked about to be printed. He tried his hand at breaking up the High Court into a number of smaller units but was prevented from doing so because of concerted opposition from the higher judiciary.

Ershad’s death leaves a number of questions unanswered because it was only he who knew the answers. He takes with him to the grave certain truths which people have suspected but have never had occasion to delve into. The murder of General Mohammad Abul Manzur only days after a putsch that led to the murder of Zia in Chittagong in May 1981 has always been laid at Ershad’s door. Likewise, the rushed trials and executions of thirteen army officers in connection with the Zia murder have remained an instance of gross injustice presided over by General Ershad in his capacity as army chief of staff. Throughout his period of rule, despite the draconian measures he adopted to suppress opposition, every class of citizens remained engaged in agitation against him. The crescendo of opposition to his rule was reached when the Awami League and the BNP, leading separate alliances, intensified their struggle for democracy and formulated a strategy for the regime to hand over power to a caretaker administration before free and fair general elections could be held.

The crescendo of opposition to his rule was reached when the Awami League and the BNP, leading separate alliances, intensified their struggle for democracy and formulated a strategy for the regime to hand over power to a caretaker administration before free and fair general elections could be held.

Ershad’s fall on 6 December 1990, as subsequent developments were to show, was not to be the political demise of the man. Unlike other dictators, he did not go gently into the night. Convicted of corruption after Khaleda Zia became prime minister in February 1991, he spent a good number of years in prison. Curiously, though, at various points in the years since his fall, Ershad’s support has been solicited by both Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina. On his own, as differences between Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia widened, Ershad alternately allied himself with them. Having been freed from prison, he was unwilling to go back there and shrewdly made sure that the party in power, be it the AL or the BNP, was convinced it had its support. Sheikh Hasina appointed him a special envoy, the better to prevent him from going over to her enemy’s camp.

Despite his notoriety as a dictator, Ershad enjoyed overwhelming support in his home district of Rangpur, where he was regularly elected to Parliament after 1990. In his bearings and dealings with people, he exuded civility, spoke in chaste Bengali and good English. His love of literature was well pronounced. In his years in power, he found time to compose poetry, though the hobby was not much noticeable once his glory days came to an end. His sense of romance was keen and he had an eye for beautiful women, which led to salacious stories about him in his years in power. He helped the careers of many by bringing them into his government. He had his administration arrange for prime property to be made available to journalists soliciting his aid. And many among those many, in sheer ingratitude, were to turn their backs on him after his regime collapsed.

Hussein Muhammad Ershad was an open book. And yet, with his life having drawn to an end, he remains an enigma for Bangladesh’s people.

• Neighbourhood
• Neighbourhood
• Bangladesh
• BNP
• Khaleda Zia
• Sheikh Hasina

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