Configurations of political parties in Bangladesh now carry multiple drifts—they are still inchoate after a long hiatus under an authoritarian stretch of fifteen plus years. But the parties got a new lease of life since a populist revolt ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s (Hasina) repressive regime. Now they are optimistic, alive, and thrusting. The expected contestants are mobilizing resources for the future electoral race.

Bangladeshis love politics, even though their success in institution-building fell short of expectations on multiple occasions. Historically, parties “formed “with a great ease in colonial and post-colonial Bengal; then bulk of those outfits did not grow for long. Factional and personal rivalries are still so strong in Bengali political culture. Single party domination, personalistic hegemony and the familiar dynastic claims characterized the rise and fall of parties in the past.

Among the squirming parties in post-Hasina Bangladesh, I sense an ideological jolt. The Awami League (AL)-centric secular-liberal nationalism, with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (Mujib) as the “Jatir Pita” has lost its pitch since the July-August’s tectonic discontent.A fresh sense of patriotism is, however, yet to come out lucidly —it is even short of catchy slogans and rhetoric to attract public attention.

Anti-Indian and anti-AL postures are the twins in the new mood in Bangladesh, which, of course, have their challengers—both internal and external. India is important to Bangladesh; on the other side, Bangladesh is too crucial for Indian security in the Northeastern states. So, New Delhi might try to reinstate Hasina or her AL allies back in Bangladesh. Nostalgia for the bygone Hasina regime among her surviving beneficiaries is still amongst the AL leftovers, anxious to return to power by hook or crook. The troubled AL will really have its own existential crisis if a band of its leaders, not directly associated with Hasina’s tyrannical regime, would jettison the old guards—the Mujib family, and recycle themselves as the new-fangled AL.

Neither the caretaker regime nor the BNP or Jamaat is ruling out such possibilities. AL gained its historic thrust in 1971, which, of course, went adrift after the 1975 violent coup. Much........

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