Tarique Rahman’s return to Dhaka after seventeen years in exile from far away London was not merely the prodigal’s homecoming, in more ways than one, it was the reopening of Bangladesh’s most enduring political fault line.

The controversial heir to the Zia dynasty arrived in a country profoundly altered by the collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League, the rise of Islamist and student-led forces, and the uneasy stewardship of an interim regime led by Muhammad Yunus.

The massive crowds, an elaborately secured motorcade, that greeted the “prince” was watched over by an equally hostile other half of Bangladesh, some of whom saw his homecoming as a hurdle to the “New Bangladesh” they wanted to create by muzzling the media, turning the societal foundations from liberal to Islamists as also by Awami Leaguers who see him to be an interloper who cannot be trusted to keep Bangladesh on the path to progress.

His rally, framed around “peace” and national unity, was less a victory lap than the opening move in a high-stakes contest over who will define post-Hasina Bangladesh, while leaving open the question of whether Hasina and the Awami League can be written off at all.

Rahman’s rhetoric was deliberately conciliatory. He spoke of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians belonging to one political community, of Gen Z revolutionaries rescuing the country in 2024, and of the need for safety and economic rights.

The repetition of the word “peace” was striking in a nation now accustomed to street battles, assassinations, and the domination of public spaces by Islamist mobs.

Yet the symbolism ran deeper than tone. By invoking 1971 and 2024, Rahman was inserting himself into Bangladesh’s historical narrative of revolt and renewal, claiming that the BNP, not the........

© Free Press Journal