Features | Politics | South Asia

Where Does Bangladesh’s Once Dominant Awami League Stand Today?

The former ruling party, once a mainstay of Bangladeshi politics, has largely disappeared from public political life. But its leaders remain defiant.

A damaged mural of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is still visible from outside the Awami League’s abandoned central office on Bangabandhu Avenue, nearly two years after the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government.

The main gate of the Awami League’s central office on Shaheed Abrar Fahad Avenue (previously known as Bangabandhu Avenue), a property in the middle of Dhaka estimated to be worth nearly 150 million taka, now stands half-broken and shut. A few police officers remain stationed nearby to prevent gatherings of party activists or the kind of mob violence that has become an increasingly dangerous feature of Bangladesh’s political culture over the past two years.

Inside the compound, only a few street hawkers vans can be seen resting quietly. The walls are covered in soot and ash. The surroundings are broken and dirty, with the smell of urine hanging in the air. There are no air conditioners running, no lights, no senior leaders arriving or leaving, no groups of party men sitting around gossiping in their traditional Mujib coats worn over Punjabi – the style once closely associated with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the AL’s founding figure and most influential leader.

A similar silence hangs over the AL office in Dhanmondi. Grass now grows freely across parts of the compound. There is little sign that this was once among the country’s most powerful political spaces during the height of Sheikh Hasina’s increasingly authoritarian rule.

At Dhanmondi 32, the historic residence of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, only fragments of the old structure remain. The house, once guarded heavily and treated almost as sacred ground by AL supporters, now looks abandoned and shattered.

The staircase where Mujib were assassinated in 1975 – along with including most of his family members, except Hasina and her sister Sheikh Rehana, who were abroad at the time – is now broken and damaged itself. The old marks and memories tied to the stairs have been overtaken by destruction.

The staircase inside the damaged Dhanmondi 32 residence now stands covered in debris and graffiti after repeated attacks on the site. Photo by Saqlain Rizve.

Slogans now cover the walls. “Bharat-bad Guriye Dao” (“Destroy Indian dominance”), one reads. Another says, “Ei Bhaban Dekhe Sikkha Nin” (“Learn from this building”), referring to what many see as the consequences of authoritarian rule. Others demand justice for those killed during the July Uprising of 2024: “Ganohottar Khoma nai, Shokol Ghatoker Kolla Chai” (“No forgiveness for genocide, we want the heads of all the killers”).

According to the United Nations, around 1,400 people were killed during the 2024 uprising that eventually brought down the AL government.

Security in the Dhanmondi 32 area still tightens from time to time. Authorities fear the site could become a gathering point for AL supporters, which could trigger unrest.

For nearly two years, this has been the condition of many AL offices across the country. There have been no major rallies, visible political programs, or significant street presence. Although the party announced strikes several times, they had little visible impact. Apart from a few brief flash processions appearing once every few months, the party has largely disappeared from public political life. 

Even during the recent election period, there was almost no visible activity carried out in the party’s name, as the interim government had suspended the Awami League’s political activities and the Election Commission froze its registration in May 2025. The restrictions covered rallies, meetings, publicity, publications, and election participation.

After coming to power following the February 2026 election, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led government did not revoke the restrictions imposed during the interim period, effectively allowing them to continue. In April 2026, Parliament also passed legislation linked to the ban framework introduced under the interim administration, further institutionalizing the Awami League’s exclusion from formal politics.

So where does the AL stand now? What are AL leaders and grassroots members thinking behind closed doors? 

And what comes next for the political force that once dominated Bangladesh almost completely?

Inside the AL’s abandoned central office, soot-covered walls and parked hawker carts now occupy what was once one of Bangladesh’s most powerful political spaces. Photo by Saqlain Rizve.

Aftermath of a Fall: 1975 and 2024

The collapse of the AL in 2024 has revived memories of another major political rupture in Bangladesh’s history: the fall of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s government in 1975. Nearly five decades apart, both moments reshaped the country’s political landscape. Yet the aftermaths also reveal major differences in how public memory, political resistance, and party survival evolved across generations.

Talukder Maniruzzaman, a political scientist and former professor at the University of Dhaka, argued in his article published by the University of California Press, titled “Bangladesh in 1975: The Fall of the Mujib Regime and Its Aftermath,” that Mujib’s government increasingly centralized power through Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BAKSAL), a one-party structure that blurred the line between party and state. Following the August 15 coup, BAKSAL was dissolved, political parties were banned, and Bangladesh entered a period of coups, counter-coups, arrests, and ideological conflict.

According to Maniruzzaman’s account, Khondaker Mushtaq Ahmad’s government initially retained 10 of Mujib’s 18 ministers and eight of nine ministers of state, showing that parts of the old regime were absorbed into the new structure rather than removed immediately. But pressure soon intensified. Thirty-two people were arrested under Martial Law Regulations, including six ministers, 10 MPs, four civil servants, one educationist, and 12 businessmen on charges of corruption and misuse of power.

The treatment of senior AL figures became harsher within months. On November 4, 1975, four top AL and BKSAL leaders – Tajuddin Ahmad, Syed Nazrul Islam, M. Mansur Ali, and A.H.M. Kamruzzaman – were found dead inside Dhaka Central Jail, only weeks after Sheikh Mujib and most of his family members had been killed.

Yet even in that atmosphere, pro-Mujib forces were not entirely absent. Maniruzzaman noted that a procession consisting mainly of pro-Moscow leaders and students marched from University of Dhaka to Mujib’s residence to observe “Bangabandhu Memorial Day.” 

Even after the August 15, 1975 coup, pro-Mujib networks attempted limited resistance against the new political order. In late 1975, pro-Mujib labor leaders organized unrest at the Adamjee Jute Mills, one of the country’s largest industrial complexes at the time, while leaflets demanding punishment for the “killers of Bangabandhu” circulated across Dhaka.

Comparable scenes have been largely absent since the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government in 2024. Despite occasional online campaigns, brief flash processions, and strike calls from exiled or underground leaders, the AL has so far failed to generate sustained public mobilization in support of the party or its leadership.

The AL also did not disappear electorally after 1975. In the 1979 parliamentary election held under President Ziaur Rahman after years of martial law, the BNP secured a sweeping victory with a two-thirds majority, but the AL faction led by Abdul Malek Ukil still won 40 parliamentary seats and emerged as the main opposition force. The result showed that despite repression, fragmentation, and the loss of Mujib, the AL still retained an organizational base and electoral relevance only four years after the coup.

This is where 2024 looks significantly different. In the election of 2026 the AL was not allowed to participate. 

Inside Dhanmondi 32, broken walls and graffiti now cover the residence of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Photo by Saqlain Rizve.

After Hasina’s fall, AL offices, leaders’ homes, and symbolic spaces linked to the party became direct targets of public anger. Dhanmondi 32, once one of the country’s most protected political sites, now stands heavily damaged after repeated attacks and has been broken by bulldozers. 

Instead of visible processions mourning the party’s fall, AL supporters mostly avoid public gatherings altogether. Several party supporters attempting to visit Dhanmondi 32 or place flowers there were reportedly attacked or chased away by mobs. The party’s street presence has almost disappeared.

The legal pressure surrounding the AL is also far more intense today. Media reports say that 707 cases were filed in Dhaka alone over the July uprising, with more than 5,000 people arrested. The cases named thousands of AL leaders and activists, including Hasina. Human Rights Watch also stated that thousands of perceived political opponents were detained after the uprising, while the AL itself was later banned from political activities pending trials over protest-related killings.

Another striking similarity between 1975 and today lies in the changing political mood surrounding India.

Maniruzzaman observed that anti-India sentiment became increasingly visible after the 1975 coup, especially among nationalist political groups and sections of the military who viewed the Mujib government as too closely aligned with New Delhi and Moscow. In present-day Bangladesh, anti-India rhetoric has again become more visible following the fall of Hasina’s government, particularly among nationalist and Islamist groups critical of New Delhi’s long relationship with the AL.

Still, there are important differences between the two eras.

The fall of Mujib’s government came through a violent military coup that immediately transformed the state structure. The 2024 collapse emerged through weeks of public unrest, youth-led mobilization, and anger over authoritarian governance and state violence. Rather than tanks on the streets, it was mass protests amplified by social media and digital activism that overwhelmed the political system.

The role of memory has also changed dramatically. In 1975, political narratives were shaped largely through newspapers, radio, and elite political circles. Today, videos of crackdowns, protest deaths, and political violence continue circulating online long after the uprising ended, making political rehabilitation far more difficult than in earlier decades.

Political analyst and writer Mohiuddin Ahmad recently argued that one of the biggest differences between 1975 and the present moment is the political space available to the AL after losing power. 

Following Mujib’s assassination, the party was weakened, fragmented, and many leaders went underground or fled to India, but the party itself was not formally banned. Over time, it reorganized and gradually returned to mainstream politics. In contrast, the AL today faces suspension of political activities, the loss of its electoral symbol, and growing public reluctance among other political actors to openly defend its right to operate politically.

Grass and overgrown vegetation now cover parts of the Awami League office compound in Dhanmondi. Photo by Saqlain Rizve.

Contesting the Narrative 

The Awami League today operates in one of the most uncertain periods in its post-1971 history. Hundreds of party leaders are facing criminal cases, and much of the AL’s senior leadership is now in exile or in hiding. Hasina herself was sentenced to death in absentia on November 17, 2025 by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal over crimes against humanity linked to the government’s deadly crackdown during the July-August 2024 uprising.

For many leaders now living outside Bangladesh, politics has become inseparable from exile itself. Former State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Mohammad Ali Arafat, who believes at least 100 cases have been filed against him, including murder, described a life shaped by constant disruption, uncertainty, and rebuilding from scratch.

“Suppose you had a home, a fixed place, a table where you used to sit and work, a laptop, a phone – the entire setup has been disrupted,” he said in an interview with The Diplomat. “You have to organize everything again from zero.”

Arafat described himself as “extremely busy… with current political discussions and personal life all combined. More than which country I am in, where I am staying, or who I am with, the bigger issue is how life is going now and how time is passing. Whether politics is settled or not, there is a lot of work. Almost 24/7 work. A major part of this work is communication.” 

According to Arafat, even routine political tasks now take far longer under exile conditions. “Earlier, maybe a specific task took two hours. Now that same task may take two days,” he said.

Yet despite the collapse of the party’s formal political structure inside Bangladesh, AL leaders insist the organization itself remains active through informal networks, encrypted communication, and online coordination. 

Saddam Hussain, president of the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), AL’s student wing, which has also been banned, told The Diplomat that much of the party’s organizational activity now revolves around maintaining contact with........

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