An election in the shadow of grief

As the February 12 elections approach, Bangladesh’s political conversation is growing louder, shaped by party narratives, elite analysis and the arithmetic of power. I wanted to step away from that noise and listen instead to how politics is understood at the grassroots.

For the first episode of this series, I travelled to Babanpur, a village in Rangpur’s Pirganj, that briefly entered national consciousness after Abu Sayed was shot dead by police during a demonstration on July 16, 2024, turning him into a symbol of the movement that ultimately led to the collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s 16-year rule.

Eighteen months later, Babanpur is quiet again. The attention has largely faded, but the consequences remain.

On the afternoon of January 23, I met Mokbul Hossain, Abu Sayed’s father, at his home, along with his eldest son, Ranjan Ali, and Rubiya Begum, a neighbour and sister-in-law. When I asked whether they could feel the election approaching, Rubiya said yes, activists from both the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami had been visiting homes in the area.

Beyond that, however, national politics felt distant to her.

“I don’t know what is happening around the country,” she said.

That sense of detachment stood in sharp contrast to the scale of campaign promises circulating nationally. I asked what they thought of the BNP’s proposal for family cards providing Tk 2,500 a month to millions of households, or Jamaat’s pledge to help hundreds of thousands of unemployed young people.

None of them appeared particularly interested. They were unfamiliar with the details, and the promises stirred little expectation.

Their scepticism was not rooted in ideology, but in experience. Mokbul told me that such pledges are routine before elections and rarely followed through. “These things are said every time before elections,” he said. “Then they are forgotten.”

Rubiya’s response went further. For her, politics should not be complicated. “We want a peaceful life,” she said. “What they give or don’t give does not matter to us. My brother-in-law was killed. I don’t want anyone else in the family to be killed. No mother should lose her child.”

Government assistance, she added, rarely reaches people like them anyway. “All those dalals (middlemen) take the lion’s share,” she said. Peace and security, not promises, were her priorities.

When I asked Mokbul whom he would vote for, he did not name a party or candidate. He said he would wait and see where public support appeared to be moving before deciding. Most people in the village, the elderly farmer said, preferred to be on the side of the eventual winner.

Later that afternoon, I stopped at a tea stall in Jafarpara Bazar, about a mile from Babanpur. There, Abul Hossain, Nazrul Islam and Abdur Razzak, all farmers in their 50s, spoke with greater political engagement. Unlike the family in Babanpur, they were eager for an election and believed it could bring an end to the current uncertainty.

“This government is not representative,” Nazrul told me. “It was not voted in by the people.”

Asked how they decided whom to support, Abul Hossain offered a simple explanation. “You can sense who is a good man,” he said. “We want someone who can run the country properly.” Pressed on what “properly” meant, he said all they wanted was a life without constant disruption.

The men at the tea stall expressed deep scepticism about campaign rhetoric. Abul laughed as he described what he saw as outlandish promises. “They even give certificates to Jannat (heaven),” he said. “All fraud.”

Nazrul raised the question that cuts through much of rural political debate. “The country itself is needy,” he said. “Where will the money for all these pledges come from?”

Abul admitted to having a soft corner for the BNP and spoke cautiously about its chairman, Tarique Rahman. Years spent abroad involuntarily, he hoped, might have changed him. “Maybe he has learned something,” Abul said. “Maybe he will be more sensitive.”

Others at the tea stall remained non-committal, weighing their options. Posters and banners of both BNP and Jamaat candidates competed for space around Jafarpara Bazar.

A few hours in Babanpur and Jafarpara made it clear to me that for many in rural Bangladesh, work, faith and survival come first. There is little trust in politics or government, but enduring faith in the Almighty. People are convinced they must survive through hard work, regardless of who is in power. 

Mokbul Hossain’s parting words captured that sentiment succinctly: “If the government helps us that is good. But we do not rely on them.”

Meanwhile, campaigning in northern Bangladesh is intensifying. On the day I landed at Saidpur airport, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir arrived from Dhaka on his way to Thakurgaon. That same night, Jamaat Ameer Shafiqur Rahman addressed a rally in Rangpur city after touring other northern districts. The choreography of the election is clearly underway.

Babanpur, too, bears traces of political attention. The village road has been paved since Abu Sayed’s death. Senior government figures have visited. On the day I was there, government adviser Adilur Rahman Khan briefly paid respects at Abu Sayed’s grave. Jamaat leaders were also expected to visit.

Yet for Abu Sayed’s family, these visits and gestures do not translate into political faith. The election feels close in time, but distant in meaning. In Babanpur, the ballot is measured not against manifestos, but against memory, loss and a fragile hope that this time power will not demand such a personal cost.

As he saw me off, Babanpur resident Tota Mia offered a confident warning: whoever comes to power after the election can no longer govern the way the Hasina administration did. “People will come out onto the streets once again if they do,” he said.

(Shakeel Anwar is a former BBC journalist.)