AHMEDE HUSSAIN
In a pivotal event in Bangladesh’s history, the student leaders who successfully led the mass upsurge against Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League have formed their own political party. The formation of National Citizens Party had all the familiar faces of the ‘Monsoon Revolution’ present on the dais, with thousands attending the programme at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban, the National Parliament.
But the path to the National Citizens Party (NCP)’s formation has not been smooth.
However, the NCP is unique in many ways. The event echoes the establishment of the Muslim League in Dhaka in 1906, which led to the Pakistan Movement, and the birth of the Awami Muslim League in 1949 (later the Awami League), which was instrumental in Bangladesh independence in 1971. Since then, all major political parties in Bangladesh emerged from military dictatorships or through military interference—the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in 1978 and the Jatiyo Party in 1986.
Another aspect that makes the NCP stand out is its break from the dynastic politics that have long plagued Bangladesh. The Awami League is led by Sheikh Hasina, one of Sheikh Mujib’s surviving daughters, while the BNP is helmed by Khaleda Zia, wife of military ruler Gen Ziaur Rahman. If the pattern holds, one of Hasina’s children would lead the Awami League, while Khaleda’s son, Tarique Rahman, is already the acting chairperson of the BNP.
New kids on the block
Building a political party from scratch is a herculean task, especially when neighbouring India offers the cautionary tale of the Aam Aadmi Party’s struggles. Even a national icon like Imran Khan took years to taste power in Pakistan, and his tenure was far from smooth.
Mohamed Muizzu pulled it off in the Maldives, forming the People’s National Congress (PNC) in 2019 and winning power within four years. But the PNC broke away from the Progressive Party of Maldives, where Muizzu was already a prominent figure.
Sri Lanka’s Anura Dissanayake succeeded on the back of the ‘Aragalaya’ (The Struggle) uprising in 2022. Yet, he leads the neo-Marxist Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP), a 60-year-old party with a long history of armed insurrections and electoral defeats before finally catching a break.
Only time will tell how effective the National Citizens Party will be in challenging the entrenched dynasties of Mujib and Zia.
To complicate matters, the NCP leaders are young and risk paying heavily for their inexperience at this critical juncture in the nation’s history.
Corrupt oligarchs and Jamaat
The party’s biggest challenge lies in how it funds itself. Bangladesh’s politics have long been hounded by a patron-client system where big businesses, often corrupt, bankroll parties in exchange for political favours. Sheikh Hasina’s 15 years in power, for instance, saw $234 billion siphoned out of the country.
So far, the National Citizens Party has resisted the advances of big business. But it has to find a way to inject clean money into its coffers. The party isn’t even a month old. It won’t be able to become a formidable force in Bangladesh’s politics without securing clean funding. This is especially true given the party’s ambitious declaration of a ‘Republic’ that promises “protections against poverty, inequality, and abuse of power,” vowing that no segment of the population will be excluded or criminalised.
The NCP also pledges to build a pluralistic and prosperous society, preserving the nation’s ethnic, social, gender, religious, and cultural diversity. It has kept this promise by electing many women to top leadership positions. The presence of Dalits in the NCP is a welcome change from Bangladesh’s usual majority-pandering politics. On 28 February, a vibrant procession of Dalits was led by activist and NCP leader Molla Mohammad Faruque Ahsan, affectionately called ‘Molla Harijan’ for his work with marginalised communities.
Yet, the party’s relationship with Jamaat remains an even bigger challenge. Hasina’s authoritarian rule and relentless invocation of 1971 have blurred the lines between her and the country’s liberation war. This has lulled Jamaat’s leadership into a false sense of security, as if Bangladeshis have forgotten everything about the country’s liberation war. Jamaat made this mistake after Mujib’s assassination in 1975—and is repeating it.
Jamaat is now lobbying for government jobs for its members and trying to infiltrate civil administration. With two of its former student leaders excluded from the National Citizens Party, Jamaat may launch its own student-led political party. While this faction might not become the main force emerging from the GenZ revolution, it could still cause significant disruption for the NCP.
The long road ahead
The National Citizens Party’s leadership is a diverse mix of Dalit activists, feminists, clerics, and Marxists—united by their shared experience of repression under Hasina’s regime. The party’s challenge is to forge a bond that will be firmer and wider than this common struggle.
In his speech, Nahid Islam, the newly elected NCP convener, declared, “There will be no room for pro-India or pro-Pakistan politics in Bangladesh. We will build politics and the state unitedly, keeping Bangladesh and the interests of its people in mind.”
This post-ideological stance may shield the party from the usual identity-driven clashes between the Awami League, BNP, and Jamaat. But the NCP faces a steep, treacherous climb. With barely anyone over 40 in its leadership, the party risks costly missteps. It must open its doors to more people—especially from religious, linguistic, and ethnic minorities—and carefully navigate its relationship with India, balancing sovereignty with pragmatic diplomacy.
Ahmede Hussain is a Bangladeshi writer and journalist. He is the editor of The New Anthem: The Subcontinent in its Own Words. His X handle is @ahmedehussain. Views are personal.
The article appeared in the theprint