Awami League

Awami League, major political party in Bangladesh, chiefly responsible for that country’s secession from Pakistan in 1971. The League was formed in 1949 by a group of Bengali intelligentsia and political leaders—Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani, and, particularly, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman—and initially was known as the East Pakistan Muslim Awami League. In February 1955, the party dropped the title “Muslim” to reflect its secularization and renamed itself the Awami League.

In the united Pakistan that existed before 1972, the League’s main objectives were to secure a fair share of political power for the inhabitants of West Bengal, the building of opposition politics in East Pakistan by mobilizing support for the recognition of Bengali as a state language, and regional autonomy. The League was in power in the provincial government of East Pakistan and in the central government of Pakistan from 1956 to 1958. With the promulgation of martial law in Pakistan in October 1958, the activities of political parties were suspended for about three years. In 1964 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (popularly known as Mujib), now General Secretary of the Awami League, took the initiative to rebuild the party. Mujib declared the League’s Six Point Programme for the full regional autonomy of East Pakistan in 1966. The military government reacted to the demands of the League by arresting its top leaders and implicating Mujib in a conspiracy case. However, a national election was held in 1970 in which the Awami League swept the polls, winning a clear majority in the National Assembly and in the Provincial Assembly of East Pakistan. The 1970 election manifesto of the League pledged the nationalization of heavy industries and financial institutions, and workers’ participation in the equity shares. However, General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, President of Pakistan, decided not to allow the League to form a government, and sent West Pakistani troops into East Pakistan to suppress its supporters. The resulting massacres of Bengali leaders, refugee exodus, and effective civil war led to Indian intervention and Pakistan’s defeat in the third Indo-Pakistan War. Thus, the struggle for autonomy led by the Awami League turned into a war of liberation, as declared by Mujib, which culminated in the creation of Bangladesh on December 16, 1971.

The Awami League formed the first government, headed by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in the new nation of Bangladesh, and framed its constitution in 1972. Since its birth, the party had stood for parliamentary democracy, although there were a number of ideological shifts towards a presidential form of government or even to a one-party system during 1972 to 1975. In the first election held in 1973 based on the new constitution, the party secured overwhelming popular support. However, its popularity soon faded because of grave economic crises, followed by a famine that hit the country in 1974. The League regime was overthrown with the assassination of Mujib in a military coup staged on August 15, 1975, after he had given himself greatly enhanced presidential powers under a new constitution. Following the assassination of Mujib, the League split and reformed several times; and this trend continued until Sheikh Hasina Wajed—daughter of Mujib—took over as leader of the party after 1983. She brought about major changes in the party manifesto, and in 1991 announced its commitment to the market economy instead of its earlier socialist stance in economic planning. Following its victory in the general election held in June 1996, the Awami League formed the government of Bangladesh once again under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina.

The October 2001 elections saw the party suffer a resounding defeat, winning only 62 of the Parliament’s 300 seats. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (led by Khaleda Zia) and its three coalition partners took power with a two-thirds majority. Believing the election to be rigged despite being monitored by independent domestic and international observers, Awami League MPs led by Sheikh Hasina boycotted the new parliament’s first session that began on October 28.