The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 18 | Issue 15 | Number 10 | Article ID 5444 | Aug 01, 2020

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COVID-19 in Bangladesh: How the Awami LeagueTransformed a Crisis into a Disaster

Ikhtisad Ahmed

Abstract: In the case of Bangladesh, COVID-19has laid bare the shortcomings of the state,underscoring the complicity of the military,elite class, Islamists and intelligentsia in thegovernment’s dysfunctional, apathetic, andauthoritarian approach. This essay breaksdown the Bangladeshi government’s responsealong three key lines: the first to examine thelegal basis for its response to the pandemic, thesecond the exploitation of labour rights andhow it affects public image, and third thesuppression of freedoms of speech andexpression. Through discussion of these keytenets, this essay provides a comprehensiveindictment of how Bangladesh is turning acrisis into a disaster.

In Bangladesh, the emperor unquestionably hasthe best clothes. In order to display them, aparade on horseback that would span theentirety of 2020 and go throughout the countrywas planned to celebrate the birth centenary ofthe ruling dynasty’s founding father, SheikhMujibur Rahman. It was to be inaugurated byIndia’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in orderto reaffirm the special relationship betweenBangladesh and India that has helped tosolidify authoritarianism in Bangladesh overthe past decade. The launch of a Mujibcalendar beginning on 17 March 2020 – thedate of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s birthcentenary – would kick-off the nationwide,year-long roadshow. It would end at thebeginning of the celebrations for another year-long affair: Bangladesh’s fiftieth birthday inMarch 2021. This thoroughly choreographed

public relations extravaganza suits autocratslike Rahman’s daughter, Prime Minister SheikhHasina. The 2018 re-election campaignplatform of the Awami League declared that itwas the only party that could guaranteeBangladesh’s history was properly respected,citing these upcoming celebrations as evidenceof its commitment to doing so. Although therigged election denied the Awami League theveneer of democratic legitimacy, it was hopedthat the nationalist pageantry would provide apositive limelight. Taxpayers would providemuch of the funding for the two-yearsaturnalia, supplemented by large donationsfrom cronies who have done well from theirconnections to the Awami League. But thingsdid not go according to plan.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinawith portrait of her father Sheikh Mujibur

Rahman (Credit: YouTube.com)

On 6 March 2020, demonstrations erupted inthe capital of Dhaka, demanding NarendraModi’s invitation be rescinded due to thepassage of his BJP government’s discriminatory

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National Register of Citizens and theCitizenship Amendment Act that are designedto strip Muslims of their citizenship rights(Akash and Sarker, 2020; Daniyal, 2020;Haider, 2020). In Muslim-majority Bangladesh,while most protesters were Muslims andIslamists, secular and progressive activists alsotook to the streets to stand against bigotry. Justtwo days later, on 8 March 2020, three cases ofCOVID-19 were confirmed in Bangladesh (Paul,2020). On 9 March 2020, Narendra Modicancelled his planned visit on the pretext oftaking precautions against the encroachingglobal pandemic (Daniyal, 2020). The same day,the Health Minister guaranteed to the nation’spress that Bangladesh was fully prepared totackle an outbreak (Ahmed and Liton, 2020).On 17 March 2020, a pared-down version of theevents that were to kick off the centenarycelebrations went ahead with the participationof foreign artists, including those from India,and were watched by tens of thousandsgathered in public places (SOMOY TV, 2020).Sheikh Hasina addressed the nation, butinstead of offering sensible advice aboutpandemic countermeasures, she focused onglorifying her family dynasty and rallyingnationalist sentiments. (TBS Report, 2020a). On26 March 2020, a ten-day nationwide generalholiday – not a lockdown – started, ostensibly tostop the spread of COVID-19. The primeminister touched on it during her midnightIndependence Day address on 26 March(Tribune Desk, 2020a), invoking the spirit of1971 – the Awami League’s version of shahada(Muslim profession of faith that there is no godbut Allah) declaring itself to be the nation’s oneand only party – and confidently declared thather party had ensured that Bangladesh wascompletely prepared to tackle a disease whichit had been downplaying and was ill-preparedto contain or mitigate. Between 8 and 26 March2020, apologists and ministers and seniormembers of the Awami League publiclyrestated their unshakeable faith in SheikhHasina, a collectively ineffective response tothe developing COVID-19 crisis (UNB, 2020a).

The legality of dealing with a globalpandemic

The Awami League has defined democracy inthe narrowest terms possible in order tocontinue to lay claim to it. The Constitution ofBangladesh allows the government to declare astate of emergency, which suspends theConstitution and the rights enshrined in it, todeal with extraordinary circumstances (Section141B, Section 141C of the Constitution of thePeople’s Republic of Bangladesh). WhileCOVID-19 spread, however, the Awami Leaguerefused to declare a state of emergency. Thiscould be admirable, were the reasons behind itnot so self-serving. Other than the period inwhich Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP)attempted to establish one-party rule, the lasttime this constitutional provision was enacted,a civil society-backed military government(supported by the West) openly belittleddemocracy (BBC News, 2007; The Economist,2007). Civil society elites – including Nobellaureate, Muhammad Yunus, renowned lawyerand one of the drafters of the Constitution,Kamal Hossain, and editor of the widestcirculating English language daily, MahfuzAnam – ensured the suspension of civil libertiesand democracy. They asserted this was a high-minded effort to rescue the nation fromdysfunctional politics. The two traditionalpolitical powerhouses, the Awami League andthe BNP, faced an existential threat during thenearly two-year “civil society” governmentwhen fundamental rights were suspended.

The lesson learned from that hiatus was to nipin the bud any political machinations byopponents and fend off of another civil societyor military takeover. Since that interimgovernment, the Awami League’s eleven-yearreign has been one long mission to avoidantagonising the military, appeasing it insteadwith state patronage, lucrative contracts, and amutually beneficial bridge between it and the

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party, all with the goal of neutralising itspolitical threat. For example, Sheikh Hasina’sgovernment promoted Aziz Ahmed, despitefamilial links to organised crime, to the positionof Chief of Army Staff, over more senior andeligible candidates (Khokon, 2018). Theselection of Saiful Alam as the new head spy atthe nefarious Directorate General of ForcesIntelligence (DGFI), Bangladesh’s militaryintelligence agency, during the ongoing healthcrisis was yet another partisan move to assertcivilian control over state security forces(bdnews24, 2020).

The Awami League thus avoided declaring astate of emergency and kept COVID-19 relateddeployment of the military to a minimum. Thepresence of men in uniforms is most keenly feltby the refugee and indigenous populations,who the military has been tasked withmonitoring and oppressing (Ahmed, 2014; HillVoice, 2020). This arrangement predates thepandemic, and the minority communitiesoverseen by the military are amongst the mostvulnerable to the pandemic due to endemicpoverty and poor public health services(Ahmed, 2014). Furthermore, the police andthe Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a specialistparamilitary force, have been at the forefront ofthe government’s COVID-19 response,disabusing people of the notion that AwamiLeague is wary of using force (Riaz, 2020a;Netra Report, 2020a). Law enforcementagencies meting out corporal punishment andhumiliation to the lower classes became astaple of state propaganda carried by mediaoutlets as proof of the pandemic being tackled(Rabbi and Rahman, 2020). The government’sresponse has thus prioritized law enforcement,not healthcare. The government has refrainedfrom invoking the notorious section 144 of theCode of Criminal Procedure (CCP) – a colonialera law that endows the state with sweepingsecurity powers such as curfews and bans onmass gatherings – but this has hamperedcontainment efforts. Awami League proponentscite the absence of a state of emergency and

curfews as evidence of its democraticcommitment, but critics counter by citing thesecuritization of the COVID19 response.

In the absence of declaring a state ofemergency or imposing curfews, the legal basisfor Bangladesh’s COVID-19 response is murkyat best. The various strategies used worldwidebroadly fall into two categories: (1) strictlockdowns to contain transmission, withoptimization of resources and a focus onbuilding healthcare capacity, and (2) social-distancing based restrictions without a formallockdown, with emphasis placed on testing,contact tracing, and mitigating the impact ofthe pandemic. The Bangladesh government hasbeen dysfunctional and not developed astrategy that resembles either of the above.The Awami League eschewed lockdowns infavour of a general holiday, extended until theend of May 2020 (Mamun, 2020), although itwas obvious by then that more, not less,needed to be done regarding restrictions(Dhaka Tribune, 2020). It has thus failed in itsmost basic duty to protect the people. Thegeneral holiday enacted in lieu of a lockdownhas neither been legally defined nor derivesfrom existing laws A long overdue InfectiousDiseases (Prevention, Control and Elimination)Act (IDA) was made law in 2020 (The Daily StarLaw Desk, 2020), and extended to includeCOVID-19 under its jurisdiction, with a gazetteissued on 23 March 2020, as required by theAct for diseases not listed in it (GovernmentGazette Archive). However, rather than beingprescient, the Act and its application havemerely exposed the inadequacies of the existingsystem and incompetence of the authorities.

While the IDA allows for the formulation ofprevention strategies that may include isolatinginfected individuals and closing down infectedsites, it does not provide detailed proceduresfor how those things should be done, in generalnor specifically regarding COVID-19. TheDirector General of the Department of Health,with the assistance of an Advisory Committee

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that includes the Minister of Health andsecretaries of specified ministries, is solelyauthorised to enact prevention measures, andthey are to be carried out by the Department.Contrary to this, Bangladesh has beenfollowing the orders of the Prime Minister, andthe law enforcement agencies that have beenimplementing them. Spokespeople who becamethe identifiable faces of the government’sresponse were drafted from the little-knownInstitute of Epidemiology, Disease Control andResearch (IEDCR), which lacks jurisdictionunder the IDA, and the Minister of Health whois at most empowered to act in an advisorycapacity under the Act (Ahmed and Liton,2020). The necessary committee of healthcareexperts was not formed until 18 April 2020, andeven then, it was not properly constituted(Transparency International Bangladesh, 2020).In simple terms, in the face of an overwhelmingthreat, there was no leadership or transparencyfrom those on high.

Not only is the IDA insufficient in codifying thehealthcare procedures necessary to tackleCOVID-19, it also does not provide a legal basisfor lockdowns, general holidays, definite orindefinite closures (of offices, educationalinstitutions, public places etc.), governmentassistance schemes and their oversight, noraccountability (Imam, Re., 2020). There are noprovisions to deal with the inevitableconsequences of a pandemic, ranging fromoperation of the judiciary and other organs ofstate, aid and relief packages, stimulus andloan packages and repayment schedules, andhealthcare staff and resource shortages, toaccessing food, water and shelter, employmentprotection, volunteers’ and tenants’ rights, lossof income, health and safety rights, and poverty(ibid.). The Act does not reaffirm the right tolife of patients or healthcare professionals,allowing Sheikh Hasina and her government toblame, attack and abuse victims of theiractions, or lack thereof, during the ongoinghealth crisis, in direct contradiction of theConstitution, and of numerous international

agreements that the country is party to (Imam,Ra., 2020). The Prime Minister’s public rebukesexplicitly accused doctors and nurses ofcriminal conduct despite their working on thefrontlines without personal protectiveequipment (PPE) at considerable personal risk(Rahman, 2020), while her Special Adviser, theMember of Parliament (MP) Salman F.Rahman, exported millions of PPE to the USAthrough his Beximco conglomerate (TBSReport, 2020b). Severe shortages of PPE acrossthe world have paved the way for domesticprice hikes, and for entrepreneurs to chasesimilarly lucrative ventures (TransparencyInternational, 2020). Government procurementof essential medical equipment and supplieshas been at five to ten times the standard rates,with the already prevalent problems ofoverpricing and false invoicing amongst theproducers and importers of medical equipmentamplified by opportunists taking advantage ofthe crisis (Himal Editors, 2020).

The IDA expressly states the importance of theWorld Health Organisation’s (WHO) regulationsand guidelines, but these are flagrantly violatedin practice. A concerted and coordinated effortof the media, intelligentsia, and the elite class –all extensions of the government – haszealously and relentlessly discredited the WHOwhile sowing seeds of Sinophobia. Theresulting spread of misinformation anddisinformation to downplay the pandemic anddistract attention from the state’s failure todeal with the growing crisis, has effectivelydissuaded citizens from taking measures toprotect themselves. The error of lookingwestward at a time when more comprehensiveand reliable methods of countering COVID-19are available regionally, and when typicalworld-leaders like the USA and UK in particularare struggling, is lost on the beholdenintelligentsia and elite class. In simultaneouslyusing the failures of the West as a yardstick toproclaim Bangladesh’s relative success whileactively replicating the worst aspects ofWestern strategies, the ruling elite have

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abnegated their duty to protect ordinarycitizens. Beximco and the loosely regulatedpharmaceutical industry enjoy the benefits ofclose ties to the government. There is nostarker example than one championed by thedomestic media and hailed by quarters of theinternational press.(Siddiqui 2020) Beximcotook orders for, produced and sold the genericRemdesivir – a drug whose effectiveness intreating COVID-19 symptoms has beenquestioned by the WHO and independentmedical experts (Wang, et al., 2020; Talukder,2020) – at home (for US$77.00 per dose) andabroad. The government did not, however,hesitate to cite the WHO in withholdingapproval for the US$3.00 rapid antibody testdeveloped by Gonoshasthaya Kendra at a timewhen there were only 1,732 RT-PCR kitsavailable in the country – essentially using theWHO as cover for a decision born of nepotismand political animus (Ahasan, 2020). Moreover,hospitals affiliated to the Awami League, suchas party member Mohammad Shahed’s RegentHospital, have built a business of sellingfalsified COVID-19 certificates for up to US$59.00 per certificate, taking advantage of theclean bill of health criteria outlined by the state(Gettleman and Yasir, 2020). In other words,the IDA is precisely imperfect enough topretend there is a plan when actually there isnone, which falls in line with the laissez-fairedespotism that rules Bangladesh.

Workers of the land

Cyclone Amphan, reaching Bangladesh on 20May 2020, illustrated the importance of properrisk management. Bangladeshis were fearingthe worst when weather warnings informedthem of a severe cyclone approaching in themidst of the ongoing health crisis (Ellis-Peterson and Ratcliffe, 2020). However, as acountry that is no stranger to extreme climateevents, the 2012 Disaster Management Act(DMA) provided useful guidelines. The

countless lives saved by efficient evacuationbefore Amphan made landfall owed to the DMAbeing followed. Two key differences betweenthe DMA and the IDA are that the PrimeMinister has sole authority to lead a responseunder the former, and her orders are bothimplemented by a larger national council(Section 4(2) of the DMA) and supplemented bysizeable regional committees in the affectedregions (Section 4(5) of the DMA). The clearchain of command and identifiable resourcesfoster timely action. Bangladesh’s familiaritywith extreme climate events and their socio-political effects, even contributing to regimechange in the past, has forced the governmentto overcome ts dysfunction and learn how tomanage them. It is disingenuous to suggestthat the same level of foresight is not possiblefor a disease outbreak since it is unforeseen.Bangladesh has experienced its fair share ofepidemics and continues to suffer from annualoutbreaks of dengue and other mosquito-bornediseases (Mamun, Misti, Griffiths and Gozal,2019). Additionally, COVID-19 has had a holdon the country for several months, with no endin sight. There has been enough time to designand implement a comprehensive plan. Thepolitical will to do so has not been there.

A crisis being the great equaliser is a neoliberalfallacy, reinforcing and justifying inequality andinjustice. Crises abide by the same classisthierarchies as the capitalist societies thatdeepen, and, often, create them. The poor andsubjugated minorities are hit the hardest. Theimproved management of natural disasters hasdone little to empower or improve the welfareof affected populations over the years, leavingthem vulnerable to unregulated capitalists andunaccountable governments.

Rebuilding after a flood or a cyclone lends itselfto feel-good corporate social responsibilitymontages of distributing a few grains, second-hand clothes and blankets, of urban volunteersmollifying their consciences by nailing acorrugated tin sheet onto the wooden

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silhouette of a rural house. Such relief isessential, but it does not restore lives andlivelihoods. Initially, the pandemic theater ofCOVID-19 featured photographs of dozens ofelites and their subordinates, circulated in themainstream and social media, dangling smallbags of food above the emaciated hands of thedestitute. (Tribune Desk, 2020b). But socialresponsibility has its limits.

By declaring a general holiday, the governmentremoved any obligation the elite class had toparticipate in solving the developing crisis. TheAwami League, heavily dependent on the eliteto make Sheikh Hasina’s position permanentand comfortable, appease them as they do themilitary, to consolidate the foundations of itsauthoritarianism. Without any directives,employers were free to interpret a generalholiday as they pleased (ALAP, 2020). Theycould both count the days of closure towardsemployees’ contractual paid and unpaid leave,or force employees to work without pay.

Any discussion of the dire state of employmentrights in Bangladesh has to begin with anappraisal of the Labour Act 2006 (LA). Thename of this statute is a misnomer, as it doesnot define what labour is and limits thedefinition of workers to the categories explicitlystated, excluding volunteers, informal workersand white-collar employees (Section 2(6) of theLA). There is no governing legislation foranyone other than workers as defined by theLA, resulting in terms of employment beingunfairly weighted in favour of employers(ALAP, 2020). The problem is compoundedfurther by the fact that 85% of Bangladesh’semployed workforce consists of informalworkers who enjoy no protections since theyare not recognised by the law.

Garment Workers Demonstrating (Credit:Wikicommons)

Formally recognised workers operate under theconstant threat of being relegated to aninformal worker status by abusive employers inestablished industries such as agriculture, BigGarment, and migrant labour, which keepoperations as informal and unstructured aspossible. The doctrine of statutes being

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interpreted in favour of the vulnerable meanslittle when the vulnerable party is notrecognized by the statute, making access tojustice non-existent. What little bargainingpower employees have that is recognised bythe LA is diminished by obstacles to justiceenshrined in the Act. For instance, freedoms toorganise, assemble, and protest are conditionalrights at the discretion of employers (Section176 of the LA). Dispute resolution is not anindividual right and can only be pursuedthrough representative committees (Section205 of the LA), whose affiliation with employersmake them instinctively reluctant to take actionagainst them. The sixty-day time limit forjudgments is not enforced as there are noconsequences, leading cases to drag on anaverage of four years. (ALAP, 2020). Thepandemic-induced closure to the judiciary canonly cause further delays. But for the ingenuityof a few lawyers and likeminded judges, virtualcourts would not have started operating in thelimited capacity that they are (Akhter Imam &Associates, 2020).

Big Garment has mastered the art of ticking allthe boxes without giving any power to theworkers, thereby legalising abuse. At the onsetof the COVID-19 crisis, the workers wereforced into mass migration to their rural homesbecause their employment lacked fundamentalsafety nets (Kaizer, 2020). The governmentrushed to bail out the owners to the tune ofhundreds of millions of dollars in March ratherthan giving the money to the workers (Kashyap,2020; Ellis-Petersen and Ahmed, 2020).Pleading poverty and absolving themselves ofall responsibilities by passing the buck toforeign brands, Rubana Huq, the president ofBangladesh Garment Manufacturers andExporters Association (BGMEA) and thephysical embodiment of Big Garment –speaking for owners, workers, women,feminists, liberals, and poets everywhere – ledan elitist propaganda charge to consolidate theowners’ fortunes. At that exact time, workerswho had been laid off and had not been paid

were walking hundreds of miles to theirvillages (Kaizer, 2020). Within days, they wereforced to make the journey back on foot – whenowners decided to interpret the general holidayas discretionary and reopened their factories(Alif, 2020) – thus travelling to and from thecentres of the early outbreaks (The Economist,2020). While mitigating the owners’ plight, Huqwas wholly unsympathetic to the workers,denying allegations of exploitation, insteadblaming the workers for causing the difficultiesthey were facing.

She insisted that workers were “dying to getback to work” (The Stream, 2020) to ward offpoverty, and that poor people had a specialresilience – a euphemism with historicalexploitative connotations in the country –thatwould enable them to survive a mere disease(BGMEA, 2020). This audacious spin could notobscure the truth that the owners had amassedgreat wealth by exploiting and abusing workersand refusing to provide fundamentalemployment rights regarding safety and joband income security, knowing they had the fullbacking of the government. Where they shouldhave been sounding the alarm about workers’healthcare and financial needs, elite civilsociety leaders such as BRAC and the academicMushfiq Mobarak were contracted by thegovernment to find ways of supporting Huq’sdesire to “open the economy” (Ekkator TV,2020). They crafted and peddled a “lives versuslivelihood” fallacy, to render the violation ofhuman rights palatable (ibid.), disregarding thedevastating effects of relaxing COVID-19restrictions (MRC Centre for Global InfectiousDisease Analysis, 2020). The payoff wasvisibility – an opportunity to get closer to thecorridors of power and benefit their ownprofiles and pet projects. State apologia fromindependently contracted apparatchiks wellknown in urban and international circles haveadded a veneer of respectability to the AwamiLeague.

COVID-19 amplified the government’s usual

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unwavering support for Big Garment. TheMinister of Finance repeatedly broadcastconsecutive years of 8% economic growth inspite of the economy having ground to a halt(Star Online Report, 2020a), making it anAwami League diktat, requiring some artfulaccounting when the budget was announced inJune 2020 (Ahsan, 2020). Big Garmentaccounts for 85% of Bangladesh’s exports(Latifee, 2016), and, following the decimationof the migrant labour industry by COVID-19(Kashyap, 2020), its significance to agovernment desperate to revive the economicsuccess narrative could not be overstated.Bangladesh’s economy has requireddiversification for a long time, but a post-pandemic economic recovery will rely entirelyon the largest existing industries, given carteblanche by the government. By the timeirregularities in paying salaries becamecommonplace (Alam, 2020) and the diseasebegan to spread due to negligible monitoringand healthcare protocols (Ellis-Petersen andAhmed, 2020), the successful reopening of theeconomy was the prevailing narrative. Itreinstated the principles of workers beingdispensable, the lives of the poor being worthnothing, and of the wants of the ruling and eliteclasses superseding the needs of everyone else.The rich have long been getting richer bymaking the poor poorer in Bangladesh; now therich have a mandate to get richer by killing thepoor.

Applying strict restrictions to public places is afundamental part of any effective COVID-19response, but places of work have presented anunsolvable problem for such policy initiatives.The LA’s definition of establishmentscatalogues what constitutes a place of workand what the protocols regarding them are, butit exempts public and government bodies andnot-for-profit and religious entities (Section1(4) o f the LA) . Wi th money scarce ,organisations have been taking advantage ofthis provision, directly contributing to theabuse of employees. To make matters worse, a

2013 amendment stated that all offices had tocomply, but since the previous exemptionswere not removed, this only added incongruityto the law and further undermined labourrights (Section 6 of the LA).

Digital dissent, actual assent

Fresh from its renewed popularity after leadingprotests against Narendra Modi’s unlawfulcitizenship reforms, Hefazat-e-Islam (Hefazat)pre-emptively declared its intentions to contestany decision to close religious institutions asCOVID-19 cases were being confirmed in thecapital, even before the government adoptedany such measures (Hossain, 2020). Thisnetwork of hard-line Islamist clerics hasflourished under Awami League patronage,influencing state policy in return for reinforcingthe party’s grip on power by shoring up itsSalafi credentials. Where Hefazat leads, otherIslamists follow, regardless of internalideological differences.

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Hefazat Demonstrat ions againstsecularism (Credit: Al-Jazeera)

When the first COVID-19 death was reported inthe country on 18 March 2020, Hefazatmobilised tens of thousands of its followers tohold a mass prayer gathering the day after – afull week before the start of the general holiday(Ng, 2020). Bangladeshis were pronouncedmore religious than Arabs when Saudi Arabiaimposed restrictions on its places of worship,and Islamists demanded mosques remain open(Wyatt, 2020). Lacking the legal means and thepolitical will to defy these calls, limiting thenumber of worshippers at mosques wasamongst the last measures enacted, andneither prayers at mosques nor religiousgatherings were strictly monitored or banned(Tribune Desk, 2020c). Additionally, Hefazatwas rewarded with an extremely generousCOVID-19 handout that was the envy of thetruly vulnerable. (UNB, 2020b).

The Constitution has secularism as a foundingprinciple (Section 12 of the Constitution of thePeople’s Republic of Bangladesh) and Islam asthe state re l ig ion (Sect ion 2A of theConstitution of the People’s Republic ofBangladesh). This allows the Awami League topresent Bangladesh as a secular, moderateMuslim country to an Anglophone world onlytoo happy to accept this at face value, andsimultaneously erode secularism by pandering

to local Islamist majoritarianism.

Those hurting religious sentiments – aweaponized accusat ion for Is lamistmajoritarianism and suppression of free speech– were soon targeted by the government.Concurrently, elite-establishment publicintellectuals such as Imtiaz Ahmed and his son(for nepotism is rife in the intelligentsia too)Shakil Ahmed, invoked the spirit of 1971 andbegan to preach the gospel of positivity insteadof negative remarks and rumours (Ahmed, I.,2020). Soon thereafter, Awami League loyalistsfiled lawsuits under the draconian DigitalSecurity Act 2018 (DSA) against citizensengaged in rumour-mongering and bringing thenation into disrepute (Rabbi, 2020). From 1March 2020 to 22 June 2020, a total of 89 caseswere filed against 173 anti-state people (Article19, 2020). A BRAC University academicinvolved with COVID-19 modelling wassuspended for getting unfavourable results(Netra Report, 2020b). Criticising the lack ofconsideration for human life was as much of acrime as highlighting the evils of unbridledcapitalism or the Awami League’s ineptitude(Human Rights Watch, 2020a). Words were notthe only form of criminal expression, asarrested cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishorediscovered (Human Rights Watch, 2020b;Reporters Without Borders, 2020). The DSAovercame nat ional borders to extra-jurisdictionally charge people residing outsideBangladesh, asserting that Bangladeshi lawsapply worldwide (Islam and Saad, 2020). Agewas no barrier, as even a fifteen year-old minorwho criticised Sheikh Hasina was arrested(Adams, 2020), nor was profession, as whendoctors and garments workers were arrestedfor breaking their silence (Ahmed and Tusher,2020). The absence of an absolute right to bailunder the DSA facilitated the process ofcriminalising citizens exercising their freedomsof speech and expression (Star Online Report,2020b). When card-carrying members of theAwami League misappropriated aid and funds,there was an increase in violence and

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prosecutions against those exposing suchmisconduct. (International Federation ofJournalists, 2020). The Ministry of Informationinitiated a dedicated nationwide surveillanceprogramme to identify COVID-19 rumours(Transparency International Bangladesh, 2020).Enforced disappearances kept pace witharrests under the DSA (Ahmed, K., 2020),which have exceeded 1,000 since the Act cameinto existence less than two years ago (Article19, 2020). A woefully inadequate reliefprogramme became an afterthought as thegovernment diligently pursued a COVID-19policy of denial, deflection, and dishonestywhile criminalizing criticism.

Arrested cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore(Credit: Reporters Sans Frontieres)

Bangladesh’s healthcare system had beenneglected for decades. Private clinics andhospitals vastly outnumber their publiccounterparts and are under no legal obligationto offer COVID-19 treatment (Vaidyanathan,2020). Refusing treatment to patients sufferingfrom a wide spectrum of diseases other thanCOVID-19 has become common practice in acountry where revocation of medical andhospital licences is negligible (Mamun andRahman, 2020). Private medical institutionsconducting COVID-19 tests charge upwards ofUS$40.00 per test, while the governmentdecided to end free testing, alleging thatcitizens were abusing the system. (ibid.). To

date, of the alleged 14,000 beds available inCOVID-19 designated hospitals for a populationof over 160 million, 3,897 are occupied;patients have to overcome the difficulty ofaccessing healthcare and the pervasive socialstigma of testing positive and getting treated.(DGHS, 2020). Hospitals severely lack traineddoctors and nurses, safety protocols andadequate medical equipment and PPE(Transparency International Bangladesh, 2020).There is a total of 1,169 intensive care unitbeds in Bangladesh, of which 432 are in publichospitals across the country, 112 of which weremade available for COVID-19 patients(Maswood, 2020). There is one ventilator forevery 100,000 people (ibid.; Save the Children,2020). In terms of testing, a total of around700,000 samples was collected as of 27 June2020 – with a current weekly capacity of100,000 sample collections and a daily testingrate of under 20,000 – making for some of thelowest testing rates and least effective testingsystems worldwide (DGHS, 2020). There isevidence that the state has been less thanforthcoming about the true extent of COVID-19infections (Ganguly, 2020), and there arewidespread reports of COVID-19 symptoms anddeaths going undetected and unreported as thenumber of burials have increased manifold atcemeteries across the country, outstripping theofficial figures (Tribune Desk, 2020d). Officiallythere are nearly 150,000 total cases and over1,800 deaths, but these figures are rising in anation where the positive test-rate is analarming 18.9% compared to 4.8% in the USand 2.1% in the UK (DGHS, 2020).

The so-called stimulus package is a looselydefined multibillion dollar loan package,dangling a proverbial noose in front of banksalready collapsing under the weight of majorloan defaulters like Salman F. Rahman and therichest of the Awami League (Riaz, 2020b;KPMG, 2020). Directors of Beximco related toRahman, Sikder Group, and other scandalplagued government-affiliated corporationshave been treated leniently and been granted

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special concessions (Abdullah, 2020). Thesemembers of the elite class have been able toescape the dire realities of COVID-19 inBangladesh. Beyond isolating themselves intoimpregnable bubbles with self-imposedlockdowns and hospitals designated to solelytreat them (TBS Report, 2020c), this elitemanaged to bypass travel restrictions and fleeto safe havens abroad (Al Jazeera, 2020). Aidand relief have been all but forgotten asunemployment and poverty rises unabated(Riaz, 2020b), and a bumper harvest is the onlything that has staved off nationwide foodshortages for the time being (Islam, 2020;Vaidyanathan, 2020). No one dares wonder outloud about the allocations set aside for thebirth centenary celebrations. Such questions,along with investigations into, or criticisms of,the ruling elite, can land one in prison orworse. Frustrated by an inability to bully theinvisible virus into submission, the AwamiLeague continues to oppress the free citizens ofBangladesh as their main measure incountering COVID-19.

On a wing and a prayer

Give there is no cure or reliable treatment forCOVID-19, it is relatively easy to make the casethat there is no right way to deal with it. WhileCOVID-19 is exposing systemic deficienciesfamiliar to Bangladeshis, it is being exploited todistract from government failures andsafeguard the status quo. The story of theglobal pandemic in Bangladesh is the story ofapathy against the backdrop of the breakdownof the rule of law, of pockets of resistance fromconscientious citizens in defiance of stateinaction, incompetence and malfeasance. Thestate’s failures are justified, normalised,trumpeted as successes, and then quicklyforgotten.

An act of God crisis has been rendered a man-made disaster in Bangladesh. Perhaps fittingly,the centenary of the country’s first autocrat’s

birth has become the year a disease exposedthe Awami League as a vehicle of despotismand nepotism. The untouchable ruling and eliteclasses have flown away to a dreamscapebubble manufactured by the proletariat andconstructed by the precariat, leaving behindthe masses in a nightmarish reality. It took aglobal pandemic to bring the devastating,irreversible effects of these twin plagues tolight. Beyond a point of no return, there is nomiracle cure or vaccination for democracy inBangladesh.

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This article is a part of The Special Issue: Pandemic Asia, Part II. See the Table ofContents here (http://www.apjjf.org/2020/15/APJ.html).

See the Table of Contents for Part I (http://0.0.7.228/14/APJ.html).

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Readers of this special may be also interested in another COVID-19 special, VulnerablePopulations Under COVID-19 in Japan (https://apjjf.org/2020/18/ToC.html), edited byDavid H. Slater.

Ikhtisad Ahmed is a trained barrister and human rights lawyer turned writer fromBangladesh. Having previously worked within the socio-political sphere of the country, he hassince covered it in his non-fiction, fiction, and poetry, with a focus on the oppression andviolation of rights from the perspective of victims.