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.

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?

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. 

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.

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 party activists, coordinating legal support, and sustaining morale among activists facing arrest, exile, or hiding.

“We have had to maintain constant communication with our leaders and activists,” he said. “We have to respond to them. We are facing legal problems, political problems – everything.”

Hussain spoke of “unbelievably large” repression. “The AL has been banned, and its political rights have been taken away,” he said. “This is a kind of fascist reality.”

Almost every senior party figure interviewed rejected the idea that the AL had suffered a natural political collapse. Instead, they repeatedly framed the events of July-August 2024 as a coordinated conspiracy involving domestic opposition groups, Islamist forces, and foreign interests.

“I think it was a kind of deception, a kind of scam,” Hussain said. “They emerged in the politics of power by standing on dead bodies.”

Rakibul Hasan Rakib, the senior vice-president of the BCL Central Committee, similarly described the uprising as “an anti-country conspiracy” carried out by “every defeated force of 1971.”

Arafat also directly linked the fall of Hasina’s government to both domestic and foreign pressure. “When there is a nationalist government that does not bow down to any imperial power, different kinds of pressure come,” he said. “That is why different evil forces, militant groups, and anti-liberation forces all united.”

This interpretation has now become central to the AL’s attempt to politically reinterpret the uprising. Party leaders repeatedly argued that the deaths during the protests were never investigated impartially and accused post-uprising authorities of using casualties selectively against the AL.

“If every death had been investigated impartially, the whole picture would have become clear,” Arafat said. “It would have been understood who was telling the truth and who was lying.”

“I am ready to face trial,” he added. “But they are not conducting trials. They are doing political business with the death toll.”

At the same time, AL leaders strongly rejected claims that Hasina’s authority inside the party had weakened after the collapse of her government. Rumous that sections of the party wanted leadership change were dismissed repeatedly as propaganda spread by political opponents.

“There is no question about that,” Hussain said. “Sheikh Hasina is the symbol of unity, the symbol of struggle, the symbol of resistance for this party.”

Rakib echoed the same position. “There is no alternative beyond this,” he said of Hasina’s leadership. “We do not even think about it.”

Several leaders also argued that the party still retains a substantial social and ideological support base despite its near disappearance from public political life.

Former Education Minister Mohibul Rakib Chowdhury Nowfel told The Diplomat that the AL remained organizationally intact despite mass arrests, killings, and what he described as “state-sponsored mobocracy.”

“Despite the state-sponsored mobocracy which was unleashed on us, and with more than 700 activists’ deaths and loss of livelihood, with thousands in prison, the party has remained united, spirited and organized,” he said.

Nowfel further said that the party was prevented from participating politically because of fears over its remaining electoral strength. “Because of our acceptance amongst the grassroots people, we were barred from participating,” he said. “The regime feared people would overwhelmingly vote for us.”

Even leaders still inside Bangladesh described daily life through the language of siege, uncertainty, and survival. Rakib, who remains in the country despite a murder case against him, said that ordinary movement itself had become difficult.

“The country has been turned from a democracy into a mobocracy,” he said. “In a kingdom of mobs, who can move freely?”

Still, beneath the public defiance, the interviews also revealed how deeply the AL has been transformed by defeat, exile, arrests, and organizational collapse. Much of the party’s politics now appears defensive rather than expansionist. Leaders spoke less about future policy agendas and more about political survival, legal battles, repression, and eventual return.

“Sheikh Hasina’s return is important for Bangladesh’s democratic struggle,” Hussain said. “The people’s struggle and Sheikh Hasina’s return have now met at the same point.”

Working from this backdrop, the AL is now attempting to rebuild a political narrative centred less on governance achievements and more on exclusion, victimhood, democratic rights, and institutional collapse under the post-uprising order. Whether that narrative eventually regains broader public sympathy remains uncertain. 

Can the AL Return? 

Nearly two years after losing power, the AL remains politically isolated, organizationally weakened, and largely absent from public political life. Yet despite the scale of the collapse, analysts argue that the party’s future cannot be measured only by its current silence on the streets.

Asif M. Shahan, a professor in the Department of Development Studies at the University of Dhaka and a political analyst, believes the party is struggling not only because of public anger after the uprising, but also because of the broader political understanding that has emerged against its return.

“As a political organization, the AL is still struggling, and it is finding survival difficult mainly because there appears to be an understanding among major political forces including the BNP, Jamaat-e-Islami, and National Citizen Party that the AL will not be allowed to participate in the political process,” he said to The Diplomat. “As long as this understanding remains in place, the party will continue to struggle.”

Many observers believe one of the AL’s biggest problems today is not simply repression or legal pressure, but its own failure to publicly confront the reasons behind its downfall.

Political analyst and writer Altaf Parvez argued that the party still appears unwilling to acknowledge public anger over authoritarian governance, political repression, corruption allegations, and the violence surrounding the 2024 uprising.

“What they have always said is that it was a conspiracy,” he said. “There is no sign that they feel they need to answer for their administrative failures, political failures, the mistakes and injustices they committed, and their responsibility for the corruption.”

According to Parvez, the absence of accountability has made political rehabilitation more difficult.

“A political party has to present a clear position to the people,” he said. “Political reconciliation is necessary. A political party should be able to admit that it can make mistakes and that it will learn from them. I do not see these two things within them.”

Shahan also argued that many AL activists and loyalists still fail to fully grasp the scale of public anger created during the final phase of Hasina’s rule.

“Many of its activists and loyalists are operating within a bubble, hearing only what they want to hear, which is ultimately not helping the party recover,” he said.

At the same time, several analysts also warned that permanently excluding the AL from politics may create new risks for Bangladesh’s democratic system.

Critics argue that removing a major political force administratively rarely eliminates its social base.

“Politics has to be confronted politically,” Parvez said. “You cannot permanently suppress someone by banning them.”

He argued that political bans often create victimhood narratives that can actually strengthen excluded political actors rather than weaken them. “I would say banning them actually creates advantages for them,” Parvez said. “It creates a victim narrative, and they can gain sympathy from it.”

Shahan also believes the AL still retains a significant ideological support base despite its organizational decline. “I do not think banning the AL’s activities will bring an end to the party,” he said. “As long as it can retain that support base, the party is unlikely to disappear.”

According to Shahan, the AL’s decline started long before the uprising. Hasina’s increasingly authoritarian style of governance gradually weakened the party from within by sidelining its organizational structure and depending more heavily on bureaucratic networks, technocrats, business elites, and state institutions. 

“At one point, she no longer needed the party itself to remain in power and instead built what can be described as a ‘winning coalition’ with technocrats and business interest groups,” Shahan said.

“As a consequence, although the party still retains a significant support base, activists and workers, it lacks effective leadership because the organizational structure weakened considerably over time.”

This is partially why the AL was able to mount a comeback after the assassination of Mujib and his family in 1975. Still, analysts say the AL today faces a very different emotional and political environment.

After 1975, military rule created a common political enemy that gradually allowed pro-AL forces to reorganize under a broader anti-authoritarian platform. Sympathy also emerged after the killing of Mujib and his family members.

This time, analysts say, such conditions are largely absent.

“Back then there was a common enemy, which was military rule,” Parvez said. “Now I do not see any such common enemy that would unite the country and create a necessity for the AL.”

He added that while many people opposed the AL politically after 1975, public anger today is far deeper because of the memory of protest killings, repression, and authoritarian rule during Hasina’s final years in power.

“After Sheikh Mujib’s family was killed, sympathy was created for the AL,” he said. “This time, I do not see that kind of sympathy.”

Even so, few analysts believe the AL will simply disappear from Bangladesh’s political landscape. Instead, the bigger question may be whether the party can eventually reinvent itself politically, organizationally, and ideologically, or whether continued exclusion will push Bangladeshi politics into an even more polarized direction.

According to analysts, the AL’s absence is reshaping Bangladesh’s broader political landscape. For decades, the party was widely viewed, at least symbolically, as representing the liberal or center-left space in Bangladeshi politics. With the party effectively removed from formal politics, Shahan believes the country’s political center of gravity is gradually shifting further rightward.

“Historically, when a mainstream political party is removed from formal politics, it often creates conditions for a broader political and ideological realignment,” he said. “Politics usually becomes more polarized because the ‘buffer’ force within the system disappears.”

For now, the AL remains trapped between two realities: it has been deeply discredited in the eyes of many Bangladeshis, yet remains too historically rooted and socially entrenched to be easily erased from the country’s politics.

Mohiuddin Ahmad, a renowned writer of political history of Bangladesh, has argued that the AL’s current crisis cannot be understood only through repression or electoral exclusion, but through the deeper transformation of the party itself over the past decade and a half. 

He noted that after Hasina’s fall, “no one is willing to take the risk of publicly defending the AL’s right to political activity,” even among political actors who still speak cautiously about the spirit of the Liberation War or the legacy of Mujib. Ahmad also argued that unlike after 1975, the current rulers have shown far less willingness to accommodate the AL politically, making the party’s path back to formal politics far more uncertain.

At the same time, Ahmad warned that banning political parties rarely removes them permanently from the political landscape. Referring to the long history of political bans in South Asia, including repeated bans on Jamaat-e-Islami, he wrote that “if a political party believes it follows a doctrine, it is difficult to eradicate it.” 

Ahmad also pointed to the continued importance of India in the AL’s political calculations after losing power. Drawing comparisons with the post-1975 period, he noted that many AL leaders and activists again sought refuge in India after the 2024 uprising, much like several pro-BAKSAL political figures had done following Mujib’s assassination.

He argued that the AL has maintained a long-standing political and diplomatic rapport with India that has survived changes in government in both countries. In his view, the party’s ability to eventually return to open politics may depend not only on domestic political developments, but also on international pressure – and particularly the position taken by India and its ally.