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I LIVED in Britain from 2000 to 2007 for higher education. It was an eventful period marked by attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the Western invasion of Afghanistan, the unilateral Anglo-American war on Iraq, 7/7 attacks on London’s public transport system, and other horrendous events. These and similar incidents made me politically more conscious and active in the anti-war movement in the UK.

I also became more drawn to media outlets. Even after leaving Britain, I regularly listen to BBC Radio 4 news and commentary programmes and get updated on British politics. I have observed British prime ministers’ dramatic exits from No 10 Downing Street followed by new governments’ entries into it. I have also seen British politicians’ meteoric rises and falls.

As the political system in Bangladesh was completely broken during Hasina’s rule, I satisfied some of my urge for political awareness by following the vicissitudes of Westminster politics. I think a desire to be updated about current political affairs resides in all human beings, whether they are conscious of it or not. I enjoyed observing the twists and turns in Westminster debates while our magnificent parliament building in Dhaka was transformed into a political theatre devoted to indulging in panegyrics on an autocrat.

During Sheikh Hasina’s last tenure as Bangladesh’s prime minister (2009–2024), four prime ministers — David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss — and innumerable ministers in the UK resigned mostly on ethical and efficiency grounds.

A look at the September 5, 2025 resignation of Angela Rayner from the post of deputy prime minister may exemplify the usual reasons why British politicians resign from public offices.

In April 2016, Angela Rayner and her then-husband bought a family home in Greater Manchester. In 2020, the couple separated and a trust was set up to manage a financial reward their disabled son received from the NHS. Rayner divorced her husband in 2023, and both of them decided to transfer part of their joint home ownership to the trust. In January 2025, Rayner sold her share of the house to the trust. In May 2025, she bought a three-bedroom flat worth £800,000 in Hove in East Sussex and paid the standard stamp duty on the purchase.

Subsequently, it was found out that Rayner didn’t pay a higher rate of tax as the Hove flat was considered her second home. That is to say, Rayner underpaid tax upon buying the flat. Long story short, on August 29, 2025, Tory MPs wrote to the prime minister’s ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus about this stamp duty issue. As a result, on September 3, 2025, Rayner referred herself to Sir Laurie Magnus for investigation. She was found to have breached the ministerial code of conduct of the UK government. She resigned on September 5, 2025.

In simple terms, a senior UK politician had to resign because of a tax underpayment involving a home purchase.

If we think of the massive financial crimes and serious human rights abuses that Sheikh Hasina and her ministers committed over a long period of time, Angela Rayner’s tax underpayment may not appear as an offence at all. During the fifteen-and-a-half-year misrule of the Hasina government, no minister resigned for corruption or human rights violation allegations.

The Hasina administration inaugurated its tenure allegedly by orchestrating the BDR carnage of February 25-26, 2009, that murdered dozens of some of the best army officers of the country. That bloodbath set the tone and direction of the government. It carried on killing citizens of the country through enforced disappearances, slaughters in the streets and tortures in police custody.

In the financial sector, Hasina and members of her government plundered the central bank and share market. They looted commercial banks and siphoned off money to foreign shores. For all these and many other crimes, neither Hasina nor any of her ministers had to resign. Therefore, we must admit that our country was rotten to the core and was run by a system that facilitated and condoned Hasina’s and her ministers’ corruption and criminalities.

It is true that, as prime minister, Sheikh Hasina was squarely responsible for creating a corrupt and criminal regime that crippled our country economically and brought its human rights situation to the lowest ebb. It contributed to a culture of fear and surveillance through which she remained in power for so long without democratic legitimacy. All these led to a culture of impunity, and innumerable lives were lost.

But was Hasina the only one who was responsible for colossal financial corruption and gruesome violations of human rights? Could she or a foreign country ruin Bangladesh without the participation or complicity of many people of our country in those crimes?

Members of various security forces who carried out enforced disappearances and other acts of violence against people of the country are also our fellow citizens. What motivated them to participate in such heinous crimes ranged from perks and promotion to unfair financial advantages. The number of such security personnel who were involved in tortures and targeted and clandestine killings was not small. This tells us about the lack of accountability and ethical sense of a large segment of our population.

But what does this say about us as a country? Were the security forces the only ones who took advantage of Hasina’s misrule for lust for worldly gains? What about our bureaucracy whose members are some of our country’s best minds? Were they also not involved in the abuse of power and in all sorts of unlawful practices? What about our judiciary? Did our judges maintain an acceptable level of legal and ethical standards? How many Laurie Magnuses did our country have? What about the banking sector? Were the banks looted without the collusion of insiders?

Lastly, what about the people belonging to my trade, that is, university teaching?

During Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic rule, many academics were given important positions in different sectors, thanks to their privileged access to the corridors of power. Awards and honours were conferred on others by the Hasina government.

Did any of our academics stop reaping their perks and privileges as a mark of protest against Hasina’s repressive policies?

We all have different political views, but even if a single incident of enforced disappearances or extrajudicial killings were true, wasn’t it enough for a conscientious academic to dissociate themselves from the Hasina regime?

Unfortunately, what some of them did was a grave affront to justice, morality and sanity. In July and early August 2024, Hasina’s murderous frenzy reached a greater height and her security forces were killing our young men and women in the streets and at their residences. Even during such gruesome human rights violations perpetrated by the Hasina regime, on August 3, 2024, a group of intellectuals met her to boost her morale in what she was doing. That was the worst example of demonic soul-selling of intellectuals which marked the collapse of their moral compass and character.Ìý

In this regard, it is worth mentioning that during the colonial period, in the aftermath of the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre committed by the British, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore returned his knighthood to the colonial government, stating: ‘The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation.’

Didn’t such a time ever come during the Hasina regime when an intellectual in Bangladesh needed to follow suit and relinquish their awards, honours, perks or privileges in protest against her misrule?

Lastly, more than a year on since Hasina’s fall and flight, has any member of her government apologised to the people of Bangladesh for all its financial and human rights crimes? If such a large political party as the Bangladesh Awami League is so devoid of moral scruple, what does it tell us about the moral health of Bangladesh as a nation?

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Dr Md Mahmudul Hasan is Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, International Islamic University Malaysia.