Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir-backed panels’ resounding victory in the student union elections of two public universities in Dhaka has been the talk of the town. The election results have also crossed borders and elicited comments from neighbouring countries and beyond. Such attention and significance given to student body elections are probably unprecedented anywhere in the world.
The elections received generous media coverage before, during and after the election days. Social media has also been flooded with texts, images, and videos. Many theories and hypotheses have been put forward to explain Shibir’s sweeping victory. Some consider the results not only natural and deserving but also signs of desirable transformations of political and election cultures in Bangladesh. Some worry that universities have been allowed to be taken over by so-called anti-liberation forces. Others have mixed, hybrid, or middle-of-the-road views.
Whether the DUCSU and JUCSU results will be replicated in the forthcoming general elections in February 2026 is another matter of contention. Opinions expressed on public platforms fall into both affirmative and negative camps.
We argue in this piece that Shibir’s victory does not mean the shibirisation of higher education or society in Bangladesh. Nor can the outcome be taken as a measure of its demographic base. The popularity of Shibir or its parent organisation, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, is unlikely to have increased dramatically in recent years. Such growth is unusual for any ideological political entity.
Shibir’s victory is more likely a temporary, context-specific, and strategic win which may not represent long-term popular endorsement. The win may have been made possible by the absence of the banned Chhatra League on one hand and the failure of Chhatra Dal to present a clean image for itself on the other. The latter also failed to appeal to students at both universities with meaningful aims and deliverables in a changing political environment.
However, our concern is that this local, micro-level victory may be misrepresented as a case of Islamists taking over the country to justify some kind of external intervention. Although we cannot undermine Shibir’s victory through participatory, fair, and transparent processes, allowing them to win might have been part of a carefully engineered blueprint for making a case about the rise of Islamism in the country. If our reading has any merit, we can see an attempt at repeating what happened in the post-9/11 world when the Awami League was brought to power by Western and regional government authorities. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat were labelled Islamic fundamentalist forces which needed to be replaced by a secular (India-backed) Awami government.
Without proposing any theory for Shibir’s victory, it’s possible to figure out how the election results may have been produced. It can’t be said that student activists and supporters of Chhatra Dal voted for Shibir. Apart from its own activists, Shibir candidates would have bagged votes from general students who do not have any party affiliation. However, their combined votes would have been insufficient to give them the victory that they had. It’s reasonable to argue that Shibir received most votes from Chhatra League activists and supporters in the absence of their own party contesting in the elections. Given the prevailing political atmosphere since Hasina’s fall and the historical enmity between Chhatra League and Shibir, it may be naive to argue that Chhatra League voted for Shibir out of political generosity. It’s more reasonable to suggest that probably their voting for Shibir was part of a strategy of painting Bangladesh in a political Islamic colour, which might help in the Awami and Indian mission of restoring the lost regime. Members of Awami League and its other party organs have been lying in wait for every opportunity in and outside the country that will help them regain their lost political empire. They are not alone in their mission; Indian authorities would come to their aid, as they did previously.
Indian authorities may also find it difficult to pursue the mission on their own, as they have lost legitimacy in controlling Bangladesh through the Awami League. They will need a global consensus to interfere in Bangladesh politics. Making a case about the resurgence of political Islam in Bangladesh may be one potential avenue deserving exploration and investment.
Such a strategy can be seen as revisiting the trodden path by the Awami League and Indian authorities during the first decade of the current century. Jamaat-e-Islami was part of the BNP majority government at that time. It was the peak time for the global war on terror agenda. For India, Jamaat was the staunchest adversary that dared to speak against India and Indian interests. India made a huge investment in discursive strategies to present Bangladesh as the next Afghanistan. The discursive investment worked as planned, as the India-sponsored Awami government was allowed to secure power for over 15 years.
India was the main beneficiary of Hasina’s long autocratic rule. In her own words, her government gave to India something that the latter could never forget. Although we don’t have a full list of her political and geopolitical giving, destroying the Jamaat leadership (through judicial killings) contributed to removing one big obstacle to India’s unquestioned dominance in the region.
It may be questioned whether using the old strategy of representing Bangladesh as a hotbed of political Islam will work in the current global order. The US has moved beyond the global war on terror agenda to explore other frontiers to maintain its hegemony. While the US was supportive of India’s domination of Bangladesh in the post-9/11world, the US-India relationship has soured more recently. Therefore, any potential Indian agenda setting about Bangladesh is less likely to win enthusiastic American support. Moreover, China is unlikely to stand as a passive bystander in any event of India trying to recapture its hegemonic control of Bangladesh through the Awami League.
While these are legitimate counterpoints, India or the Awami League cannot simply give up and sit idle. They will try every potential avenue in every possible way. If they can rebrand Bangladesh as a land of resurgent political Islam, they may still win some audience among Islamophobic elements in the global community.
Indian authorities are unlikely to leave Shibir’s victory within university campuses; they will probably extrapolate it to the societal context. This may be done with the key motive of representing Hasina-free Bangladesh as a threat to the Indian and global community. The aim of such discursive work can be seeking a return to the old order or creating a new order which can guarantee Indian hegemony and interests.
The political victory of any Islamic entity hasn’t been welcomed in the contemporary Islamophobic world, even if the victory comes through legitimate and democratic processes. Shibir’s victory may not be exceptional. It may be used as the springboard for inciting political instability and regime change in the interest of the emerging superpower in the region with or without the Awami League as its most reliable and trusted political weapon. Even a premature Jamaat victory in the coming general elections is likely to further intensify such a mission against Bangladesh.Ìý
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Obaidul Hamid is an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Queensland, Australia. Wahidul Islam is a senior journalist in Bangladesh.