Bangladesh’s growing political personality cult around ‘Father of the Nation’

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina commemorates her father, the nation's founder, with a personality cult & laws protecting his legacy.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina still grieves the assassination of her father — the country’s founder — nearly 50 years ago, and her government ensures the nation grieves with her.

Once sidelined from official history, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is now the subject of a personality cult that designates him “Father of the Nation”.

Ms. Hasina has foregrounded his legacy in what critics say is an effort to entrench her ruling Awami League, which dominates national politics and is set to sweep elections on Sunday following an opposition boycott.

Her government has also enacted stiff punishments for any comments, written work or social media posts that could be construed as defaming his legacy.

“She has basically introduced a secular blasphemy law in the country for her father — the kind we see in one-party states,” a senior human rights activist in Bangladesh said, asking for anonymity.

Since his daughter returned to office in 2009, Rahman’s visage has appeared on every banknote and in hundreds of public murals across the South Asian nation of 170 million people.

Dozens of roads and institutes of higher learning have been named after him, and Ms. Hasina’s government changed the constitution to require that his portrait be hung in every school, government office and diplomatic mission. At the centre of this project of national commemoration is Ms. Hasina’s childhood home in an upmarket neighbourhood of the capital Dhaka.