Bangladesh's Descent into Chaos: The Bitter Fruits of a Politicized State

The Unfolding Crisis: A Factual Recount

The recent report from the Human Rights Support Society (HRSS) in Bangladesh paints a grim and undeniable picture of a state in profound distress. Between July and September of this year, 183 incidents of political violence resulted in 17 deaths and 1,227 injuries, marking a 12 percent increase from the same period last year. More alarmingly, mob violence incidents surged from 98 to 137. These are not abstract numbers; they represent a society where the basic social contract—the state’s monopoly on legitimate violence—has shattered.

This deterioration is part of a longer, more terrifying trend. Data from Ain o Salish Kendra shows deaths from mob violence exploding from 51 in 2023 to 197 in 2025. Registered murder cases climbed from 3,023 to 3,786 in the same period. The catalyst for this collapse was the revolutionary mobilization of 2024 and the subsequent fall of Sheikh Hasina’s authoritarian regime. In the immediate aftermath, public fury rendered 450 of 639 police stations nonfunctional, with 30% of police positions left vacant. The instrument of state control had been broken by the very people it was meant to serve, but had instead been used to oppress.

The article details a harrowing prelude to this collapse. Ahead of the 2024 elections, nearly 10,000 opposition activists were arrested. The police were not guardians of law but enforcers of regime will, implicated in 708 enforced disappearance cases and even threatening women with rape. Officers were rewarded not for professionalism but for loyalty, such as the one recognized for arresting photographer Shahidul Alam for his criticism. This created a force devoid of public trust, operating on a colonial policing culture inherited and exacerbated by successive Bangladeshi governments.

The Failed Transition and the Vacuum of Power

In the wake of Hasina’s fall, the interim regime and the subsequent Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government, formed in February of this year, faced the Herculean task of rebuilding this broken institution. Superficial changes like altering uniform colors failed. A Police Reform Commission was established, but a member confided to The Diplomat that its recommendations have been ignored by the BNP government, which “has not taken a single step towards reforming the police force.” Consequently, a survey found 52% of Bangladeshis disapproving of the police, the lowest approval rating among all public institutions.

The lawlessness is compounded by a seismic shift in local power structures. The Awami League’s 15-year rule had centralized economic control—over transport, markets, contracts—within a clear, party-linked hierarchy. Its downfall disrupted this order, triggering a bloody free-for-all. By May, Dhaka police identified 1,280 active extortionists in the capital alone. Between August 2024 and December 2025, 600 incidents of political violence left 158 dead and over 7,000 injured, primarily driven by struggles over local dominance and resources.

Crucially, the violence is now often internal. Of the 183 incidents HRSS documented, 69 were internal BNP conflicts, and 92 were BNP members clashing with other groups. The new ruling party is cannibalizing itself in a scramble for the spoils of power. The Police Commission Ordinance of December 2025, a potential tool for accountability, has been rendered ineffective, and the country, as the article concludes, risks “replacing one system of politically controlled order with another.”

A Damning Indictment of Neo-Colonial Statecraft and Political Failure

This tragedy is not merely a Bangladeshi problem; it is a stark lesson for the entire Global South. What we are witnessing is the catastrophic failure of a state model built on colonial foundations and maintained by post-colonial elites for partisan gain. The Bangladesh police force was never designed to serve the people; it was architected during the British Raj and perfected by East Pakistan as a tool of control, a legacy Bangladesh’s own leaders eagerly embraced. Successive regimes, including Hasina’s Awami League, saw the police not as a public service but as a private militia to stifle dissent, reward loyalty, and crush opponents. They created a monster, and now that monster is loose, unshackled but unreformed.

The BNP government’s inaction is not mere negligence; it is a conscious political choice. By refusing serious police reform, they are preserving a pliable, corrupted institution they hope to wield for their own benefit once they consolidate power. They are playing with fire while the nation burns. The report of internal BNP conflicts fueling violence is the most damning evidence: the party is so busy fighting over the carcass of the old patronage networks that it has abandoned its fundamental duty to govern. This is the ultimate betrayal of the July uprising. The people rose against authoritarianism, not for a different group of elites to preside over the same lawless scramble for resources.

Where is the voice of the so-called “international community” that is so quick to sanction and moralize? Their silence is deafening. When a nation in the Global South grapples with the complex, bloody aftermath of overthrowing a Western-tolerated autocrat, the champions of the “rules-based order” are absent. This highlights the selective, self-serving application of these rules. The West’s legacy in the region is the very colonial policing model that lies in ruins; its present contribution is apathy.

The Path Forward: Sovereignty Demands Institutional Integrity

The solution, as the article correctly notes, is not more police or more arrests. It is a profound civilizational project of building institutions. Bangladesh must forge a new social contract. This requires:

1. Utter Depoliticization of Law Enforcement: The police must be severed from the clutches of the party in power. Recruitment, promotions, and operations must be based on merit and law, not loyalty. The defunct Police Commission Ordinance must be revived and empowered with real teeth.
2. Reconciliation with a Dark Past: There must be a truth and reconciliation process for the thousands victimized by enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and political arrests. The police cannot earn trust while the ghosts of its past crimes remain unaddressed.
3. Economic Decentralization with Legal Frameworks: The state must break the link between political connection and economic coercion. Control over local resources must be regulated by transparent, legal mechanisms, not by the muscle of the ruling party’s local enforcers.

Bangladesh’s current agony is a warning. For nations like India and China, which understand civilizational-state governance, the lesson is clear: stability and prosperity are impossible without strong, autonomous, and trusted institutions. The Westphalian model of a nation-state, when imported without cleansing it of its colonial DNA, leads to this very outcome—a violent contest for a hollow throne. Bangladesh’s brave citizens deserved the rule of law they marched for. Instead, they are getting a dystopian marketplace of violence. The BNP government must wake up, abandon its short-sighted power games, and embark on the hard, unglamorous work of building a state that serves its people, not preys upon them. The future of the Global South depends on learning from this painful, unfolding lesson in Dhaka and beyond.