Heat and dust

After the Eid festivities, a summer of discontent may well await us

Mar 29, 2025

In the temperate regions of North America, there is sometime a period of dry, warm weather after the autumn leaves have started falling. They call it an ‘Indian summer’ after the First Nations peoples of the continent who first described it to the colonial settlers. In our part of the world, of course, there are two periods of summer. First comes the dry, hot one after spring that ends with monsoon. After the rains comes the second one, with drenching humidity. Classically, the month of Bhadra in Bangla calendar is supposed to usher in autumn, but colloquially Bhadra mash-er garam is so bad that it’s said to drive even dogs mad.

A comprehensive opinion poll done by Innovision —a management consulting firm in the development sector —suggests that after the Monsoon Revolution of 2024, Bangladesh may well be heading towards a long summer of discontent.

Let us consider a few findings.

Over two-thirds of the respondents consider cost of living a priority, and the interim government had failed to meet the expectations of over half the respondents. Law and order were a priority for over two-fifths, and nearly three-fifths had responded that the interim government had failed to meet their expectations. In fact, according to the survey, the interim government has failed to meet public expectations on any dimension that the survey asked: creating an environment conducive for election; political, constitutional and institutional reforms; corruption and public services; justice for the victims of July massacre; or improving the economy.

There is no way to sugar coat this —it’s a damning indictment of the performance of the interim government.

One can point to a lot of things the government has got right —it has stabilized the exchange rate, for example, and anecdotally the price of essentials in this Ramadan has not spiked as in the past. One can also explain the rotten state of affairs the interim government inherited. And of course, Professor Yunus projects Bangladesh globally extremely well through his sheer personal brand and image.

However, none of these changes the fact that as of late February / early March (when the survey was done), people were not happy with the interim government.

No wonder, nearly a third of the respondents wanted an election by June, and another quarter wanted it by December.

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The poll findings echo an observation by Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, BNP’s Secretary General, that the public cares about results and wants election at the soonest. Mr Alamgir noted this in February, before the poll was conducted, and received a lot of social media ridicule. The joke is on the trolls, as arguably the most experienced democratic politician in the country had read the public pulse right!

The poll, however, does not exactly bring good news to the politicians. Two-fifths of the respondents have not made up their mind or refused to comment on their voting intentions. Another fifth refused to reveal their preference. That is, three out of five potential voters are not willing to publicly commit to any political party.

Respondents were asked about who or what might influence them. Less than 8 percent answered national politicians, 7 percent answered local politicians.

No politician should take any vote for granted!

Indeed, the general lack of confidence extends beyond the government and politicians. We have heard a lot about the rise of social media influencers. Well, only five percent said they would be influenced by famous youtubers or facebook pundits. Newspapers, religious leaders, talk shows fare even worse!

Nearly half the respondents said they would be influenced by their family, a fifth by their neighbours, almost a tenth by friends. That is, beyond the people one knows personally, we are looking at a very low trust political environment.

“What grows best in the heat: fantasy; unreason; lust”, goes a famous sentence from Salman Rushdie’s classic novel Midnight’s Children. The summer of 2025 is upon us. We cannot afford it to be a summer of fantasy in the form of wild conspiracy theories, unreason that leads to further collapse of social harmony, and lust for power that only ends in violence.

There is only one way, and a very good way, out of this morass.

The Consensus Commission has presented reform proposals to the political parties. Most of the proposals consist of stuff that would have to be implemented by an elected government, and any elected government would do well to implement them to make governance easier for them! Even with the more contentious ones, such as whether the proposed upper house of parliament should be elected on a proportional basis to votes won in the lower house, agreement or lack thereof can be decided very quickly.

There is a debate about whether local government elections should precede or follow the parliamentary one. But even this can be resolved by holding parliamentary, city councils, municipalities and upazila elections simultaneously (perhaps over a number of days).

There is no reason to drag the reform process into the monsoon of 2025. Rather, election dates could be announced as early as the pre-monsoon summer, with voting taking place after the rain!

An election campaign is the best way to celebrate the first anniversary of Monsoon Revolution. The alternative is one long, torrid, deracinating summer of discontent.

This was meant to have been published in mid-March, and not be a downer during the Eid festivities. Apologies to the readers for the poor timing.

Ekushey TV report on a discussion on the poll results held on 15 March.