Awami League
The Bangladesh Awami League, commonly known as the Awami League, is a banned political party in Bangladesh. Founded on 23 June 1949, it played a vital role in the country's struggle for independence. The Awami League was one of the two traditionally dominant parties in the country, along with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and had maintained a sole dominance over the country's political system between 2009 and 2024, before being ousted in the July Revolution.
On 23 June 1949, the party was founded as the East Pakistan Awami Muslim League by Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, Yar Mohammad Khan, Shamsul Huq, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and joined later by Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy. It was established as the alternative to the domination of the Muslim League in Pakistan and over centralization of the government. The party quickly gained vast popular support in East Pakistan and eventually led the forces of Bengali nationalism in the struggle against West Pakistan's military and political establishment. The party under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led the struggle for independence, first through huge populist and civil disobedience movements, such as the Six Point movement and Non-cooperation movement, and then during the Bangladesh War of Independence.
After the emergence of independent Bangladesh, Awami League under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman won the first general elections. The party along with other left-wing political parties of Bangladesh were merged into Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League in January 1975, where Awami League politicians played the leading role in BaKSAL. After the August 1975 coup, the party was made onto the political sidelines, and many of its senior leaders and activists were executed or jailed. In 1981, Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, became the president of the party and continued to hold the position to this date.
The party played a crucial role in the anti-authoritarian movements against the regime of Hussain Muhammad Ershad. After the restoration of democracy amidst mass uprising in 1990, the Awami League emerged as one of the principal players of Bangladeshi politics. The party formed governments winning the 1996, 2008, 2014, 2018 and 2024 general elections. Throughout its tenure as the ruling party from 2009 to 2024 under Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh experienced significant democratic backsliding and was consistently described as authoritarian, and dictatorial. It was finally overthrown with the Student–People's Uprising in August 2024. Since then, the party remained underground. On 10 May 2025, the interim government banned all activities by the Awami League, in cyberspace and elsewhere, under the Anti-Terrorism Act. The ban will last until the International Crimes Tribunal completes the trial of the party and its leaders. On 12 May 2025, the Bangladesh Election Commission suspended the registration of the Awami League as a party.
Sheikh Hasina, the former prime minister of Bangladesh, and Obaidul Quader have been serving the president and the general secretary of the party, respectively. Sheikh Hasina has headed the party since 1981. Amongst the leaders of the Awami League, five have become the president of Bangladesh, four have become the prime minister of Bangladesh and one became the prime minister of Pakistan.
Name and symbols
East Pakistan Awami Muslim League was formed as a breakaway faction of the Muslim League in 1949, within two years of the formation of Pakistan. The word Muslim was dropped in 1953 and it became a secular party. The word Awami is the adjectival form for the Urdu word Awam, which means "people"; thus the party's name can be translated as Bangladesh People's League. During the Bangladesh War of Independence of 1971, most Awami League members joined the Provisional Government of Bangladesh and Mukti Bahini to fight against the Pakistan army and the name Bangladesh Awami League was eventually settled upon.The most common electoral symbol for the party has been a traditional boat, a recognizable and relatable image in riverine Bangladesh.
The salutation Joy Bangla is the official slogan of the Awami League. It was the slogan and war cry of the Mukti Bahini that fought for the independence of Bangladesh during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. The phrase Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu is used by the party members at the end of speeches and communications pertaining to or referring to the devotion towards Bangladesh and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib.
The Awami League party flag is a green field with four five-rayed red star at its centre, and a vertical red stripe at the hoist side. The flag also bears some resemblance to the flag of Pakistan, showing the ex-Pakistani origin of the Awami League. The four stars on the Flag represent the four fundamental principles of the party.
History
Founding and early Pakistan era (1949–1966)
During the post-Mughal era, no political parties existed in the area known as Bangla or Bangal. After the British arrived and established government, the system of political representation was adopted in the area of Bangla or introduced in Bengal. After the official departure of the British, the area known as East Bengal became a part of Pakistan, and the establishment of the Muslim was led by its founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his Muslim League party.In 1948, there was rising agitation in East Bengal against the omission of Bengali script from coins, stamps and government exams. Thousands of students, mainly from the University of Dhaka, protested in Dhaka and clashed with security forces. Prominent student leaders including Shamsul Huq, Khaleque Nawaz Khan, Shawkat Ali, Kazi Golam Mahboob, Oli Ahad, and Abdul Wahed were arrested and the police were accused of repression while charging protesters. In March, senior Bengali political leaders were attacked while leading protests demanding that Bengali be declared an official language of Pakistan. Among them was A. K. Fazlul Huq, the former prime minister of undivided Bengal. Amid rising discontent in East Bengal, Muhammad Ali Jinnah visited Dhaka and announced that Urdu would be the sole state language of Pakistan, citing its significance to Islamic nationalism in South Asia. The announcement caused an emotional uproar in East Bengal, where the native Bengali population resented Jinnah for his attempts to impose a language they hardly understood on the basis of upholding unity. The resentment was further fuelled by rising discrimination against Bengalis in government, industry, bureaucracy and the armed forces and the dominance of the Muslim League. The Bengalis argued that they constituted the ethnic majority of Pakistan's population and Urdu was unknown to the majority in East Bengal. Moreover, the rich literary heritage of the Bengali language and the deep rooted secular culture of Bengali society led to a strong sense of linguistic and cultural nationalism amongst the people of East Bengal. The only significant language in Pakistan not written in the Persian-Arabic script was Bengali. Against this backdrop, Bengali nationalism began to take root within the Muslim League and the party's Bengali members began to take a stand for recognition.
On 23 June 1949, Bengali nationalists from East Bengal broke away from the Muslim League, Pakistan's dominant political party, and established the East Pakistan Awami Muslim League. Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani and Shamsul Huq were elected the first president and general secretary of the party respectively, Ataur Rahman Khan was elected the vice-president, Yar Mohammad Khan was elected as the treasurer, while Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad and A. K. Rafiqul Hussain were elected the party's first joint secretaries. The party was formed to champion the rights of the masses in Pakistan against the powerful feudal establishment led by the Muslim League. However, due to its strength stemming from the discriminated Bengali population of Pakistan's eastern wing, the party eventually became associated and identified with East Bengal.
In 1952, the Awami Muslim League and its student wing played an instrumental role in the Bengali language movement, during which Pakistani security forces fired upon protesting students demanding Bengali be declared an official language of Pakistan, killing a number of students including Abdus Salam, Rafiq Uddin Ahmed, Abul Barkat and Abdul Jabbar. The events of 1952 are widely seen by historians today as a turning point in the history of Pakistan and the Bengali people, as it was the starting point of the Bengali nationalist struggle that eventually culminated in the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.
File:1954 east bengal cabinet.jpg|thumb|Awami League members in the cabinet of A. K. Fazlul Huq in East Bengal, 1954
Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy, who had been the All-India Muslim League -nominated prime minister of Bengal in 1937 and held the same office after 1946 elections, did not agree to 'Muslim League' as the name of AIML in Pakistan. He initiated the thought that the ideal of political representation under religious identity was no longer prudent after independence and the organisation might be called the 'Pakistan League'. Moreover, he claimed that the Muslim League's objective of struggling to form a nation state had been achieved therefore political representation should continue focusing on nationalism based on Pakistani sovereignty. Suhrawardy's suggestion was not accepted and he parted ways with the party to be re-established as the Awami League in 1949. This was to serve the first shock to the country's political structure. In 1953, the party's council meeting voted to drop the word "Muslim". In the run-up to the 1954 East Bengal Legislative Assembly election, the Awami League took the lead in negotiations in forming a pan-Bangla political alliance including the Krishak Praja Party, Nizam-e-Islam and Ganatantri Dal. The alliance was termed the Jukta Front and formulated the Ekush Dafa, or 21-point Charter, to fight for establishing rights in East Pakistan. The party also took the historic decision to adopt the traditional Bengali boat, which signified the attachment to rural Bengal, as its election symbol.
The election in April 1954 swept the United Front coalition into power in East Bengal with an enormous mandate of 223 seats out of 237 seats. The Awami League itself won 143 seats while the Muslim League won only 9 seats. Veteran student leader and language movement stalwart Khaleque Nawaz Khan defeated incumbent prime minister of the then East Bengali Nurul Amin in a landslide margin. Amin was defeated in his home Nandail constituency. Khaleque Nawaz Khan created history at age 27 by defeating the sitting prime minister and the Muslim League was wiped from the political landscape of the then East Pakistan. A. K. Fazlul Huq assumed the office of Chief Minister of East Bengal and drew up a cabinet containing many of the prominent student activists that were leading movements against the Pakistani state. They included Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from the Awami League, who served as commerce minister.
Leaders of the new provincial government demanded greater provincial autonomy for East Bengal and eventually succeeded in pressuring Prime Minister Muhammad Ali Bogra, himself a Bengali, to endorse the proposed constitutional recognition of Bengali as an official language of Pakistan. The United Front also passed a landmark order for the establishment of the Bangla Academy in Dhaka. As tensions with the western wing grew due to the demands for greater provincial autonomy in East Bengal, Governor-General Malik Ghulam Muhammad dismissed the United Front government on 29 May 1954 under Article 92/A of the provisional constitution of Pakistan.
In September 1956, the Awami League formed a coalition with the Republican Party to secure a majority in the new National Assembly of Pakistan and took over the central government. Awami League President Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy became the prime minister of Pakistan. Suhrawardy pursued a reform agenda to reduce the long-standing economic disparity between East and West Pakistan, greater representation of Bengalis in the Pakistani civil and armed services and he unsuccessfully attempted to alleviate the food shortage in the country.
The Awami League also began deepening relations with the United States. The government moved to join the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation and Central Treaty Organisation, the two strategic defence alliances in Asia inspired by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Maulana Bhashani, one of the party's founders, condemned the decision of the Suhrawardy government and called a conference in February 1957 at Kagmari, Tangail in East Bengal. He protested the move and the support lent by the Awami League leadership to the government. Bhashani broke away from the Awami League and then formed the leftist National Awami Party. Yar Mohammad Khan funded the 5-day Kagmari Conference and was the treasurer of the conference committee.
The controversy over 'One Unit' and the appropriate electoral system for Pakistan, whether joint or separate, also revived as soon as Suhrawardy became prime minister. In West Pakistan, there was strong opposition to the joint electorate by the Muslim League and the religious parties. The Awami League however, strongly supported the joint electorate. These differences over One Unit and the appropriate electorate caused problems for the government.
By early 1957, the movement for the dismemberment of the One Unit had started. Suhrawardy was at the mercy of the central bureaucracy fighting to save the One Unit. Many in the business elite in Karachi were lobbying against Suhrawardy's decision to distribute millions of dollars of American aid to East Pakistan and to set up a national shipping corporation. Supported by these lobbyists, President Iskander Mirza demanded the Prime Minister's resignation. Suhrawardy requested to seek a vote of confidence in the National Assembly, but this request was turned down. Suhrawardy resigned under threat of dismissal on 10 October 1957.
On 7 October 1958, President Mirza declared martial law and appointed army chief General Ayub Khan as Chief Martial Law Administrator. Khan eventually deposed Mirza in a bloodless coup. By promulgating the Political Parties Elected Bodies Disqualified Ordinance, Khan banned all major political parties in Pakistan. Senior politicians, including the entire top leadership of the Awami League, were arrested and most were kept under detention until 1963.
In 1962, Khan drafted a new constitution, modelled on indirect election, through an electoral college, and termed it 'Basic Democracy'. Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy joined Nurul Amin, Khwaja Nazimuddin, Maulvi Farid Ahmed and Hamidul Haq Chowdhury in forming the National Democratic Front against Ayub Khan's military-backed rule and to restore elective democracy. However the alliance failed to obtain any concessions. Instead the electoral colleges appointed a new parliament and the president exercised executive authority.
Widespread discrimination prevailed in Pakistan against Bengalis during the regime of Khan. The University of Dhaka became a hotbed for student activism advocating greater rights for Bengalis and the restoration of democracy in Pakistan.
On 5 December 1963, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was found dead in his hotel room in Beirut, Lebanon. His sudden death under mysterious circumstances gave rise to speculation within the Awami League and the general population in East Pakistan that he had been poisoned.