Spartacus 🇧🇩

Bleeding Democracy: Reforming Bangladesh’s Political Underworld On July 9, 2025, around 6 PM, outside Gate 3 of Sir Salimullah Medical College’s Mitford Hospital on Rajani Ghosh Lane in Dhaka, Md. Sohag, a 43-year-old scrap trader, was brutally murdered. According to police reports and CCTV footage cited by The Daily Star, a group led by Moin, a candidate for Chawkbazar Thana Jubo Dal secretary, attacked Sohag with stones and concrete blocks, killing him on the spot. The motive: Allegedly a turf war over the “bhangari” (scrap) business. Moin had reportedly been extorting monthly “chanda” (protection money) from Sohag, who refused to pay. Witnesses - too afraid to intervene - told reporters that Moin had a history of extorting sidewalk vendors and charging bribes for recommending third-class Mitford hospital jobs. This public, calculated killing exposed the violent underbelly of Bangladesh’s political landscape. For many Dhaka residents, it was yet another grim reminder: politics in Bangladesh, far from public service, has become a brutal arena of coercion, patronage, and control. No Livelihood, No Legitimacy Elected officials in Bangladesh receive salaries and budgets - but grassroots operatives often work without formal pay, job descriptions, or protections. Many, like Moin, turn to extortion or illicit syndicates to survive - targeting vendors, businesses, contractors, job seekers, public markets, and even private citizens. While political parties - including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) - routinely denounce violence, they benefit from the muscle it provides, specially during elections, internal power struggles, or when suppressing political opponents. The Mitford killing wasn’t an exception. It was a symptom of a political economy where legitimacy is enforced - not earned. A Regional Plague, a National Crisis This dynamic is not unique to Bangladesh. Across South Asia, informal political economies thrive on a volatile mix of muscle, money, and impunity. From strongman-dominated constituencies in India to entrenched patronage webs in Pakistan, the lines between politics and criminality are frequently blurred. But in Bangladesh, the crisis has been sharply intensified by more than a decade of authoritarian consolidation under the Awami League and deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (2009–2024). During this period, political institutions were hollowed out, opposition parties were suppressed, activists were disappeared or extrajudicially killed, and patronage networks expanded without restraint - embedding violence and informality deep into the fabric of grassroots politics. In such an environment, loyalty is rarely earned through competence or conviction. It is purchased through protection, favors, or silence. Figures like Moin rise not because of ideology or leadership, but because they can dominate territory, silence dissent, mobilize crowds on command - and crucially, generate income through illicit means. Extortion, control of local markets, and gatekeeping access to jobs or permits become reliable sources of underground revenue, distributed upward through party hierarchies. This informal economy reinforces loyalty, funds operations beyond legal oversight, and ensures that even violence becomes a political asset. Even those who enter politics with good intentions often find themselves trapped in a system where complicity is the cost of survival. 1/n