Jamaat’s Rise in Bangladesh Elections: A Wake-up Call for India

Analysis

By Dr Abhinav Pandya 

BNP’s main contender was the Islamist Jamaat-i-Islami. Jamaat has won 66 seats. Several South Asian geopolitical analysts and members of India’s security establishment expressed jubilation over the poor electoral performance of Jamaat-i-Islami vis-à-vis BNP, calling the election results a popular mandate against Jamaat’s Islamisation agenda and its supporters in GHQ Rawalpindi. However, though Jamaat’s total tally of seats is minuscule compared to the BNP, its performance is, by all measures, a red alert for secularists and India.

Jamaat’s much-hyped and publicized election campaign, loaded with religious and anti-India rhetoric, its instrumental role in organising events and conferences on Islamist themes after Hasina’s ouster, electoral success of its student wing Islamic Chhatra Shivir in university elections, Yunus government’s diplomatic shift towards Pakistan and its engagement by the Western diplomatic missions gave an impression of Jamaat being the fierce contender, most likely to clinch a decisive electoral victory against BNP or form a government in coalition. However, objective assessments never predicted a massive electoral victory for Jamaat. Hence, Jamaat’s failure to form a government is along expected lines; however, Jamaat’s victory on 66 seats, though not unexpected, indicates a major ideological shift in the Bangladeshi society.

Jamaat’s performance needs to be analysed in the context of its history. Jamaat is an Islamist organisation, formed by an Islamist theologian, Maulana Syed Abul Ala Maududi, in 1941, which advocates managing state affairs in accordance with Sharia, and stood with Pakistan in the 1971 liberation war. Its association with bands of Pakistan-backed Razakar irregulars in unleashing atrocities, including rapes and mass murder, made it and its vision an object of hatred in Bangladeshi society for many decades after that. During the Hasina government, the state authorities executed many Jamaat leaders for their involvement in war crimes. However, today, following the 1971 liberation war, Jamaat has come a long way from exclusion and marginalisation. In the August 2024 revolution drama aimed at dislodging Sheikh Hasina, Jamaat played a critical role. Its student wing, Islami Chatra Shivir, was instrumental in mobilising student protests. During the 15 months of unrest and uncertainty following Hasina’s ouster, Jamaat allegedly mobilised several mass protests and lynchings in which the minority Hindus were killed.

Its electoral success simply demonstrates that Jamaat is no longer a fringe player. Today, it enjoys acceptance and legitimacy in Bangladeshi society. It has a strong presence in universities, colleges, government institutions, and banks, and it owns a robust funding infrastructure. With strong links with Islamist welfare organisations and charities in the West and with Pakistan, Turkey, and Qatar, Jamaat commands a robust international outreach in the Muslim world. Over the last few months, several European embassies and the US mission in Dhaka have met with Jamaat leaders on multiple occasions. In October 2025, Dr Shafiqur Rahman, Emir (chief) of Jamaat-i-Islami in Bangladesh, gave a speech in New York. Further, in its bid to mainstream itself, Jamaat is also making efforts to create a moderate image by moderating its views on women and giving a ticket to a Hindu minority individual.

However, the fact remains that Jamaat is an Islamist organisation with covert and overt links to domestic and global Jihadist groups. Following the Yunus government's lifting of the ban on the Jamaat, its influence over the interim government strengthened. Jamaat’s influence on policy decisions allegedly led to the release of several Islamists, with dubious links to regional and global terror outfits, like Ansarullah Bangla, Jamaat-ul-Mujahiddin Bangladesh. Reportedly, under the overarching umbrella of Jamaat’s facilitation, Pakistan-backed terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad increased their presence in Bangladesh, building sleeper cells, funding conduits, and covert operational bases. The problem with Islamist parties is not their political weight based on their electoral performance. In government, Islamist parties tend to make constitutional, legal and administrative changes favourable to the Islamist agenda. However, they face several limitations if they intend to run successful governments. They must make compromises and accommodate secular parties in coalitions. It discourages their hardliners and motivates them to defect to more extremist alternatives, broadening the Islamist spectrum.

However, once out of the system, they do much more damage. Because of their apolitical image and religious legitimacy, they command much stronger popular support. The greatest harm they cause stems from their ideology and overwhelming influence across social, educational, religious, media, financial, cultural, and other public spheres. They nurture a fertile ground where suicide bombers, fidayeens and terrorist masterminds germinate. They shape the mainstream popular discourse and perception, exercise power over the street, facilitate the spread and work of Jihadi terrorist organisations and coerce the individual members of society, directly or indirectly, to fall in line with their directives. To understand Jamaat better, one must study its operations in Pakistan and Kashmir, where it forms the core of the Jihadist ecosystem. In many countries, the mainstreaming of Islamist parties in electoral politics has opened the floodgates of Islamism, facilitating the spread of Jihadi terrorist groups. Ultimately, it leads to chaos and governance failure, which is generally halted by military intervention. If Bangladesh is by any chance moving towards the stated trajectory, South Asia will lose another reasonably functional democracy to a military dictatorship. However, the Bangladesh Army has so far maintained a dignified distance from politics. Nevertheless, given past precedents, its future intervention cannot be ruled out.

In Bangladesh, also, the mainstreaming of Jamaat has opened the floodgates for more radical and extremist Islamist organisations. In Bangladesh, Jamaat’s opponent group, Hefazat-e-Islam, is far ahead of Jamaat in its Jihadist credentials. It criticises Jamaat; however, it is expanding its influence in public spaces. In the future, given the upward trajectory of Islamism in Bangladesh, Jamaat is likely to enhance its electoral performance and extreme radical outfits like Hefazat-e-Islam will make substantial inroads in politics. To sum up, the country’s mainstream socio-cultural and political discourse has taken a sharp right turn, opening ample opportunities for Islamist political parties. Further, it is pertinent to mention that the rise of Islamism in Bangladesh is interacting with religious and political developments in the Muslim world of West Asia and South Asia. This, in turn, will likely give a further boost to Islamism in Bangladesh.

To sum up, if this process is not reversed at this stage, the fall may accelerate and become irreversible. It will result in a deeply entrenched presence of transnational Islamist organisations and terrorist groups, using the Bangladeshi soil to plan and orchestrate operations, logistics and streamline funding channels. South Asia, with powerful Jihadist actors like Pakistan’s ISI, Taliban and a range of terrorist groups, is already one of the leading global hotbeds of Jihadism. If the situation in Bangladesh is not addressed, it will get dragged into the South Asian Jihadist dragnet as a central entity. For India, this will be a nightmare. That said, India’s best bet at this moment is to engage the BNP government rationally and realistically, without any emotional baggage or preoccupations. It is so because the Awami League does not appear to be coming back anytime soon unless a powerful leader like Sheikh Hasina galvanises the party into action, which seems unlikely at least in the near term. However, engaging BNP may not be the most effective solution to check Islamism in the long run. At the most, it can bring some temporary normalisation of ties.

Disclaimer: This paper is the author's individual scholastic contribution and does not necessarily reflect the organization's viewpoint.

Dr. Abhinav Pandya is the Founder and CEO of Usanas Foundation