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The Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (Bengali: বাংলাদেশ কৃষক শ্রমিক আওয়ামী লীগ, lit. 'Bangladesh Worker-Peasant's People's League'; BaKSAL/বাকশাল) was a political front comprising the Bangladesh Awami League, the Communist Party of Bangladesh, the National Awami Party (Muzaffar) and Bangladesh Jatiya League.^[1]

Following the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of Bangladesh, enacted on 25 January 1975, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman formed BaKSAL on 24 February.^[2] A presidential order also outlawed all political parties other than BaKSAL, creating a state of emergency and obligating other parties to join the front.

The party advocated for democratic socialism as a part of reforms under the theory of the Second Revolution, which BaKSAL worked to achieve the objectives of.^[3]

BaKSAL was dissolved after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in August 1975.^[4] As a result, all the political parties that merged with BaKSAL became independent again.

Background

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (also known as Mujibur) and the Awami League won a landslide victory in the 1973 Bangladeshi general election. However, Mujibur had difficulties with fighting corruption in his own government and the increase in leftism caused by the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal. In the face of growing unrest, on 28 December 1974, Mujibur declared a state of emergency.^[5] He pushed the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution through Parliament on 25 January 1975. The amendment was passed in the Parliament unanimously. It dissolved all political parties, including the ruling party, the Awami League, and gave Mujibur the authority to form the Bangladesh Krishak Shramik Awami League (shortened as 'BaKSAL'), which would become the national party of Bangladesh.^[6] The party was designed to overhaul the administrative system of Bangladesh to make it people-oriented. BaKSAL had similarities with the National Union Party's formation in the United States, which occurred at the height of the American Civil War.

Formation

BaKSAL was formed by Mujibur on 24 February 1975,^[7][8] and it officially replaced the nation's other political organizations and associations on 1 September 1975; other political organizations were banned afterwards. All MPs and political parties were required to join the party; any MP who missed a parliamentary session, abstained, or failed to vote with the party would lose their seat.^[9] As a result, most Awami League politicians and others from different parties joined BaKSAL; however, the Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal, Purba Banglar Sarbahara Party, Purbo Bangla Sammobadi Dal-Marxbadi-Leninbadi (East Bengal Communist Party Marxist–Leninist), East Pakistan Communist Party, and Bangladesh Communist Party (Leninist) did not join.^[7] Civilian government employees, professionals, and trade union leaders were also compelled to join the party.^[7]

President Mujibur Rahman, BaKSAL's chairman, appointed a fifteen-member executive committee, a 120-member central committee, and five front organizations, namely, Jatiya Krishak League, Jatiya Sramik League, Jatiya Mahila League, Jatiya Juba League, and Jatiya Chhatra League (peasants, workers, women, youth, and students respectively) for the party.^[10] All members of the executive committee and central committee were appointed as ministers.

Executive committee

Central Committee

Activities

Regulations originating from BaKSAL included the promulgation of the Newspaper Ordinance (June 1975; Annulment of Declaration). Under this, the declarations of all but four state-owned newspapers, the Dainik Bangla, Bangladesh Observer, The Daily Ittefaq, and Bangladesh Times, were annulled and banned. The intention of the annulment was to bring all news media under temporary governmental control as a means of combating the smuggling and black market of newspaper, which prevented Bangladesh from exporting the paper to foreign countries, cutting off revenue^{[citation needed]} that could have helped prevent the Bangladesh famine of 1974.

In another effort to decentralize authority, 61 district governors were appointed with training for governorship—a new development in the history of Bangladesh. Local elections were also peaceful and free. In the 1975 Kishorganj local election, a schoolteacher won against the nephew of Syed Nazrul Islam, a leader of BakSAL at the time.

Dissolution

Although BaKSAL was put into effect during September 1975, the Assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members eventually led to the party's dissolution. However, the party participated in the 1986 and 1991 general elections; in 1986, the party's symbol was a boat, while it was a bicycle in 1991. The party acted independently until the 1990s, when almost all of its party leaders left the organization to join the Bangladesh Awami League.^[11]

Legacy

In the 1974 Far Eastern Economic Review, Lawrence Lifschultz wrote how Bangladeshis thought that "the corruption and malpractices and plunder of national wealth" were "unprecedented" during Mujibur's governance.^[12] Some of BakSAL's goals were adopted by successors of Mujibur such as President Ziaur Rahman, who worked against JASAD (Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal) and decreased the liberal sentiment in the country.

References