Hasina regime was uglier than fascism

The reference to “fascist” appears prominently in the Preamble proposed by the Constitution Reform Commission. I shall argue that there are good reasons for avoiding that reference.

The very first paragraph of the proposed Preamble asserts that “(we have) forged united resistance against autocratic and fascist rule in order to establish democracy.” The second paragraph goes on to proclaim “the ideals of democracy and anti-discrimination that united (us) against fascist rule in 2024.” It is obvious that, without naming names, the Preamble is referring to the “July uprising” against Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic regime. The student leaders who valiantly led that mass uprising made frequent use of the words “fascism” and “fascist” while describing the regime they were fighting against, and not surprisingly, these words soon came to permeate the entire popular discourse on the uprising. Evidently, in trying to reflect the spirit of “July uprising,” the proposed Preamble also captured the most ubiquitous vocabulary that came into currency along with that spirit.

It is nonetheless a mistake for the Preamble to use that vocabulary. Two kinds of error are involved here—one conceptual and the other political. The conceptual error is that, strictly speaking, the term fascism is not a correct description of the oppression meted out by the last regime. And the political error is that by describing Hasina’s regime as fascist, we are unwittingly granting it a somewhat elevated status it does not deserve. The latter error is more important for practical reasons, since, as I am going to argue, it amounts to watering down the ugliness and barbarity of the Hasina regime.

But let me begin with the conceptual error, from which the political error follows as a logical corollary. The root of the problem lies in an inadequate appreciation of what the idea of “fascism” actually stands for. Like most other “isms” such as communism, nationalism, liberalism, conservatism, etc, fascism is essentially a political ideology that has a distinct ideal—a conception about the kind of society worth striving for. The core of this ideal is the conviction that the objective of politics (in the broadest sense) should be to serve the interest of the “collective entity” of the state or the nation, as opposed to the interest of the “individual persons” who constitute the state. In other words, it is the “greatness” of the collectivity called state, rather than the “well-being” and “freedom” of individual persons, that is the supreme goal of all activities of a fascist regime.

This ideology leads inevitably to a number of pernicious consequences that have historically been responsible for giving fascism the bad name it has, rightly, acquired. First, in search of “greatness” of the state, fascist rulers have tended to engage in “militarism” and “expansionism,” leading to disastrous military conflicts in Europe in the 20th century. Second, since individual persons are supposed to exist only to serve the interest of the collective called state, fascist rulers have found it fit to ruthlessly suppress all kinds of individual freedoms, such as freedom of speech, freedom to dissent, etc, so as to prevent anything that could be even remotely deemed to be subversive of the state. The same ideology also paves the way for rule by a “great” dictator, who is supposed to be a human embodiment of the “collective,” and who usurps the responsibility of pursuing the greatness of the state, at whatever cost of the well-being and freedoms of individuals. On the economic front, the faith in the supremacy of the collective tends to create a highly regimented and state-controlled economic system, where private initiatives are viewed with deep suspicion. A fascist regime is thus characterised by the following features: inherently militaristic in its outward orientation, unashamedly authoritarian in its political system, and strictly regimented in its economic institutions.

It is now easy to see why the term fascism does not correctly describe Sheikh Hasina’s regime. For one thing, her regime was not militaristic in its outward orientation. Secondly, the economic system was far from being state-controlled and inimical to private entrepreneurship. On the contrary, it was an utterly rotten case of crony capitalism in which Hasina’s cronies were given a free hand to loot public resources for private gain. Apparently, then, the only similarity with fascism was the authoritarian political system, but there is a fundamental difference here, which is the main focus of my argument.

As noted above, the authoritarianism of a fascist regime stems from a political ideology that eulogises the collective over the individual. In contrast, one can argue that Hasina did not have any ideology at all. It was her megalomania and an unquenchable thirst for personal power, rather than the interest of the “collective state,” that motivated her brutality.

The gist of the matter is that while all fascist regimes are authoritarian, not all authoritarian regimes are fascist. An authoritarian regime can be called fascist only when it is driven by the political ideology of the supremacy of the collective over the individual. Hasina was not driven by any such ideology; hence, it’s a mistake to use the term fascism to describe her regime.

At this point, one might be tempted to ask: does this semantic issue really matter for practical purposes? What’s the problem if we continue to use the word “fascism” in its popular meaning of “brutal authoritarianism” so long as everyone understands that this is what it means? This is where the matter of political error comes in.

Recall that fascist authoritarianism stems not from personal greed for power (although in some cases such greed may accentuate the brutality of fascist rule), but from an ideological reverence of the collective over the individual. There is thus an element of “selflessness” associated with the ideology of fascism—and this element can by default impart a degree of respectability to any regime described as fascist. True, it would only be a limited respectability since fascism has itself fallen into disrepute because of its association with militarism and suppression of individual freedoms. Nonetheless, its association with “selflessness” does leave room for a modicum of respectability, which a non-fascist authoritarian regime, based on selfish greed, cannot claim. So, if we describe Hasina’s regime as fascist, then whether we intend it or not, we are implicitly giving the regime a veneer of respectability by suggesting that she was driven by a selfless political ideology rather than by purely selfish greed for power.

That’s the political error. The student leaders might have thought that by describing Hasina’s regime as fascist they were condemning it more strongly than they could by describing it simply as authoritarian or autocratic or tyrannical, but they failed to realise that they were actually doing the opposite.

I suspect the dynamics of language are such that brandishing of the terms fascism and fascist will continue to pervade the popular political discourse in Bangladesh, no matter who says what. Perhaps, one can live with that. The layperson may be excused for not appreciating the fact that not all authoritarian regimes are fascist. The students should have known better, but perhaps they may be excused too.

But the same cannot be said for the members of the Constitutional Reform Commission. The constitution of a nation is a sacred document—one that will be preserved for posterity. We must not allow its pages to be desecrated by the misuse of language that involves conceptual and political errors of grievous nature. We should, therefore, delete all references to fascism in this document and describe Sheikh Hasina’s fallen regime for what it was—a brutally tyrannical autocratic regime built upon megalomania, selfishness, and unbridled greed for power.

S. R. Osmani is professor of economics at Ulster University in the UK.

Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.