Back in 1974, Bangaban dhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's government bat-ded adversity on a diverse scale in order to keep itself

going. A debilitating famine threatened to put everything asunder. Antigovernment elements, always keen about undermining the administration and especially the Father of the Nation, would not under any circumstances let the newly independent country move on. Stories of a destitute named Bashanti made the rounds. Moulana Bhashani, through his public pronouncements and his weekly newspaper Haq Katha, made sure that the wounds inflicted on the government went increasingly deeper. Abroad, there was once more the fear that Bangladesh's bid to enter the United Nations would again be vetoed by the Chinese. In the event, the veto did not come this time. But other difficulties remained. The Pakistani government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto sent out emissaries (and they were the Bengali collaborators of the Pakistan army in 1971 then stranded in Pakistan) to the Middle East to disseminate the propaganda that Bangladesh was a client state of India, that Hindus ran the show. On the home front, leftwing extremists led by Siraj Sikdar were increasingly going for an enhancement in their activities against the state. Abdul Haq, leader of another faction of leftists and one who had never acknowledged the liberation of the country in 1971, wrote a letter to Bhutto soliciting Pakistani help in what he called ousting the Mujib government. A happy Bhutto discussed the letter with his cabinet and decreed that Haq's request be looked into. As for the United States, it would not let a ship carrying food to a hungry Bangladesh reach the country because Dhaka had decided to do business with Fidel Castro.

In 1974, Bangabandhu's unambiguous decision to improve ties with the

Bangabandhu himself lamented the pilferage of relief goods by those around him. And, of course, adding to the chaos was the radical but confused, youth-driven Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal with its inexplicable slogan of scientific socialism. Towards the end of the year, Bangabandhu would have a state of emergency imposed on the country. He was busy fighting the demons arrayed around him.

Thirty eight years on, another Awami League government batties not just enemies within but also without. Sheikh Hasina's government, rocked by the doings and sayings of some of its own functionaries, needs to learn quite a few lessons from the

general election comes round. For the government, there is an obvious need here to ensure that the trials proceed in a manner that is above question and that reflects the general desire of Bangladesh's people for justice to be ensured for those who died in 1971 and for their families.

The triumph of the Awami League at the elections of 1996 and 2008 were symbolic of a restoration, in however diluted a form, of the secular principles ingrained in the War of Liberation. For that momentum to be sustained, it is for the Awami League to reinvent itself, between now and the elections, into an inclusive organisation that will rise above the parochial image it has carved for itself in

these past few years. Sadly, though, the incompetence of a good number of ministers as also the bellicosity with which the ruling party has treated the opposition (however stubborn the opposition might have been) has ended up drilling a few more holes in the boat. With nothing to show for a cabinet reshuffle, with tainted ministers staying on and with bright young men opting out (read SohelTaj here), the Awami League under Sheikh Hasina has looked more and more like a dinosaur.

To have a chance of returning to power in 2014, Sheikh Hasina and her party must be ready for a demonstration of political courage. The prime minister will need to dump a good number of ministers and ministers of state from the cabinet. She ought not to expect that people who have suffered at the hands of the rowdier elements of the Jubo League and Chhatra League will have forgotten their anguish by election time. The ruling party will need to engage the opposition in a meaningful dialogue over the modalities of a transition from an outgoing elected government to a freshly elected one. It must come round to the idea that hostility toward the media could turn out to be counter-productive, as recent history has demonstrated in Bangladesh.

And then there are the structural readjustments the ruling party must go into, sooner rather than later. That fundamentally entails an overhaul of the cabinet, through reducing its size, through slicing off the fat clogging its arteries. Much of the criticism over the government's performance or the lack of it has had to do with the presence of the prime minister's advisers. They need to be dropped, all of them, with briskness.

In 1974, the Awami League, new to power and glory, found itself in the woods for little fault of its own. In 2012, that is not what you can say about the party as it operates today. Bangabandhu fell because of the conspiracies against him. With Sheikh Hasina, the problem has basically been one of leadership without vision.

The writer Is Executive Editor, The Dally Star.

E-mail: bahsantareq@yahoo.co.uk