US seeks to court Jamaat: Washington Post

As the Jamaat-e-Islami readies for its strongest showing at the polls next month, US diplomats are quietly signalling a willingness to engage with the once-banned party, reports The Washington Post, citing audio recordings it says it obtained.

The party, historically outlawed under successive governments -- most recently by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina before her 2024 ouster, has long championed Shariah-based governance.

If elected to power, Jamaat has vowed reduced work hours for women, citing family duties, also seeking to recast itself as an anti-corruption force, softening its image to appeal to a broader electorate, the report added.

In a Dec 1 closed-door discussion with female Bangladeshi journalists, a US diplomat in Dhaka described the country as “shifted Islamic” and predicted that Jamaat would “do better than it’s ever done before” in the Feb 12 elections, The Washington Post said, citing the audio recording.

“We want them to be our friends,” the official added, asking whether journalists could bring members of the party’s “influential student wing” -- Islami Chhatra Shibir -- onto their programmes.

The diplomat, whom The Post said it is not naming for security reasons, downplayed worries that Jamaat-e-Islami would try to force it's interpretation of Islamic law on Bangladesh, saying Washington had leverage it was prepared to use.

Meaning any concerning moves would prompt immediate economic consequences. “We would have 100 percent tariffs put on them the next day,” the diplomat said.

Monica Shie, spokesperson for the US Embassy in Dhaka, told The Post that the December gathering was “a routine, off-the-record discussion between US Embassy officials and local journalists,” adding that “numerous political parties were discussed” and that “the United States does not favour one political party over another and plans to work with whichever government is elected by the Bangladeshi people.”

Mohammad Rahman, Jamaat’s US spokesperson, said in a statement that “we choose not to comment on the context of remarks reportedly made during a private diplomatic meeting”, as quoted in The Post.

The comments provide insight into US diplomatic strategy in Bangladesh as the country undergoes a crucial political transition.

Hasina’s ouster led to an interim government headed by Nobel laureate economist Muhammad Yunus, paving the way for elections intended to mark a democratic turning point.

Analysts warn that US outreach to Jamaat could “potentially drive another wedge between the US and India”, said Michael Kugelman, senior fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council.

India has long viewed the party as a regional security threat due to its historic ties with Pakistan.

Bangladesh’s complex political history -- independence from Pakistan in 1971, decades of military coups and alternating civilian governments -- shapes current dynamics.

Relations with India are already strained following Hasina’s exile in India and subsequent death sentence in absentia. Recent communal violence against Hindus has added to tensions, the report added.

The Jamaat-e-Islami, which once faced political bans, is now “mainstream”, according to Mubashar Hasan, a Bangladesh politics expert at Western Sydney University.

The party’s stated platform focuses on “anti-corruption, transparency, accountability, and good governance,” and proposals to reduce women’s work hours remain preliminary, with no plans to implement sharia law, Mohammad Rahman was quoted as saying.

The party’s main rival is the BNP, led by Tarique Rahman, who returned to Dhaka from self-imposed exile in London in late December.

Tarique has privately expressed confidence in Jamaat’s electoral performance but does not plan to integrate the party into a potential coalition government, the report added.

Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman has indicated openness to working with the BNP, recalling the party’s junior role in a BNP-led government between 2001 and 2006.

Since Hasina’s removal, Jamaat has met with US officials in both Washington and Dhaka, including a virtual meeting with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

The State Department described these interactions as “routine diplomatic work”, declining further comment.

India, meanwhile, continues to view the party warily, having labelled its Kashmir chapter an “unlawful group” in 2019 and renewed the designation in 2024, The Post said.

The US diplomat emphasised that Washington would respond decisively to any policies undermining socially liberal norms, citing Bangladesh’s garment industry, which supplies 20 percent of US imports.

“If Bangladesh tells women they can only work five hours… or imposes Shariah law, there will be no more orders. And if there are no more orders, there will be no Bangladeshi economy,” the official was quoted as saying.

Yet they remained confident that Jamaat-e-Islami’s pool of “educated leaders” would avoid such measures.

Jamaat’s publicity chief Ahsanul Mahboob Zubair on Thursday night dismissed the report as merely a journalist’s “observation”.

Around 10:45pm, he said: “These are just the observations of a newspaper and one of its reporters. The country’s situation cannot truly be captured in a single report.”

With a national election approaching, Zubair said: “Bangladesh had moved past ‘fascism’, reforms were under way and trials were ongoing, which was why many international and local outlets were publishing such reports.

“Al Jazeera has also done a report -- I have looked at it -- but in the end, it is the people’s position that matters,” he said.

Asked whether Jamaat would protest or condemn the report, Zubair said the party would first study it in full and then decide its next course of action.