I will try. I left Bangladesh when I was 19. So my grasp of the socio-political status is limited to infrequent visits back home, following news and talking with friends and families.
As far as I understand, the political area is dominated by businessmen (most of the time corrupted, they lack higher education). They have the networking capabilities and resources that grassroots politician lacks. Now, there are cultural similarities between West Bengal and Bangladesh, however, my take is that the politicians are less corrupted. And also due to the corrupt environment, it discourages the educated younger generation to get actively involved in politics. Also some of the smaller left groups got involved with violent activities in the rural areas. That took away the public support. The current opposition party (Awami League: http://www.albd.org/), has a long tradition of being on the left, however, now they are more centrist. Coupel elections ago they deliberately tried to be less secular. There were some offshoots from this party, but they are very small.
> AFAIK, Bangladesh has achieved good progress in Human Development despite political instability and the rise of fundamentalism. According to Jean Dreze, Bangladesh has overtaken in India in important human development indicators. What's your take?
That might be true. There are some great rural development projects going on. And the country is still sustaining a huge population (~130 million). However, political instability doesn't help much with foreign investment and employment. So the country yet to take advantage from the grassroots level development project.
And the rise of fundamentalism is a concern, at least in last couple years. When I was back home, it was like this. I think as we have seen in other parts of the world, politicians like to use religion to get votes and manipulate the citizens.
--Sharif
-- Sharif Islam http://www.sharifislam.com Research Programmer University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Library Systems Office 217-244-4688