According to localcollegeexplorer, the current Bangladesh was born in 1947 as East Pakistan. Since the 1950s, autonomist aspirations found expression in the Awami League and led to open rebellion against the western part, which resulted on March 26, 1971 in the proclamation of independence with the name of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. The Indian intervention on the side of the insurgents was decisive. The new state presided over by Mujibur Rahman obtained rapid international recognition (by Pakistan only in 1974) and became part of the Commonwealth. The Constitution (1972) sanctioned the secular nature of the state. The legislative elections of 1973 confirmed the hegemony of the Awami League and the government of Mujibur Rahman but the economic and social problems inherited from the past, multiplied by the war and exacerbated by a series of catastrophic floods and famines, soon led to a crisis in the new state, accompanied by increasing violence and unrest. After the proclamation of the state of emergency (1974), the constitutional reform of 1975 transformed the Bangladesh into a one-party presidential republic (Lega Awami), with a president with wide-ranging powers.

A period of serious political instability followed, with a series of coups until the rise to the presidency of the Republic of Ziaur Rahman (1977), who abolished the secular character of the state and made fidelity to Islam one of the cardinal principles of new Constitution, also initiating a controlled liberalization of the regime which resulted in a partial resumption of party activity. But the persistence of a very serious economic and social situation, accompanied by violence and riots, the development of a tribal guerrilla warfare in the Chittagong region and tensions among the military led to repeated overthrow at the top of the state. In 1982, in a coup d’état, HN Ershad came to power, which dissolved Parliament and prohibited any political activity. The return to constitutional legality was postponed several times and only in 1986 general elections were held, held in a climate of violence and fraud, which confirmed Ershad as president and assigned his National Party an absolute majority in Parliament (reconfirmed in 1988). In 1990, however, the growth of popular protest led to the resignation of Ershad and the victory of the Nationalist Party of Bangladesh (1991) which re-established the parliamentary system prior to 1975 with the new government led by Begum Khaleda Zia. Starting in 1992, a period of bitter conflict developed between the center-right government, which also included the Islamic Association (Jamiat-i-Islāmī), and the opposition forces gathered around the Awami League led by Sheīkh Hasina Wazed, to which were added the tensions between the Islamic nationalists and the Buddhist and Hindu minorities. The new consultations of 1996 sanctioned the victory of the Awami League: Sheīkh Hasina Wazed was charged with forming the government. The new executive downsized the privatization program initiated by the previous legislature and tried to put a stop to ethnic violence (peace treaty with the Chittagong guerrillas of 1998). On the international level, the country maintained traditional links with India. The 2001 political elections sanctioned the return to the government of Begum Khaleda Zia. In 2002, after the resignation of President Chowdhury, following accusations of having conducted a policy hostile to the ruling Nationalist Party, Iajuddin Ahmed took office. The persistence of the bitter clash between the Awami League, secular and anti-Pakistani, and the pro-Pakistani and anti-socialist National Party of Bangladesh, an ally of the Islamic parties, led to a further tightening of political life in the following years: during 2004 the opposition forces organized 21 general strikes in a campaign to the ousting of the government; there were serious attacks against the Awami League which launched a boycott of parliamentary work, which ended in February 2006, while a series of attacks was attributed to the activity of armed Islamic groups, whose presence constitutes a permanent factor of tension. In October 2006, at the end of Khaleda Zia’s mandate, the elections were postponed and President Ahmed assumed the role of regent until the re-election, in 2008, of Sheīkh Hasina Wazed. The presidential consultations of 2009 saw the affirmation of Z. Rahman, who held the office until his death in March 2013; he was replaced ad interim by A. Hamid, confirmed in the post in the elections held the following month. The consultations for the renewal of Parliament held in January 2014 in a climate of strong tensions and serious unrest recorded the obvious, large victory of the ruling party of Prime Minister Hasina Wazed, who was reconfirmed in office, obtaining a third term following of the consultations held in December 2018.

In July 2016, the country was the scene of a bloody massacre perpetrated by the terrorist organization Is in a restaurant in Dhaka, in which twenty civilians, including nine Italians, lost their lives.

UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE

Historic city-mosque of Bagerhat (1985); ruins of the Buddhist Vihara of Paharpur (1985); Sundarbans (1997).