Bangladesh opens 2026 in political flux—after the death of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia (Dec 30) and the return of BNP acting chief Tarique Rahman (Dec 25) ahead of elections expected in February 2026. In this two-part Unraveled conversation, Episode 109 focuses on the deeper story beneath the headlines: the long-running identity and legitimacy contest in Bangladesh—Bengali nationalism vs Bangladeshi nationalism—and how that debate shaped the pathway to the 2024 uprising. My guest, Prof. Harun (Harun-or-Rahid) Rashid (Kent State University), argues that the unrest is not best read as a simple “Islamists vs secularists” binary. Instead, he traces how repeated contested elections, repression, and campus violence created long-term pressures—while the “Indian narrative” and Bangladesh’s cultural-politics networks amplified polarization. We discuss why anti-India sentiment became politically potent, why Pakistan is often invoked in external framing despite being far less relevant in Bangladesh’s internal politics today, and how movements such as Shahbag and Hefazat fed into the longer arc of contestation over national identity and political representation. Episode 109 covers: 1. Khaleda Zia’s political legacy and what it symbolizes now 2. The identity debate: Bengali vs Bangladeshi nationalism 3. How repression and “elections without voting” fed the 2024 rupture 4. Why anti-India sentiment surged—and how it intersects with domestic power 5. How media, cultural networks, and symbolism shape political legitimacy 6. Shahbag, Hefazat, and the contested memory of 1971—without reducing it to propaganda Next episode (Episode 110): We go further into the future of democracy: elections, pluralism vs fragmentation, and what a stable democratic settlement could realistically look like.