What started out as class war on behalf of the proletariat has degenerated into gang war in support of landlords and petty politicians.
Maoism is no longer flagging its little red book in Bangladesh as it did in the late 1960s and mid-1970s. But a militant grassroots vigilante movement, sometimes moonlighting as free-lance heavies for hire in the rural areas, still makes regular news. Mostly active in the southern and north-western regions of the country, the movement is a splintered one. However, the various parts are often lumped together and called the sharbahara (the proletariat) groups. They are symptoms more of peasant rage than politics.
The militancy draws its popular and mythical roots not just from the traditional communist movements of the Beijing variety but from the much more recent Sharbahara Party (SP) which was most active in the 1970 to 1974 period. Founded by Shiraj Shikder, an engineer, SP was only one among the many parties of the left, but it caught popular imagination arguing for a red Bengal at a time when most leftists were confined to just arguing. The party fought both the Pakistan army and the Awami League mainstream regulars in 1971. Afterwards, it battled the government of Sheikh Mujib till his death in 1974, under circumstances never well explained.
1971 Aftermath
The 1971 war created a crisis, fragmenting the already divided Maoist movements of what was till then East Pakistan. Pakistan was supported by China, while India and the Awami League naturally fell into the Soviet camp. Many Maoist groups therefore supported the Pakistan army, which was at that time engaged in a killing spree. This support gave the Maoists a bad image, and the memories linger.