The quota protests may have been a trigger due to inept handling and counter violence, but there are other issues needing consideration including why the Bangladesh Army decided to abandon the Prime Minister and embrace choice of the people.
As is the hyper news cycle in modern times, a catastrophic event is followed by multiple conjectures, narratives, mis and disinformation by interested parties as well as the lay observer. In the world of social media today every man is his own publisher and editor, thus news is spun in multiple directions where separating the wheat from the chaff is difficult.
Bangladesh passed a cataclysmic change which can be categorized amongst one of the few defining ones from the Liberation post 1971 to the military coups and now what can be called as a transformation achieved by a mass mobilization movement against an unpopular government whose head was in the sands due to sheer hubris of its leadership – Sheikh Hasina and her core loyalists such as Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges Obaidul Quader.
While those who point a finger at the Army Chief accusing him of staging a soft coup his own boss of many years, fail to appreciate the immediate events as well the political economy of Bangladesh under Sheikh Hasina that led to her departure.
A recount of these may be in order particularly the state of economy, the unemployment of youth and that GDP growth alone cannot ensure stability – economic and political.
Under Sheikh Hasina Bangladesh has been the darling of global economists maintaining a steady 6 percent GDP growth for many years from 2010 to 2019 as per World Bank Data.
During the COVID 19 there was a drop but it soon regained and last year was 5.8 percent.
The growth data however hides the sordid truth of unemployment
Data released by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics shows that in 2023, around a fifth of the youth, aged 15-24 years, were neither in education, nor employment, nor training. The ratio was higher at 22.3 percent in urban areas.
In 2023, youth unemployment rate for the country scaled a high of 15.7 percent compared with 13.5 percent prior to the pandemic and 9.9 percent a decade ago, according to World Bank.
240,000 new unemployed individuals, with the current tally standing at 2.59 million, up from 2.35 million in the preceding quarter.
Bangladesh’s BBS Census and Household Census Report-2022 painted a concerning picture of youth inactivity. It says among approximately 31.6 million young people (aged 15-24), 40.67% are classified as inactive, as per Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya is Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) and Convenor, Citizen’s Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh.
Importantly most of the jobs were in the manufacturing sector for the technically skilled which large number of educated youth studying in colleges and universities across the country which formed the bulk of the agitation shunned.
Nevertheless it would be evident that economy and unemployment alone did not bring down the Hasina government, but reservations favouring the ruling party Awami League’s support base and inept handling of the protests did.
Quota Saga
Government jobs in developing countries including Bangladesh and India are important.
These ensure a person is secure for a lifetime with pension as the ordinary citizen has no old age security.
On June 5, Bangladesh High Court reinstated the quotas for children and grand children of freedom fighters who participated in the War of Liberation in 197 by declaring illegal a 2018 government circular that abolished it.
This was in response to filing of a written petition by a group of relatives of the war veterans, that 30 percent of the quotas were reinstated. This was the core lobby of the Awami League.
After protests broke out the government took up the issue with the Supreme Court which on July 10 issued a status quo on the HC verdict but final decision was given on July 21.
The issue should have been left to the courts, but for the Awami League and Sheikh Hasina are legacy of the Liberation War and significant and thus were irked by the protests against quotas for the freedom fighters.
For the youth in Bangladesh born in the 21st Century, the War was a chapter in the history book and not an emotive issue as much as for the ruling establishment.
Thus, violence centring the quota reform movement erupted on July 15, after "inflammatory public statements by Government officials and attacks by Government-aligned youth groups on the peaceful protesters. Law enforcement authorities reportedly rushed in to support government-aligned groups and used excessive force, including live bullets, against unarmed protesters."
The trigger for renewed protests were prime minister’s remarks on the Razakars, "Why do they [the protesters] have so much anger against the freedom fighters?" she said, adding, "If the grandchildren of freedom fighters don't get quota benefits, should the grandchildren of Rajakars get the benefit?"
Razakars were the collaborators with the Pakistan Army in 1971. The protestors were branded as anti nationals which incited a violent turn
To manage the protests, on July 18, mobile data was shut off, broadband internet across the country became unavailable.
The government called a nationwide curfew on the night of July 19, and called in the army.
On July 21, the Supreme Court decided to keep seven percent government jobs reserved and open the rest to competition.
On July 23, the government issued a circular taking merit-based recruitment in civil service to 93 percent from the previous 44 percent.
The protests died down.
But key organizers of the protests Anti Discrimination Student Movement Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder were picked up from the Gonoshasthaya Nagar Hospital in Dhaka on July 26 by the Detective Bureau [DB] .
DB picked up Sarjis Alam and Hasnat Abdullah and on early July 28, the law enforcers picked up Nusrat Tabassum ostensibly for their safety.
This led to another round of protests.
Later students from different universities and colleges held the demonstrations to protest the "detention of six coordinators of the quota reform protest by the Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police and forcing them to issue a statement on ending protests".
In the interim period, quota reform protesters staged demonstrations across the country, including in Dhaka and Chattogram cities.
Ruling party men obstructed them from holding demonstrations in some places.
To quell the violence six organisers of the quota reform protests Anti Discrimination Student Movement who had been in the Detective Branch custody were released.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her ministers blamed her political opponents for the violence and said her government that it would heed the Supreme Court ruling.
The government banned Jamaat-e-Islami and all its front organisations and entities, including Islami Chhatra Shibir.
Awami League cadres were unleashed to target the agitationists claiming these to be members of the opposition.
This was a characteristic of the Awami League rule under Hasina where political opposition is suppressed, top leaders as her main opponent Khaleda Zia is jailed and denied treatment abroad and media curbs have become common all strains of authoritarianism of the worst kind in a seemingly democratic country.
By this time the demand of the agitation moved from an apology from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to that of her resignation and a civil disobedience movement was launched.
Political leaders in the Sub Continent do not follow the tradition of apologies like in some East Asian countries.
The students’ called made for noncooperation with the government and the demands increased from an apology by the Prime Minister to her resignation.
Thus, turning down the prime minister's call for dialogue, the organisers of the Anti Discrimination Student Movement came up with a one-point demand -- the resignation of Sheikh Hasina and her cabinet members.
Predicament of the Bangladesh Army
The Army Chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman has been the principal staff officer of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and thus counted amongst her loyalist.
As droves of protestors moved on the streets, the military had a difficult choice to abandon caution and use force to disperse the protestors.
The heavy-handed dealing of the protests by the police and other security forces had resulted in at least 300 casualties.
The military in managing civil riots must use minimum force, but the force has to be used to be effective. The military does not fire in the air to disperse a mob.
It was evident that the human surge was just too much for any military force to manage.
While a military is bound by the constitution, another factor is that it is also seen as a force of the people or, “Awam Ki Fauj,” indeed this was the reason cited by the Army Chief Waker-Uz-Zaman when he refused to deploy the military to control the protestors.
One important factor that is likely to have been behind the Army Chief is military veterans. Large number of veterans including some former Army Chiefs who had been appointed by Sheikh Hasina directly came out against the deployment of the Army.
Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan, who served as the Chief of Army Staff of the Bangladesh Army from 2012 to 2015, read out a written statement at a press conference on behalf of a gathering of military venteran.
"Today we appeared here because we are deeply concerned, troubled and saddened by all the egregious killings, tortures, disappearances and mass arrests that have been tormenting Bangladesh over the past three weeks," Bhuiyan explained.
The statement further says, "All the unprovoked attacks and counter-attacks instigated by the goons in power resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of life threatening and life damaging injuries. Victims of these attacks are denied access to treatment, even the emergency ones."
"In no way our armed forces should come forward to rescue those who have created this current situation. Never in the past our armed forces aimed their guns at the fellow citizens or treated them as a belligerent force," it reads.
Here again the history of the war of liberation when the Pakistan Army had brutally killed thousands of innocents may have been a reminder for these veterans.
The choice before the current army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman was thus stark.
Whether it was a “military coup to claim power,” or siding with the people of the country at large against a leader and a government that had decidedly lost confidence of masses and become anti people to the tune of indulging in mass violence will be determined by history.
The circumstances evaluated in the near term perhaps denote the choice of the Army Chief as inevitable with limited options as the masses gathered around Gono Bhawan the residence of the Prime Minister with Sheikh Hasina and sister Rehana inside.
The political and governance structure had lost its legitimacy in the eyes of the people.
Two years back under similar circumstances, Sri Lanka’s strongman and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had to make a getaway from his presidential palace in Colombo.
The Way Ahead-Chaos or Reasonable Transition
For progressive democracies across the world Bangladesh has become an example of transition triggered by a mass students movement against reservations which were mishandled to lead to the fall of a leader who had become unpopular.
At the same time, it is evident that a number of factors have led to the sudden transfer of power in Bangladesh particularly the pent up aspiration for a democracy and freedoms.
While Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus is seen as answer replacing Bangladesh’s autocratic and authoritarian regime represented by Sheikh Hasina there are other powerful forces which are waiting in the wings to take over and these include conservatives and religious extremists such as the Jamaat Islam.
It is now up to the army to adjudicate in a manner that people's voices are heard and the interim government formed of progressive forces which are in power rather than the regressive religious oriented parties.
There will be a temptation for revenge attacks on the Awami League cadres and the minorities which will have to be contained.
How the Bangladesh army can store law and order and civilian led administration which can then lead to free and fair elections will dictate stability.
International and regional actors are also likely to exploit the vacuum particularly those antagonistic to India which are already reveling the fall of Hasina.
New Delhi will no doubt be the most impacted by the power transition in Bangladesh and how it handles it will determine not just bilateral relations but India’s national security particularly in the North East with a civil war like situation ongoing in Myanmar.
Finally, the election will decide what the people of Bangladesh want.
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