How a student-led uprising ousted Bangladesh’s longest-serving prime minister – The Denver Post

By KRUTIKA PATHI

NEW DELHI (AP) — A video going viral on social media in Bangladesh shows jubilant protesters climbing a statue of Sheikh Mujib Rahman, the country’s first post-independence leader, and beating it with iron rods and axes as people below whistled and cheered.

Mobs across the country have attacked symbols of Rahman in an attempt to literally destroy his legacy and that of his daughter, Sheikh Hasina, who served as the country’s prime minister until Monday when she resigned and fled in the face of the unrest.

Analysts say the anger that forced Hasina from power — and that is behind the drive to erase her and her family — is rooted in the deep economic crisis felt by most people in Bangladesh, and the belief that while they suffered, elites allied with Hasina prospered.

“It has created a deep-rooted resentment against the government,” said Ali Riaz, an expert on Bangladeshi politics who teaches political science at Illinois State University.

This eventually led to Hasina’s outright rejection and her increasingly autocratic turn.

The extraordinary scenes on Monday — as crowds ransacked her official residence, party offices and her father’s museum while she fled by helicopter to India — were the culmination of weeks of protests that began over a quota system for allocating government jobs that critics said favored those associated with Hasina’s party.

Hundreds of people died as security forces brutally suppressed the demonstrations, a violence that only fueled them even after the quota system was drastically reduced.

The results showed that her government “significantly underestimated the level of public anger and the sources of that anger beyond employment quotas,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center.

The 76-year-old prime minister, the longest-serving female prime minister in the predominantly Muslim country of 170 million, boasts of how she has transformed Bangladesh’s economy into a global competitor — farmland has turned into garment factories, bumpy roads have become winding highways, more girls have gone to school and electricity has reached villages.

But that transformation was not universal and belied the economy’s fragilities, such as its dependence on exports and persistently high youth unemployment, that were exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, which prompted its government to seek $4.7 billion in financial assistance from the IMF.

Eighteen million young people—nearly a fifth of the population—are neither in work nor school, according to Chietigj Bajpaee, who studies South Asia at the Chatham House think tank. And the fact that the allocation of government jobs was at the center of the initial protests is no coincidence: they were seen as the most stable and well-paid, revealing a widespread sense of insecurity that has persisted.

“Under Hasina, the benefits of economic growth have been confined to a small elite within or close to the regime,” said Uday Chandra, an assistant professor of political science at Georgetown University in Qatar.

Critics also complained that she touted economic achievements to cover up her repression of the opposition, accusing her of curtailing press freedom, limiting civil society and jailing thousands of opposition members ahead of January elections in which she won a fourth consecutive term.

Economic successes were “exaggerated to justify her rule and try to promote development as an alternative to democracy,” Riaz said, adding that accusations of vote-rigging and boycotts by the main opposition parties in the last three elections contributed to a sense of lack of legitimacy.

For now, Hasina’s departure is seen as a decisive victory for the protesters.

“Everyone is celebrating,” shouted Juairia Karim, a student, as she rejoiced with others in the streets Monday. “This must be a historic day.”

But Hasina’s ouster has also plunged the country into uncertainty. The ceremonial president dissolved parliament on Tuesday as he and the army chief promised to announce a caretaker government to run the country until new elections are held. It is unclear how long that process might take — but it could be months or years.

The president also freed Hasina’s main rival, Khaleda Zia, leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, from house arrest where she had been for years.

Student protesters, meanwhile, have been demanding that Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus — a longtime opponent of Hasina — be appointed to the caretaker government. He could not immediately be reached for comment, but one student leader said Yunus had agreed to step in.

As for Hasina, it is unclear what will happen next. On Tuesday, India’s foreign minister confirmed that she had arrived in the country a day earlier, but did not say whether she would stay or go elsewhere.

And more unrest could come — especially if the powerful military tries to step outside its role as mediator. Bangladesh has suffered more than 20 coups or attempted coups since independence in 1971.

“In a tense political environment, uncertainty can breed volatility, and volatility can provoke more violence,” said Kugelman of the Wilson Center. “The last thing Bangladesh can afford right now is a broader security crisis… and that will come down to the role the military plays in dealing with these serious threats to stability.”

Originally published: August 6, 2024 at 8:20 AM