Activists demonstrate in front of the Bangladesh High Commission (embassy) in the capital, Colombo, on July 22, 2024, demanding an end to a government crackdown against protesters opposing a controversial job allocation quota system. (Photo by Ishara S. KODIKARA / AFP) (Photo by ISHARA S. KODIKARA/AFP via Getty Images)
The recent protest movement by the students in Bangladesh is an important political turning point for the country. The impacts are being felt beyond the country’s national frontiers, and many have presented it as a struggle to restore the democratic values of Bangladesh.
So far, almost two hundred protestors have been killed, while thousands more are injured or missing in the face of one of the most brutal waves of repression in the history of independent Bangladesh.
Antiquota Protest
An Authoritarian State
There have long been questions about the independence of the judiciary in Bangladesh, increasingly so under the rule of Sheikh Hasina, who has served as the country’s prime minister since 2009 after a previous stint between 1996 and 2001. Critics and human rights activists have highlighted the prime minister’s authoritarian grip on the country’s judicial system, reducing it to an instrument to serve her political agenda.
Naturally, the High Court judgement ordering the reinstatement of the quotas provoked reactions from the student community that were now freshly galvanized through the independent Boishommobirodhee Chhatro Andolon (Anti-Discrimination Students’ Movement). Students took to the streets in most urban areas, setting up road blockades. Dhaka, the capital city, came to a standstill.
Things changed on July 14 with a provocative speech by the prime minister that portrayed the demonstrators as “Rajakars” — a word for people who collaborated with the West Pakistan Army during the independence struggle, killing freedom fighters. This derogatory term amounts to an accusation of treachery and betrayal in a nation still grappling with the legacy of its liberation war. The ruling Awami League has sought to present many of its critics as Rajakars over the years.
Hasina’s denunciation of the protest movement further intensified the popular anger. Thousands of students broke out of Dhaka University’s dormitory gates and thronged the streets with chants that turned Hasina’s comments on their head:
Who are you? Who am I? Rajakar, Rajakar.
Who has said it? Who has said it? The autocrat, the autocrat!
The chant sought to fling Hasina’s words back in her face. Thousands of students from universities all over the country mobilized in Dhaka, Chittagong, and other cities. From Jahangirnagar, Rangpur, and Cumilla, the youth staged sit-ins on the main avenues of the capital city, which has a population in excess of twenty-two million people. High school students also joined the movement.
Sheikh Hasina’s Record
Just a few months into her latest term as prime minister, after her party won January’s parliamentary elections, opposition to Sheikh Hasina is growing stronger than ever. Bangladesh faces chronic unemployment, with two-fifths of those aged between fifteen and twenty-four years old unemployed but also not in school, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
While it was the quota system that sparked a rebellion, the underlying causes involved deeper political and economic problems. Hasina’s premiership has grown more and more intolerant of dissent, especially in her most recent term. Most opposition parties boycotted this year’s election, which was tainted by charges of vote rigging and widespread intimidation.
Hasina’s consolidation of power has involved restrictions on press freedom, judicial repression of political opponents, and the leveraging of public resources. The students have mobilized to highlight many of these issues and the regime’s overall disregard for democratic norms and human rights. Rights groups have warned about the development of virtual one-party rule by Hasina’s Awami League.
As the world’s longest-serving female head of government, Hasina has long been a darling to the outside world for having dealt skillfully with her country’s radical Islamists as well as a powerful army constantly looking for opportunities to grab power. As the favoured choice of foreign and domestic capital alike, she earned accolades for a resurgent Bangladesh economy with consistent GDP growth figures of 6 percent.
However, these levels of economic growth relied upon an export-oriented garment industry that employed mostly female workers for a pittance. The collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in 2013 saw 1,100 workers killed and 2,600 injured. The deadly fire in Tazreen Fashions the previous year took the lives of 112 workers and left scores injured.
The garment sector employs around 4.5 million workers. There have been multiple protests by workers for better wages and work conditions. Last November, police opened fire on a workers’ demonstration, killing one woman and injuring several others.
This is the flip side of Bangladesh’s significant role as a supplier of cheap labour power to the global value chain of ready-made garments. Nevertheless, growing private investment and export-oriented economic growth helped lift millions out of destitution and broadened access to electricity and other amenities. In 2021, the country’s per capita income briefly surpassed that of India.
Sheikh Hasina was also praised internationally for opening Bangladesh’s borders to accommodate hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees escaping the 2017 military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar. However, her intolerance towards any form of domestic dissent gave rise to growing resentment.
Crisis
In sum, Hasina’s last fifteen years of rule brought about remarkable changes in the country’s economy, but her successes came with some very damaging costs. The Awami League, having first risen to power as the voice of the people, has ended up stifling popular opinion. The party has transformed into Hasina’s personal property, claiming a monopoly of the heritage of the Liberation War.
In this context, the student rebellion serves to promote a fair and proper evaluation of the freedom struggle. This was a struggle in which a wide range of forces participated and made sacrifices, including the Bangladeshi left, which had a strong presence. No one party can claim the exclusive right of ownership over the Liberation War.
As the grand old party of Bangladesh politics celebrates its seventy-fifth birthday, there are many reasons for it to be proud of its history. There are also many reasons to be concerned about its present-day record. Today popular power has been supplanted by the power of money and muscles, with many positions up for grabs by the wealthy, influential, and corrupt. Top party leaders are increasingly out of touch with reality, leaning more and more upon the state’s coercive apparatus to govern.
The student movement in Bangladesh has been successful in directing our attention towards these deeper anomalies in Bangladeshi politics and society. Even if the government is able to brutally repress the students, there will be no guarantees against uprisings in the future, which might be joined by other sections of society. Once again, the students of Bangladesh are showing the country the road ahead.
Sushovan Dhar is a political activist and trade unionist based in Kolkata, India.
*This article was first published by Jacobin
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