IN an age dominated by social media and the internet, millions of Bangladeshi youth took to the streets to protest against the authoritarian rule of the Awami League’s Hasina Wajid. Despite facing violence and a high death toll, the youth of Bangladesh, primarily students, succeeded in overthrowing Hasina Wajid’s dictatorial regime, which had been entrenched in power for the past fifteen years. Nobel laureate Dr. Mohammad Yunus has been appointed as the leader of an interim administration tasked with holding fair and free elections. The interim administration is backed by the Bangladesh Army.
The social upheaval against Prime Minister Wajid began as a student protest against the controversial employment quota system, which disproportionately favoured the younger generations of 1971 liberation war veterans. The government, which had recently secured a fourth term in an election boycotted by the main opposition parties, quickly moved towards establishing a one-party state. Sheikh Hasina’s first tenure was from 1996 to 2001. During her second uninterrupted tenure of about 15 years, she repealed the constitutional provisions for the creation of an interim government and empowered the Election Commission to hold elections. She was accused of manipulating the Election Commission, judiciary, and civil bureaucracy leading up to the 2014 elections. The opposition, led by Mrs. Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh National Party, was rendered completely irrelevant.
During her second conservative term, Sheikh Hasina became increasingly dictatorial. Political opponents like Mrs. Khaleda Zia were imprisoned and media and pro-democracy organizations experienced excessive curbs. The government became a virtually one-party rule. The regime implemented the neoliberal model of growth. It thus focused on private investments, export facilitation and infrastructure development, leading to high GDP growth, which widened socio-economic inequality. The elite grew richer, but the masses suffered from poverty, diseases and fallout of climatic disasters.
Nevertheless, the Awami League solidified the one-party model of authoritarian rule. Hasina was said to have won the 2018 elections, before they were held. In the 2024 elections because of AL’s highhanded tactics, almost the entire opposition boycotted the general elections. The US and the European Union rights organizations and election monitoring platforms criticized the government for cornering the opposition leaders, media and the civil society. Thus, with Hasina’s control over government and non-elected institutions, the Awami league continued its authoritarian rule unabated. The Awami League government enjoyed longevity at the expense of democracy, media freedom and human rights violations. The recent student protest, however, overcame the fear of state oppression violence and human rights violations and stood like a rock against the AL Government.
The High cost of living and increasing youth employment further added fire to the determination and anger of the youth. The civil society and the political opposition also joined the protests. State oppression and use of violence resulted in the death of hundreds of protestors, but that only fuelled their rage. In the end, the protesting youth and other segments of the society forced the most powerful politicians in the country to flee to India to save her life.
Some other high officials close to the Shaikh Hasina’s government including some judges of the Supreme Court had to resign from their offices. The students who acted as a mainstay of this uprising were also the most influential in selecting the interim government. The name of Dr. Yunus as head of the interim government was also proposed by the students. Two student leaders also made it to the interim cabinet of Dr. Yunus. Fair and impartial election in a fairly short time seems to be the best option for Bangladesh in the current circumstances.
Ex-PM Hasina Wajid is likely to attempt a comeback. She is likely to bide her time in India, till an opportune moment for her to get back to Bangladesh arises. Due to her close ties with India, her ouster from power may be seen as a foreign policy setback to India. Some observers of politics in Pakistan see some similarity between the conditions inside Bangladesh and Pakistan. They point out that two factors: tanking economy and uncertain political situation are the factors common to both Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri-Lanka of two years ago.
However, the differences between the three states, especially Pakistan and Bangladesh, seem to be much sharper than the Similarities. The anger against Sheikh Hasina Wajid was so entrenched, because she ruled for 15 years uninterruptedly with an iron hand. In Pakistan many regimes have changed in the last 15 years, hence the anger of Pakistani people because of inflation and poor economic conditions is dissipated and not necessarily directed against the present government.
The current uprising in Bangladesh was led by students. They were of course later on joined by the civil society and opposition political parties. In Pakistan on the other hand, the long ban imposed on student unions since the days of Gen. Zia ul Haq, our students have been deprived of the capability to organize themselves politically, and lead protest movements. In the absence of political unions, students usually organized themselves on ethnic lines into: Pukhtoon Students Federation, Baloch Student Federation, Mehran Students Federation and Muhajir Students Federation and the like.
Pakistan is not a homogeneous country like Bangladesh. We are a collection of ethnicities, largely distributed into our four provinces with different languages and cultures. We could have lived more harmoniously had we not insisted on forced and contrived unity and rather accepted unity in our diversity, which would have been more genius and sustainable.
The temperament of Bangladeshi people is generally believed to be more combustible and volatile than that of the Pakistani’s. The Bangladesh Army seems to have been tamed to a large extent by the Awami League during its long tenure. The Army Chief, who is said to be married into Hasina Wajid’s family, could not do more for her, than just giving her safe passage to flee the country. One hopes that the Bangladeshi people came out stronger from the recent crises. Wisdom of people like Dr. Yunus must definitely be drawn upon for the challenging job.
—The writer, based in Islamabad, is a former Health Minister of KP.
