IN the fall of Sheikh Hasina lie lessons for all and specifically for those who once made up one country and lived as one people under the banner of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Sharing many socio-political traits with Bangladesh, the fall of Hasina must be taken seriously and perhaps as a reminder of what happens when political repression, mixed with economic frailty coupled with safety and security concerns is the living reality of people.
In the case of Bangladesh, the mix was a slowdown in economic progress with the country turning to the IMF last year along with suspicious power-grabbing-almost-authorotarian tactics and internal polarisation. The mix in Pakistan is far worse and it is only a matter of time before our streets look worse than what we have witnessed on our phones in the last two weeks. In simple words when all avenues for dissent are closed off and authoritarian tactics are used to clamp down on political opponents, the stage is set for either a violent upheaval or the entry of unelected forces moving in as saviours.
In the case of Bangladesh, after several weeks of deadly anti-government protests, Hasina Wajeds’s fifth term as the PM of Bangladesh, which followed elections that were neither free nor fair, came to an unceremonious end. Since last month, there has been growing unrest in Bangladesh, with a student-led protest movement, demanding an end to quotas in government jobs for descendants of ‘freedom fighters’ who had participated in the creation of Bangladesh. While the main catalyst for this upheaval was the quotas, the suffering of the Bangladeshi people cuts deeper. In her 15 years of rule, Hasina had taken every measure to decimate the opposition and shut all safety valves, resulting in a volcanic eruption of public anger.
Her opponents claimed her government had taken part in massive corruption, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. In addition, over the past few weeks, the government and its supporters also fought pitched battles with demonstrators almost breaking into a civil war. As a result, 300 people have been reportedly killed. This was the build-up to the eventual departure of the now ex-PM in a mere helicopter that landed in New Dehli from a country her father fought for.
In all of this, it was the younger Bangladeshis that led the charge against Hasina’s authoritarian regime. These younger people mostly university students were catalysts that maintained unending pressure on a PM who had become used to having her way. A keen weapon they used was the internet, a mechanism to get the message out and organize across communities in a country where mainstream media had been beaten into submission by the regime.
A generation that is otherwise thought of as being unwilling to engage in the real world managed to organize protests for weeks, risking death and brutal suppression by the state, and eventually toppled a government that seemed set in its ways. This is a point that has been on my mind since the fall of Sheikh Hasina and the following is the point I want to make: as of recent reports, about 64% of Pakistan’s population falls under the youth category.
This demographic is a significant portion of the population. This coupled with uncontrollable inflation, political polarisation and disregard along with safety and security concerns is a ticking time bomb that we can no longer ignore. The South Asia region is changing with first Sri Lanka, now Bangladesh, and then? The only logical trajectory seems Pakistan and therefore reiterating the need to take a step back and make better choices for the youth of this country.
—The writer is associate editor and digital team lead at Pakistan Observer
