By Janjabill Tahsin
Staff Writer
A surge in student protests across Bangladesh began on July 1 when students at the University of Dhaka started peaceful demonstrations against the country’s job quota system. However, the protests took a violent turn when police and some of the members of the student wing of the ruling party, the Awami League, began attacking protesters. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets a day after six people, including at least three students, were killed in early violence, according to Reuters.
Introduced in 1971, Bangladesh’s quota system was a direct result of the Bangladesh Liberation War, when Bangladesh gained independence from Pakistani rule. According to AP News, shortly after the Liberation War officially ended, the government mandated that 30% of government jobs be reserved for the Bengali Mukti Bahini “Freedom Fighters” who fought against the Pakistan Army.
Over the decades, the job quota system was modified to include certain groups of people. As stated by the Voice of America, the system covered groups such as freedom fighters’ descendants, with women and people residing in underdeveloped districts receiving a share of a 10th each, with 5% set aside for indigenous communities and 1% for persons with disabilities. Except for the last two, the protesting students want all categories abolished.
In 2018, the government abolished Bangladesh’s job quota system after a similar student movement occurred over road safety. Earlier that year, two high school students — a boy and a girl — died while waiting on the side of the road in Dhaka. According to the BBC, they were struck by a speeding bus operated by a driver “thought to have lost control of the vehicle while racing another bus to pick up passengers.”
However, according to NPR, the country’s quota system was reinstated this June because Article 29 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh allows “making special provision in favour of any backward section of citizens for the purpose of securing their adequate representation in the service of the Republic.” Bangladesh’s high court thus ruled that ending the system was unconstitutional since it ensured pragmatic equality.
While the government appealed the high court’s decision, the Supreme Court suspended the high court order and set the court hearing date on Aug. 7 to hear the government’s challenge.
As a result of the decision, the students stepped up their protests, citing the court proceedings when Sheik Hasina, now former prime minister of Bangladesh, refused to meet their demands. Hasina had been in power for the past 15 years, and she won a fourth consecutive term at the beginning of this year in elections boycotted by the main opposition. The protests are the first challenge to Hasina’s government since she won in January, according to Reuters.
In response, Hasina not only condemned the loss of lives and asked for protesters’ patience until the court hearing but also called the protesters “razakar,” a derogatory term for conspirators of the Bangladesh Liberation War who collaborated with the Pakistan army.
Besides sending police and paramilitary forces into the street, the government ordered a nationwide curfew and shut down all schools, colleges and universities. According to the New York Times, it also downgraded internet connectivity to prevent the spread of so-called rumors and to protect the country's residents, “making it harder for protesters to organize and make plans via social media platforms.”
Still, the movement spread across the country to other elite universities, where more students got involved. However, when the number of student deaths and injuries increased, the general public joined in. At the time the curfew started to relax, the movement became increasingly difficult to contain because of protesters’ anger over the 200 people killed and 10,000 arrested in late July.
On Aug. 3, tens of thousands of protestors called for the resignation of Hasina. In return, she asked her supporters to join counter protests and “to curb anarchists with iron hands,” reigniting the protests over the weekend.
As a response to her threat, protesters marched on her residence in central Dhaka on Aug. 5, where the government once again ordered a curfew, effectively shutting down the country. By midafternoon, protesters were allowed by police to cross barricades into the center of the city when the army chief announced that Hasina had resigned and fled the country, where she currently resides in India.
More than 1,000 people have been killed during the protests, “making it the bloodiest period in the South Asian country’s history since its 1971 independence,” as reported by NBC News.
Currently, Nobel prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus has agreed to lead Bangladesh’s interim government and replaced Hasina’s administration, quelling the violence in the weeks before and some days after her departure.
Yunus was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for bringing thousands of people out of poverty through his work developing microcredit markets, where business people could receive small loans because they would not qualify for regular bank loans through Grameen Bank.
According to AP News, he signed the instrument of accession to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances last Thursday, following accusations of enforced disappearances against hundreds of Bangladeshis during Hasina’s rule. In the wake of the disappearances, the Yunus-led government officially established a commission to investigate these cases in the last week.
There have also been many fake videos and claims of attacks against Hindu minorities in Bangladesh spread by right-wing Hindu nationalist accounts since Yunus took over as interim leader. Some Muslim student protestors have been actively protecting Hindu temples in response to potential attacks by Islamist protests.
The interim government is now attempting to rebuild morale in the country’s police forces and other government sectors after attacks by protestors, as well as handling a devastating flood that ravaged the country’s eastern and other regions, leaving at least 52 people dead as of Aug. 29.
All required actions have, however, been taken for flood-affected regions of Bangladesh in order to restore normalcy, according to Yunus during a televised speech to the nation on Aug. 25. He emphasized that “We are one family. We have one goal.”
