By Brig Kuldip Singh (retd)
On August 05, following weeks of unprecedented turmoil in Bangladesh (BD), the 76-years old Ms. Sheikh Hasina resigned from the post of Prime Minister after a 45-minute ultimatum from the BD Army, and fled to India along with her sister Sheikh Rehana. The protests continued – Gono Bhaban, the PM’s official residence was ransacked while her private residence, Sudha Sadan, was looted and set afire; the statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina’s father and BD’s tallest leader who’d led the fight for Independence from Pakistan, was vandalised; protesters entered the Parliament and also clashed with supporters of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League. It’s claimed that Hasina had sought asylum in the UK, but reportedly, that request stands declined. Hence, she may stay in India – her daughter, Saima Wazed, the WHO’s regional director for South-East Asia, is based in Delhi. The Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman, after stating that “revolution is taking place in the country”, appealed for peace and vowed to seek justice for those killed in the unrest. Post-discussions with the chiefs of Army, Navy, Air Force, leaders of political parties, and members of civil society, President Mohammed Shahabuddin announced the formation of an interim government.
BD’s politics are dominated by two rival dynasties, the Awami League led by Ms. Hasina, and the other by Ms. Khaleda Zia, leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Hasina had begun her political career in the late-1960s as her father’s political messenger whilst he was in detention. After her father, mother and three brothers were assassinated in 1975, she spent six years in exile in India but was elected as leader of her father’s party, the Awami League. First elected PM in 1996, she had passionately espoused democracy while condemning military rule and fought for human rights in BD. In January, she became the PM for the fourth consecutive term in an election which the BNP boycotted. Amid allegations of voter intimidation, her government came under heightened scrutiny by the US, UK, the UN, etc. Zia, aged 78, twice the PM of BD and a long-standing rival of Hasina, has been in detention after being sentenced in 2018 to 17 years in prison for corruption. The BNP alleges the cases were fabricated and aimed solely at keeping Zia away from politics. On Aug 06, BD’s President ordered Zia’s release.
Trigger for the Protests
The initial trigger for the ongoing unrest was the decision of a High Court to reverse the 2018 order on the job quota system. In 1972, a year after BD won its independence, the government reserved 30% of all government jobs for the descendants of “freedom fighters,” or those who fought on the side of liberation. This job quota profile was skewed: 44% jobs were available on merit; 30% for ‘freedom fighters’/their descendants; 10% – persons from backward districts; 10% – women; 05% – minorities; 01% – for physically challenged. This system remained in place until 2018, when widespread protests prompted the courts to abolish it. However, on June 05, the High Court reversed the 2018 decision, clearing the way for the reinstatement of the previous policy.
Given that Hasina is the daughter of late Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, it does seem the original quota system is tied to her, on account of which Opposition parties had long argued that the 30% quota was misused by Awami League to unfairly benefit the descendants of her party’s supporters, fostering loyalty within the bureaucracy and perpetuating power of her party. There were also reports of some Bangladeshis gaming the system with fake ‘freedom fighter’ credentials. This job quota imbroglio got coalesced with economic anxiety, inequalities, youth unemployment, and mismanagement: –
(a) Post-independence Bangladesh was one of the world’s poorest countries. But around Yr-2000, it leveraged its export potential, began growing at an average of 0.6%, and reached lower-middle income status in 2015. Notably, its readymade garments industry employs around 4.2 million workers. This industry has seen a number of accidents in the past, as also a decline in its consumption worldwide.
(b) As of 2023, 40% of BD’s youth aged 15–29 yrs (out of a population of 172 million), were classified as ‘NEET’ (not in employment, education, or training).
(c) As per reports, by mid-2023, over 37 million were facing rising economic distress and moderate-to-severe food insecurity, with electricity and gas prices being raised thrice in a single year. Add to it rampant corruption among high-ranking officials and dismal inequality – the wealthiest 10% of its population controlling 41% of the nation’s income, while the bottom 10% receive only 1.3%. Recent months have thus witnessed a surge in Bangladeshis seeking asylum in Canada.
(d) The Hasina govt’s authoritarianism tendencies and poor human rights record – many, including Human Rights Watch, allege that beneath her secular outlook and economic success lay heavy-handed tactics, lack of democratic freedoms, and which fuelled rising discontent.
Amid rising protests and a brutal crackdown by Hasina’s govt – as per the United Nations, over 200 people have been killed, a thousand injured with many denied medical care, nearly 10,000 people detained and some even missing – BD’s Supreme Court, on July 21, in what seems to be a hindsight effort to quell the widening unrest, ruled that only 05% of government jobs should be allocated for freedom fighters / or their descendants. This failed to pacify protestors, who, on July 22, announced a 48-hour suspension of their protests (extended by another 48 hours) in order to allow the government to meet their demands, which included a personal apology by Hasina for the protesters’ deaths; arrest or resignation of officials/law enforcement personnel implicated in the crackdown; compensation for the victims and their families, etc. As these demands were not met, the students restarted their agitation on July 30. Yet, instead of engaging with the protestors, the Hasina govt responded typically by calling the protestors as “terrorists” and “razakars” (the latter is a pejorative for those who collaborated with Pakistan prior to and during the ‘independence war’), blamed the opposition BNP for these protests, and ordered the police to ‘shoot-on-sight’ those violating the curfew.
Economic Impact on BD
The protests and associated crackdown have expectedly BD’s economy. On July 22, BD’s business leaders had urged Hasina to lift the curfew and restore internet services, which, as per the president of the Dhaka-based Foreign Investors’ Chamber of Commerce & Industry, had cost the economy US$10 billion. The readymade garment sector, which accounts for more than 80% of BD’s US$50 billion export earnings, has been hit hard, with factories closed since July 20, resulting in daily losses of nearly US$150 million.
Question on India-BD Ties
BD, with whom India shares a 4,096-km long border, is strategically important for India – it abuts the Siliguri Corridor on its west, and has India’s north-eastern states on its east. The Hasina govt had assiduously kept religious extremists and anti-India forces under check, and carefully balanced Indian interests against Chinese investments/aid. The BD Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman, who assumed the post in June, has a distinguished career and modern outlook. He’s distantly related to Hasina; besides, his father-in-law was the Army Chief (1997-2000) during Hasina’s first tenure as PM. Yet, his, and the stance of the Army and other current stakeholders, is yet not clear. If Hasina’s Awami League is kept out of the interim govt, but Zia’s BNP and its covert associate, the banned Jamaat-e-Islami, are included, then, anti-India elements, especially those sponsored by Pakistan’s ISI, may begin reusing BD as a base – and infiltration, FICN, drug smuggling, etc, as well as anti-India sentiments, may resurge.
The opening of the strategic Akhaura (BD) – Agartala (Tripura) rail link had made possible the passage of trains from Kolkata to Agartala, thereby drastically cutting the travel time to India’s north-eastern borders. In June, India-BD had signed a MoU for utilizing BD’s rail lines to carry goods and passengers across BD’s territory, with the latter being allowed to use Indian rail lines for access to Nepal, Bhutan and India. It remains to be seen whether this agreement will hold.
It’s assessed that 70-80% of BD’s weaponry is of Chinese origin. In 2016, China had supplied two vintage Ming-class submarines, and in Dec 2023, assisted in commissioning a submarine base (BNS Sheikh Hasina) in BD’s Cox’s Bazaar. But of late, Indo-BD talks were underway with apex-level defence visits planned to reduce that dependency on China. Hasina’s departure put these moves to reduce China’s influence in BD in flux.
Overall, Hasina’s transition from an ‘iron lady’ to one who had to flee in a helicopter at 45 minutes notice, holds important lessons for democracies – that the days of the likes of Hama massacre of Jallianwala Bagh or Tiananmen Square are long over – and the answer lies in engaging with protestors, instead of collectively labelling them as terrorists and using brute force.
(Brig. Kuldip Singh (retd), Indian Army, has also served as the Director (Int Coord) in India’s Defence Intelligence Agency, as Principal Director (Defence) in the National Security Council Sectt, and as Sr. Consultant in the NDMA (MHA).)
(Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of FinancialExpress.com Reproducing this content without permission is prohibited.)