Date
13-08-2024
This Issue Brief seeks to analyse the events leading to the ouster of Hasina from power, identify the issues that brought about her fall, and the stakes for India in the evolving situation on Bangladesh.
Within a month, Bangladesh’s political landscape has taken a huge turn, perhaps unprecedented since 1971, which will be remembered for a long time to come as historic. What began as a peaceful Student Movement against Discrimination (Baishamyabirodhi Chhatra Andolan), an anti-quota protest in university campuses across the country rapidly took a bloody turn when Hasina government sought to resist it with loyalists of the Awami League’s student wing, Bangladesh Chhatra League and the law enforcement groups using brute force leading to the death of hundreds of protestors. As violence escalated, the anti-quota protest transformed into a civil obedience movement demanding the resignation of Sheikh Hasina from prime ministerial position. Finally, on 5 August Sheikh Hasina resigned and left the country. This is being proclaimed by many as ‘Second Liberation’ in Bangladesh. It is useful to analyse the events leading up to the ouster of Hasina from power, identify the issues that brought about her fall and the future of India-Bangladesh relationship in the wake of such an earth-shaking change in Dhaka.
From Anti-Quota Protests to the Ouster of Hasina
The trigger point of the protests that started on 5 June was the High Court’s overturning of the government’s earlier decision in 2018 to scrap various reservations (56 per cent) in government jobs (9th to 15th grade). Following this the quota system was reinstated, which included the 30 per cent quota for descendants of liberation fighters in government jobs. Pertinent to mention here, the government’s decision to scrap the quota system in 2018 came after the students had risen in protest against it. It was inevitable that the students would respond with equal vehemence immediately after the High Court decision, even after a gap of six years, the protests started again. The students demanded quashing of the 30 per cent quota for freedom fighter’s descendants in government jobs, which echoed with all sections of society in Bangladesh at a time when Bangladesh was going through an economic crisis. The political climate had remained quite tense ever since the elections in January, which was rejected by most political parties as a mockery of democracy. The youth unemployment rate stood at 10.6 per cent, more than twice of the country’s total unemployment rate, making the youth overly dependent on government jobs. Therefore, the quota distribution (in government jobs) reserving only 44 per cent of seats based on merit was claimed as unjust. There was also an apprehension that the quota for liberation fighters would be misused to enable the entry of Hasina’s Awami League party loyalists into bureaucracy.
Sheikh Hasina, who won the national election (Jatiyo Sangsad) for the fifth consecutive term this January was the longest serving prime minister of Bangladesh. However, her victory in the past two elections was deemed as rigged, as was this year’s election. Months before the January vote, the international community, especially the West, raised concerns about national election not being “free and fair”. Rights groups, too, had reported about her government’s violent crackdown on her political opponents and supporters ahead of the election, leading to boycott of Awami League’s biggest opposition party— Bangladesh National Party (BNP). While Hasina was earlier hailed for reinstating democracy and tackling fundamentalism in the country after she returned to power in January 2009, her intolerance to dissenting voices, including curbing the space for her political opposition, was regarded as authoritarian to the people of Bangladesh. Public resentment against her, therefore, had built up since her second term in office since 2014 which Hasina chose to disregard as fringe anti-incumbency sentiment. As allegations of enforced disappearances, extra-judicial killings, indiscriminate use of power to put opposition leaders in jail on trumped-up charges mounted, Sheikh Hasina gradually lost her popularity and acceptance and according to her critics the elections of 2014, 2019 and 2024 were widely regarded as evidence of democratic backsliding in Bangladesh under her watch. Against this backdrop, the decision of the High Court on 5 June lit the fire that spread like wildfire and took entire Bangladesh by storm. Her reckless response to the anti-quota students’ protest, calling the protestors as ‘razakars’— a derogatory term pejoratively used for collaborators of the Pakistan Army in 1971 Liberation War— only made matters worse.
The repressive measures taken by her to deal with the protests rather than dousing the fire merely stoked it further. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, unmoved by the protests gathering momentum by every passing day, exactly a month later on 4 July 2024, upheld the High Court verdict and the then Chief Justice looked adamant and insensitive when he made a statement― “If there is protest, let it be. Why should we change a High Court verdict based on protest on the streets?” ― that only provoked the protestors further. It was at this juncture that the steps taken by the law enforcement agencies aggravated matters. On 16 July, in Rangpur, a 24-year student activist named Abu Sayed fell to the bullets fired on the protestors near Begum Rokeya University in Rangpur, which is being regarded as the tipping point of the protests. That Abu Sayed had invoked the spirit of Prof Mohammad Shamsuzzoha, who was shot by Pakistani military forces in February 1969 a day before he was killed indicated the sentiments that drove the anti-job-quote stir that had gripped Bangladesh since 5 June. It was from this time onwards that the students’ protest turned in to a mass movement and there were deadly clashes between students and general public on the one side and the police and Awami Chhatra League members on the other in various parts of Bangladesh.
By this time, the protest had started slipping out of the hands of the government. The government of Sheikh Hasina sensed trouble and decided to reverse the decision (to reinstate the job quota) riding on a revised Supreme Court decision on a Sunday, on 21 July 2024. The decision to scale back quota for government jobs, leaving 93 per cent of seats based on merit and reducing freedom fighter’s quota to five per cent, did not satisfy the protestors by then. The protests resumed, and Student Movement against Discrimination (Baishamya Birodhi Chhatra Andolan) changed its nine-points demand to one-point demand— that Hasina must resign. The total deaths since the escalation of violence on 16 July, reached 328 by 4 August 2024. Sheikh Hasina’s attempt at quashing protest through nationwide internet crackdown and imposition of curfew came to a disappointing end when Bangladesh Army refused to open fire at protestors defying curfew, and finally on 5 August exactly two months after the protests started, the army gave Hasina 45 minutes to resign, pack her belongings, and leave Bangladesh, as angry protestors moved towards her official residence, Banga Bhavan, from all sides. As Hasina left with her sister Rehana in an army chopper, even while the Army Chief Gen Waker-Uz-Zaman was addressing the media and calling upon all Bangladeshis to practise restraint, the protestors entered her residence and videos of their ransacking the place and looting furniture, paddle-fans, air-conditioners, utensils, displaying clothes and under-garments from the wardrobes with mischievous abandon were relayed in the television sets, pulling down of ‘Bangabandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s statues and disfiguring of his murals throughout the country, exhibiting the unruly way the pent-up anger of the people was pouring out on the streets of Bangladesh. It was all hailed by the people leading the movement as ‘second liberation’ and there was a cry all around for a new Bangladesh (Natun Bangla). The army chief of Bangladesh, called it ‘Kranti Kaal’ (revolutionary times) and in a press conference soon after Hasina’s departure revealed that he had held discussions with leaders from the opposition which included the Amir of Jamaat-i-Islami, leaders of Bangladesh National Party (BNP), the Jatiya Party and some of the civil society members and soon an interim government would be formed to take things forward.
The Aftermath
As Hasina was fleeing, and protestors were seeing storming her official residence (Bangabhavan), the PM’s office and Jatiya Sangsad building, minority communities (mainly Hindus) and Awami League workers were targeted and their houses and offices were set ablaze by mobs in various parts of Bangladesh. The death toll since 5 August was recorded at 232, till 8 August 2024 and the total number of deaths since 16 July reached 560. Vandalisation of murals and sculptures, including the Memorial dedicated to founding father of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (Sheikh Hasina’s father), drew varying reactions within the country— from condemnation to justification. Debates surfaced on social media about Bangabandhu’s legacy, those justifying desecration, drawing parallels between Hasina’s one-party rule ‘despotism’ with authoritarian rule by her father between 1971, when he was hailed as father of the nation and 1975, when he was assassinated.
Hasina’s sudden and unexpected exit left the party in a quandary and as the protestors started targeting top party leaders went into hiding and cut off their communication which was viewed by many within the party as undignified and shocking. It is now believed that the country’s largest party, known for its legacy in 1971 Liberation War, might have met its untimely political ‘death’, leaving party members unprepared about their future in politics. The absence of Awami League in Army chief’s consultation with leaders from various parties including Jamaat that was banned by the Hasina government, along with leaders of movement against discrimination, in the decision to form an interim government in Bangladesh to be led by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, indicate that the exclusivist politics that characterised Hasina’s governance is likely to continue even after she has left the scene.
Other notable developments are: dissolution of the Parliament; the release of former prime minister and BNP chief Khaleda Zia’s from house arrest; the return of Nobel Laureate Mohammad Yunus to Dhaka from the US to form a 15 member interim government; and resignation of the Chief Justice as per the demands of the protestors (who also demanded resignation of other appellate judges, viewed as Sheikh Hasina’s collaborators), and mass resignations of Vice Chancellors and other senior officials and teachers at various universities in the country. There was wider disruption of law and order situation because the protestors had torched and destroyed 400 plus police stations all over Bangladesh and carried out target attacks on minorities, which were widely reported during first few days. However, there were also reports of people coming together to protect the houses of the minorities and their places of worship slowly coming from different parts of the country as the preparations for formation of the interim government were in full swing.
India’s Stakes
The last couple of years had witnessed India-Bangladesh bilateral relations reaching remarkable heights, notably, water sharing agreement on common river Kushiyara (2022); the successful conduct of joint feasibility study on Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) (2022) aimed at reduction of custom duties on traded goods and simplification of trade norms; conclusion of cross-border trade settlement in Indian rupee (July 2023); initiation of talks of free trade agreement and joint inauguration of three India-assisted development projects— Akhura-Agartala cross-border rail link, Khulna-Mongla port rail line extending to India and the Maitree super-thermal power project (October 2023). In FY 2023-34, bilateral trade reached $13 billion, with a trade surplus in favour of India. These agreements came at a time when Dhaka grappled with an economic crisis, marked by rising inflation, currency depreciation and gradual depletion of its foreign exchange reserves.
As the two governments were seen to be in a close embrace, there was a wider feeling in Bangladesh that Sheikh Hasina’s growing authoritarianism was endorsed and supported by New Delhi. This had led to rising anti-India sentiments in Bangladesh which was visible in the videos from Bangladeshis that circulated in social media last year showing Bangladeshis celebrating India’s loss in November 2023 World Cup match with Australia. New Delhi’s perceived pro-Hasina tilt was not well-received by Awami League opponents in Bangladesh. This resentment also manifested in a Maldives-inspired ‘India-Out’ campaign, merely weeks after Hasina won her consecutive fourth term in a controversial national election. The campaign was said to have been triggered by New Delhi’s diplomatic stand of non-interference, referring to Dhaka’s conduct of general election as a country’s ‘internal matter’, contrary to many Western country who had raised their reservations over this election being “free and fair”. However, these developments within Bangladesh did not impact Dhaka’s official bilateral relations with New Delhi, as it was reflected in India’s collaboration in Japan-spearheaded Matarbari deep-sea port construction in Bangladesh in May 2024 and the recent agreement to expand defence cooperation during Hasina’s New Delhi visit in July 2024.
As the anti-quota protests transformed into a mass movement that resulted in the ousting of Hasina’s political rule in Bangladesh, popular sentiments were expressed against India and even some leaders were seen to be making demands on the Indian government to surrender Sheikh Hasina to Bangladesh because she was held responsible for the killings of many students. With mounting attacks on Awami Leaguers and minorities there were (are) growing concerns about the possibility of influx of refugees from Bangladesh for which security preparations were in full swing along the 4,096 km long shared borders. Continuing reports of mobs targeting Hindu minorities, coupled with anti-India sentiments coming from certain sections, raise concerns about the future trajectory of India’s bilateral relations with Bangladesh. Bilateral trade relations, too, are likely to suffer as cross-border movements have come to a sudden halt. It is estimated that Dhaka’s political crisis has already affected approximately $300 million worth of export trade, considering India’s daily exports to Bangladesh is about $30 million. The crisis has also affected Indian companies and local Indian businesses along the border that has noted 80 per cent slump in its business.
As New Delhi remains “deeply concerned till law and order (in Bangladesh) is restored” and “monitoring situation of minorities”, all eyes remain on what political future Bangladeshis give to themselves and if it is about to turn Dhaka into another antagonistic neighbour, which was sheltering insurgents from the north eastern states not long ago.
Conclusion
Bangladesh’s political transition is expected to move towards state re-construction. Needless to say, the upcoming government in Dhaka has its plates full, for it not only has political restructuring to consider, but also, it has to grapple with an impending economic crisis. It expects unstinted support from the international community in its efforts to rebuild the country, as Muhammad Yunus gets going with the interim transitional government. The question of Bengali nationalism also seems to be on the table as well. There is wider condemnation of the attacks on minorities and in the wake of appeals from India, the interim government has assured that minority interests shall be protected. However, so far, there has been no statement from any quarter to take in Awami League in the new dispensation. One can only hope for Bangladesh’s political transition to be one of a thriving and inclusive democracy, exactly as the nation’s freedom fighters had envisioned and given their blood for.
Dr. Ankita Sanyal is an Associate Research Fellow at ICPS. The views expressed here are her own. She had visited Bangladesh on the eve of the elections in December 2024.
