How a young generation in Bangladesh ousted the leader who had ruled most of their lives
Jantul Promeh hopes to leave Bangladesh to study further or possibly get a job after finishing her university studies.
“We have a very limited range here,” says the 21-year-old, who wishes his family had enough money to pay tuition fees in foreign universities for him and his older brother at the same time.
But recent events have given him hope that he might one day return to a transformed Bangladesh: After 15 years in power, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned last week and fled the country – chased by young protesters, including Prom, among them. became. They say they are fed up with the way his increasingly authoritarian rule has suppressed dissent, supported elites and widened inequality.
Students first took to the streets of Bangladesh in June to demand an end to laws that set aside up to 30 percent of government jobs for the children of veterans who fought in the country's 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. Protesters said this benefited supporters of Hasina's Awami League, which led the struggle – and were already part of the elite. Quota and other quotas for marginalized groups mean that only 44 percent of civil service jobs are awarded on merit.
That such jobs were at the center of the movement was no accident: they are among the most stable and best-earning in a country whose economy has boomed in recent years, but which has not created enough solid, professional jobs for its educated middle class. .
And it was no surprise that Gen Z led the uprising: young people like Prom are among the most frustrated and affected by the lack of opportunity in Bangladesh – and yet, they are not following old taboos and traditions. The quota system is reflected.
Their willingness to break with the past became apparent when Hasina in mid-July belittled their demands, asking them if they should be given government jobs if not freedom fighters.
“Who will? Grandsons of secretaries?” Hasina responded by using a deeply offensive word referring to those who collaborated with Pakistan to suppress Bangladesh's independence struggle.
But the student protesters wore this word as a badge of honor. They marched on the campus of Dhaka University and chanted, “Who are you? who am i secret worker who said this Dictator.”
The next day, protesters were killed in clashes with security forces – only fueling the protests, which turned into a wider uprising against Hasina's rule.
Sabrina Karim, a Cornell University professor who studies Bangladesh's political violence and military history, said many of the protesters are too young to remember Hasina's time as prime minister.
They, like the generations before them, grew up with stories of the struggle for independence – with Hasina's family at the center. His father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was the first leader of independent Bangladesh and was later assassinated in a military coup. But Karim said that this narrative means much less to the young protesters than it did to their grandparents.
“It doesn't resonate with them as much as (before). And they want something new,” he said.
For Noreen Sultana Toma, a 22-year-old student at Dhaka University, Hasina's equating of student demonstrators with traitors made her realize the gap between what young people want and what the government can provide.
He said he has watched as Bangladesh slowly becomes immune to inequality and people lose hope that things will get better.
The country's longest-serving prime minister boasted of raising per capita income and turning Bangladesh's economy into a global competitor — farms turned into garment factories and bumpy roads into winding highways. But Thoma said he sees the daily struggle of people struggling to buy essential items or find work, and that his demand for basic rights has been met with insults and violence.
“It can't be taken anymore,” Toma said.
This economic distress was keenly felt by the youth of Bangladesh. Eighteen million young people – in a country of 170 million people – are not working or in school, according to Chitij Bajpai, who researches South Asia at the Chatham House think tank. And after the pandemic, private sector jobs became even more scarce.
After graduation, many young people try to study or immigrate abroad in the hope of finding a suitable job, destroying the middle class and leading to a brain drain.
“Class divisions have widened,” said Jonathon Nahar Ankan, a 28-year-old who works with a non-profit organization in Dhaka and joined the protests.
Despite these difficulties, it seems that none of the protesters really believed that their movement could dethrone Hasina.
Rafij Khan, 24, was on the streets ready to join the protests when he heard that Hasina had resigned and fled the country. He called home several times to see if he could confirm the news.
He said that in the final days of the demonstration, people from all walks of life, religion and profession had joined the students in the streets. Now they hugged each other, while the others sat on the floor in disbelief.
“I can't describe the joy that people felt that day,” he said.
Some of that euphoria is now gone, because the enormity of the task ahead is over. Nobel laureate Muhammad Younes became interim leader on Thursday, and he, along with a cabinet that includes two student protest leaders, must restore peace, build institutions and prepare the country for new elections.
The hope for most students is that the interim government will find time to repair Bangladesh's institutions while a new political party – one not led by old political dynasties – is formed.
“If you ask me to vote in an election, I don't know who I'm going to vote for,” Khan said. We do not want to replace one dictatorship with another.
The youth who took to the streets have often been described as the “I hate politics” generation.
But Azaher Uddin Anik, a 26-year-old digital security expert and recent graduate of Dhaka University, said it was a misnomer.
They don't hate all politics – just the divisive politics in Bangladesh.
And although he admits that the structural reforms the country needs now may be more difficult than removing a prime minister, he is hopeful for the first time in a while.
“My latest experience tells me that the impossible can happen,” he said. “And it may not be too late.”
