Protests put Bangladesh on the edge of a precipice

The image of a scrawny young man with a wispy beard, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, standing defiantly amid a bed of rocks and stones with his arms spread apart has burnt into the collective psyche of most Bangladeshis.

On July 16, Abu Sayed, a student at Begum Rokeya University in Bangladesh’s Rangpur district, was shot in the chest by a policeman. He fell to the ground dead, a metre-long baton clutched in his right hand.

Overnight, Sayed became a hero for millions of Bangladeshis. But he was not alone. 

More college and university students in Dhaka, Chittagong, Barisal and other towns fell to police bullets as the country of 170 million was swept up in a frenzy of agitation that widened, gathered pace and turned violent after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina made derogatory remarks against the student community. 

As of July 25, the official death count stood at 197, although it is widely suspected that the numbers could be more.

The unprecedented protests, which began in the third week of June on the fraught issue of job reservation or quota for children belonging to families of the 1971 liberation war veterans, took a violent turn when Hasina said on national television that the agitating students were razakars a disparaging Bengali term used to describe people suspected to have volunteered to help the Pakistani army during the independence struggle.

PM's jibe sparked protest

This deeply offended the students whose numbers swelled in Dhaka and other towns as they responded to Hasina’s barb with their own brand of sloganeering and self-deprecating but parodical references to themselves as razakars. 

As the seething students took over the streets of Dhaka, Chittagong and other towns, the ruling Awami League let loose armed cadres of its own students’ wing, the Chhatra League, which attacked the agitating students who, in turn, defended themselves.

But as the violent agitation, allegedly fuelled by the infiltration of students owing allegiance to the Jamaat-e-Islami party’s Islami Chhatra Shibir students’ wing, took on deadly proportions, Sheikh Hasina’s authoritarian regime unleashed the police, the infamous and US-sanctioned Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB). 

Shoot-at-sight orders

As the agitation showed no signs of abating and the death toll kept mounting, the government responded by issuing shoot-at-sight-orders. 

Some government websites, including that of Bangladesh Bank and the Prime Minister’s Office, have been crippled by hackers claiming allegiance to the agitating students.

The student-government conflict went into a spiral as the Awami League regime intensified its actions. It was, however, forced to take a step back when it said that the prevailing quota system could be revisited by the Supreme Court.

On July 21, amid a nationwide curfew and a complete communication and information shutdown, the Supreme Court drastically cut the quota for descendants of muktijoddhas (liberation war fighters) to 5 percent and 2 percent for those with physical disabilities.

Earlier, the quota system ensured 56 percent government jobs for specific categories: 30 percent for descendants of 1971 liberation war veterans, 10 percent each for women and people from underdeveloped districts, 5 percent for tribal communities, and 1 percent for persons with disabilities. This left only 44 percent for the general category.

A history of protest

Student-led agitations and political movements are not new in Bangladesh.

Their involvement in university politics has had a long and glorious history since before the birth of the nation in 1971. 

University and college students were at the forefront during the 1952 Language Movement, the 1971 liberation war, during the 1990 overthrow of the HM Ershad regime and the 2018 road safety protests.

While Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League has been in power since 2009 – through questionable and unfair means – it has been occasionally shaken by political movements led by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

But the ongoing students’ agitation is the most formidable challenge for Hasina. And, by all accounts, she was not prepared for it even as anti-Awami League sentiments run very high across Bangladesh and among dissidents living on foreign shores.

Even as there are demands for her to step down or leave the country, the 77-year-old intends to remain in power. She has sought to marshal her resources, including the army, to restore order in Dhaka and other cities.

Army's stand

But the army doesn’t appear to be prepared to obey orders for draconian measures. 

Some army units were deployed in many parts of the country, but this hasn’t helped. 

The army chief, despite being a distant relative of Hasina, insists that his men be accorded powers which will give them the authority to make arrests and shoot if the situation so warrants. However, most people believe that the army will not train its guns on students.

For her part, Hasina is reluctant to grant magistracy powers to the army, which betrays a latent fear that harks back to August 15, 1975, the day when some army officers staged a coup d’etat to kill her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most other family members.

India's role

A key variable in the events leading up to the massive agitation is the Indian government’s rather curious stand to describe the widespread protests and violence as Bangladesh’s “internal matter”. 

This is antithetical to the influence that New Delhi generally wields over Dhaka and its role in that country’s murky politics.

The considerable leverage that India enjoys over the Sheikh Hasina regime is not taken kindly by other political parties and Bangladeshis in general, who believe that withdrawal of this support could lead to the Awami League’s collapse. 

During the run-up to the January 7 elections, New Delhi played an overtly neutral role but made all efforts covertly to retain Sheikh Hasina in power through a questionable election.

No less eyebrow raising is the United States’ position on the high death toll, especially against the backdrop of its strident stand through the summer and winter of 2023 when it pressured the Sheikh Hasina government to ensure “free, fair, inclusive and violence-free” general elections. 

The US pressure at that time was directly linked to the prevailing geopolitical condition in South Asia.

Barring a strong travel advisory cautioning its citizens to reconsider travelling to a country torn by “civil unrest”, criminal activity and threat of terrorism, there has not been even a squeak from Washington on the human rights situation arising out of the brutal police crackdown on the students and the ensuing deaths.

What next?

Bangladesh is in the midst of a violent paroxysm with the full might of the state thrown against the students. The country’s links with the outer world remain cut off, as a consequence of the Sheikh Hasina regime’s measures to snap communications systems.

While the students have refused to have a dialogue with the government and have vowed to intensify their stir and now seek Sheikh Hasina’s ouster, there are justified fears that the ruling regime might consider taking tougher and potentially disastrous measures to quell the unrest. 

In the event Hasina refuses to budge, Bangladeshis will continue to remain in a perilous situation.

Anindita Ghoshal is Associate Professor of History at Diamond Harbour Women’s University, Kolkata, India.

Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.