How the young generation of Bangladesh kicked out the leader who ruled most of their lives
Jannatul Prom hopes to leave Bangladesh after completing her university degree or possibly find a job, which she says does not reward merit and offers few opportunities for young people.
“We have very limited opportunities here,” said the 21-year-old, who would have left sooner if she and her family had enough money to pay tuition at foreign universities at the same time.
But recent events have given him hope that he may one day return to a changed Bangladesh: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned after 15 years in power and fled the country last week – chased by young protesters, among them Prome, who They are fed up with his increasingly autocratic rule stifling dissent, supporting elites and widening inequality.
Students took to the streets of Bangladesh in June to demand an end to a rule that reserved up to 30 percent of government jobs for children of veterans of Bangladesh's 1971 war for independence from Pakistan. Protesters said that benefited supporters of Hasina's Awami League, which led that struggle – and who were already part of the elite. Quotas and others for marginalized groups meant that only 44 percent of the civil services were awarded on merit.
It was no coincidence that such jobs were at the center of the movement: they are among the most stable and best-paying in countries where the economy has grown in recent years but has not created enough solid, professional jobs for its well-educated middle class. .
And it's no surprise that Generation Z led the uprising: young people like Prom are the most frustrated and affected by the lack of opportunity in Bangladesh—and at the same time, they don't look past the old taboos and narratives. Reflecting the quota system.
Their desire to break with the past became clear when Hasina ignored their demands in mid-July, asking who should be given a government job if not a freedom fighter.
“Who would? Razakar's grandchildren?” Hasina used a deeply offensive term to refer to those who collaborated with Pakistan to stop Bangladesh's freedom struggle.
But the student protestors put a badge of honor on the word. They marched on the Dhaka University campus and chanted: “Who are you? who am i pleasure Who said this? dictator.”
The next day, protesters were killed during clashes with security forces – only fueling the protests, which turned into a widespread uprising against Hasina's rule.
Sabrina Karim, a Cornell University professor who studies political violence and Bangladesh's military history, said many of the protesters are so young they can't remember a time before Hasina was prime minister.
They, like generations before them, were brought up on stories of the freedom struggle — 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 the story meant much less to the young protesters than it did to their grandparents.
“It doesn't resonate with them as much as it (used to). And they want something new,” she said.
For Noreen Sultana Toma, a 22-year-old student at Dhaka University, Hasina's comparison of student protesters to traitors made her realize the gap between what young people want and what the government can provide.
She said she watched as Bangladesh slowly became immune to inequality and people lost hope that things would ever get better.
The country's longest-serving prime minister boasted of raising per capita income and transforming Bangladesh's economy into a global competitor – farms turned into textile factories and bumpy roads into winding highways. But Toma said she saw the daily struggles of people trying to buy essentials or find work and her demands for basic rights met with insults and violence.
“This can no longer be tolerated,” said Toma.
This economic crisis was acutely felt by the youth of Bangladesh. According to Chitigaj Bajpai, who researches South Asia at the Chatham House think tank, 180 million young people in the country of 170 million are neither working nor in school. And after the pandemic, private sector jobs became even more scarce.
Many young people try to graduate or go abroad to study abroad in hopes of finding better jobs, destroying the middle class and brain drain.
“Class differences have widened,” said Jannatun Nahar Ankan, 28, who works with a nonprofit in Dhaka and joined the movement.
Despite these problems, none of the protesters really seem to believe that their movement will be able to dislodge Hasina.
After hearing that Hasina had resigned and left the country, 24-year-old Rafiz Khan took to the streets to join the protest. He called home repeatedly to see if he could confirm the news.
He said that on the last day of the demonstration, people of all classes, religions and professions took to the streets along with the students. Now they embraced 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 excitement has waned as the enormity of the task ahead sinks in. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus became the interim leader on Thursday and will be tasked with restoring peace, building and establishing institutions with a cabinet comprising two student movement leaders. Prepare the country for new elections.
The hope of most students is that the interim government will have time to repair Bangladesh's institutions and a new political party will be formed that is not led by the old political dynasties.
“If you asked me to vote in an election now, I don't know who I would vote for,” Khan said. “We don't want to replace one dictatorship with another.”
The youth on the streets have often been described as the “I hate politics” generation.
But Azher 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 of Bangladesh.
And, although he admitted that the structural reforms needed by the country may be more difficult than removing the prime minister, he is hopeful for the first time in a while.
“My recent experience tells me it may be impossible,” he said. “And maybe it's not too late.”
