Bangladesh must strive to keep its success story going
The downfall of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina unfolded faster than almost anyone expected. In early July, students took to the streets in its capital Dhaka and other cities to protest the country’s job-quota system that reserved 30% of civil-service positions for veterans of the 1971 War of Independence and their descendants. Police were ordered to quell the unrest, and given permission to shoot if needed.
By 5 August, nearly 300 people had been killed, and Hasina, under serious pressure from the Bangladeshi army, had resigned and fled the country. The controversial job-quota system, which came under fire amid increasing economic hardship, rising youth unemployment and soaring inflation, is widely viewed as the cause of the youth revolt. But that was merely the spark that lit the fuse.
The deeper and more significant problem was Hasina’s growing authoritarianism, which upended Bangladesh’s political landscape and left little room for dissent. I sensed this shift during my visit to Bangladesh last year. The people I spoke to, including many supporters of Hasina’s Awami League—the political party that led the country’s movement for independence from Pakistan more than half a century ago under the leadership of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman—were critical of her increasing authoritarianism, intolerance of dissent and intimidation of the media.
They lamented, albeit sotto voce, the destruction of Bangladesh’s founding principles: democracy and secularism. The tragedy is that it did not have to be this way. Hasina was a courageous, secular leader who steered Bangladesh away from religious fundamentalism, which can impede economic and social progress.
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