Now Bangladesh shows the risk posed by unresolved job crises

livemint.com:

With Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed's resignation and flight and the army's assumption of power, albeit in the guise of an interim government, military rule has returned to Bangladesh over three decades after it was forced out in 1990. Parliamentary elections were held in 1991, and elected governments have held office in the country since.

The latest development is a setback for democracy in the South Asian country as well as for India, for whom Sheikh Hasina had been an ally, not just vis-à-vis China as it tried to surround India with hostile neighbours, but also in terms of opposing Islamist radicalism. The proximate trigger for protests, initiated by university students in July, was the reintroduction of a 30% quota in government jobs for descendants of freedom fighters, religious minorities and underrepresented districts following a court order.

The Sheikh Hasina government, which scrapped the quota system in 2018, appealed against the high court order in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. On 21 July, the top court ordered that the quota be reduced to 7%.

But, by then, the protests had broadened their scope, both in terms of what was being opposed and in terms of participation. The heavy-handed repression of the protests by the ruling Awami League, making use of the police and its student, youth and volunteer organisations, and counter-attacks by the protesters, whose ranks had been augmented by the Opposition and Islamist elements, changed the course of the protests.

Some intemperate language by the former prime minister added fuel to the fire: She implied that protesters were descendants of Razakars. The word refers to the reviled collaborators of the Pakistan army that had committed genocidal