How a young generation in Bangladesh forced out the leader who ruled a large part of their lives
Jannatul Prome hopes to leave Bangladesh to study more or possibly find a job after she finishes her university degree, frustrated by a system she says doesn't reward merit and offers little opportunity for young people.
“We have very limited scope here,” said the 21-year-old, who would have left earlier if her family had enough money to pay tuition at foreign universities for both her and her older brother at the same time.
But recent events have given her hope that she might one day return to a transformed Bangladesh: After 15 years in power, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country last week – chased by young protesters, among them Prome, who say they are tired of how her increasingly autocratic rule has stifled dissent, favored the elite and widened inequality.
Students initially took to the streets of Bangladesh in June demanding an end to rules that set aside up to 30 percent of government jobs for descendants of veterans who fought in the country's 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. Protesters said it favored supporters of Hasina's Awami League, which led that fight – and was already part of the elite. The quota and others for marginalized groups meant that only 44 percent of civil service jobs were awarded based on merit.
That such jobs were at the center of the movement was no accident: They are some of the most stable and best-paying in a country where the economy has boomed in recent years but has not created enough solid, professional jobs for its well-educated middle class. .
And that Generation Z led this rebellion was not surprising either: Young people like Prome are among the most frustrated and affected by the lack of opportunities in Bangladesh – and at the same time they are not guilty of the old taboos and narratives that the quota system reflects.
Their willingness to break with the past was evident when Hasina played down their demands in mid-July, asking who, if not the freedom fighters, should be given government jobs.
“Who will? Razakar's grandson?” Hasina responded, using a deeply offensive word referring to those who collaborated with Pakistan to crush Bangladesh's independence struggle.
But the student protesters wore the word as a badge of honor. They marched on the Dhaka University campus chanting: “Who are you? Who am I? Razakar. Who said this? The dictator.”
The following day, protesters were killed in clashes with security forces – only fueling the demonstrations, which expanded into a wider 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 cannot remember a time before Hasina was prime minister.
They grew up, like the generations before them, with stories of the independence struggle – with Hasina's family at the center. Her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was the first leader of independent Bangladesh and was later assassinated in a military coup. But Karim said this story meant much less to the young protesters than it did to their grandparents.
“It doesn't resonate with them anymore as much as it did (before). And they want something new,” she says.
For Nourin Sultana Toma, a 22-year-old student at Dhaka University, Hasina's equating of student protesters with traitors made her realize the gap between what the youth wanted and what the government could provide.
She said she had watched as Bangladesh was slowly lulled into becoming immune to injustice and people lost hope that things would ever get better.
The country's oldest prime minister took pride in raising per capita income and transforming Bangladesh's economy into a global competitor – fields turned into garment factories and potholed roads became winding highways. But Toma said she saw the daily struggle of people trying to buy necessities or find work and her demands for basic rights were met with insults and violence.
“It could no longer be tolerated,” Toma said.
This economic distress was keenly felt by the youth of Bangladesh. Eighteen million young people – in a country of 170 million – are not working or in school, according to Chietigj Bajpaee, who researches South Asia at the Chatham House think tank. And after the pandemic, jobs in the private sector became even more scarce.
Many young people try to study abroad or move abroad after graduation in the hope of finding decent work, decimating the middle class and leading to a brain drain.
“Class differences have widened,” said Jannatun Nahar Ankan, a 28-year-old who works with a non-profit organization in Dhaka and joined the protests.
Despite these problems, none of the protesters seems to have really believed that their movement could unseat Hasina.
Rafij Khan, 24, was on the street preparing to take part in a protest when he heard that Hasina had resigned and fled the country. He called home several times to see if he could verify the news.
He said that in the last few days of the demonstrations, people from all classes, religions and professions had joined the students in the streets. Now they hugged each other, while others just sat on the ground in disbelief.
“I can't describe the joy that people felt that day,” he said.
Some of that euphoria is fading now as the enormity of the task ahead sinks in. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus became interim leader on Thursday and, 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 have time to repair Bangladesh's institutions while a new political party – not led by the old political dynasties – is formed.
“If you asked me to vote in the election right now, I don't know who I would vote for,” Khan said. “We don't want to replace one dictatorship with another.”
The young people 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 specialist and recent graduate of Dhaka University, said that is a misnomer.
They don't hate all politics – just the divided politics of Bangladesh.
And while he admits the structural reforms the country now needs may be more difficult than ousting the prime minister, he is hopeful for the first time in a while.
“My recent experience tells me that the impossible can happen,” he said. “And it might not be too late.”
