Explained: How Bangladesh quota protests spiralled into Hasina’s ouster

A video doing the rounds of social media shows thousands of Bangladeshi students blocking the main thoroughfares of Chittagong (Chattogram) on August 3, singing an immortal composition by 19^th-century Bengali (Indian) poet, playwright, and musician Dwijendralal Roy, Dhana Dhanya Pushpa Bhara — essentially an ode to the motherland. The video, understandably, tugged at the heartstrings of Bengalis on this side of the border too.

In the ocean of humanity, students can be seen wrapped in the Bangladeshi national flag, waving it atop human pyramids, brandishing placards, and marching on with gusto, egged on by supporters from every walk of life, including a bus driver, and presumably manual labourers. The slogans on the placards — and the song — had nothing to do with reservation or quota — which the students were so far protesting against.

The protests had by then turned into full-fledged resistance against the government. It was a full-blown war between the people of Bangladesh and the Sheikh Hasina regime. 

How the protests started

The students’ protest dates back to 2018, when they demanded that the 30 per cent public service quota reserved for the descendants of freedom fighters be abolished, arguing, quite logically, that this quota was justified in the years immediately after independence in 1971, but not so after 50 years of independence. It has merely become a tool for Hasina’s Awami League government to recruit party cadres.

Following the protests, the quota system was abolished at the time, only to be reinstated this year following a high court order, prompting the students to go on the protest path all over again in July. Over the first two weeks of July, students demonstrated across universities in Dhaka and other cities, boycotting classes and blocking key roads, highways, and later railway tracks.

Hasina’s highhandedness

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been repeatedly accused by the Opposition of not allowing a genuinely free and fair elections for the past 15 years, reacted to the students’ protest in a highhanded manner. In an interview, she made a remark that irked the students further.

“If the grandchildren of freedom fighters don’t get jobs, should the grandchildren of Razakars get jobs?” remarked the 76-year-old Hasina, essentially implying that anyone who did not belong to freedom fighters’ families belonged to Razakars’ families. “Razakar” is a derogatory term used for those who sided with Pakistanis in carrying out atrocities against Bengalis in the 1971 war of independence.

How things spiralled out of control

It was after that interview on July 14 that the matter spiralled out of control. As students protested against being called “Razakar” by Hasina, the Awami Leagues essentially set armed Chhatra League activists (read goons) on the protesting students. Chhatra League is the Awami League students’ body.

It started with a clash on the Dhaka University campus on July 15, when Chhatra League activists beat up protesters indiscriminately and even fired shots at them. As many as 297 students and others were treated at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. This attack sparked massive protests across the country, with Chhatra League, Jubo League (Awami League youth body) and even the main party workers attacking the protesting students.

Photographs carried by leading Bangladeshi daily Prothom Alo show Chhatra League activists indiscriminately and violently attacking students — even female students — with sticks and rods.

Student deaths that angered nation

Over the next few days, Hasina deployed all her security forces — police, military, and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) — to quash the protests. And trigger-happy policemen fired indiscriminately at the students, killing several of them. On July 19, a curfew was imposed, the Bangladesh Army was called in, and Internet was suspended across the country.

Footage and pictures of Begum Rokeya University student Abu Sayeed’s killing went viral. Another death that made the entire country furious was that of Mir Mahfuzur Rahman Mugdho, a former Khulna University student who enrolled in an MBA programme at the Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP).

Mugdho was not protesting; he was at the protest site to serve biscuits and water to the protesters — an act of kindness that touched the hearts of millions who saw the video online. Earlier, he had helped take many wounded people to hospital. Mugdho was killed by a single gunshot to his head in Uttara on July 18, presumably by the police, who were seen charging at the students soon after.

Students fight back

After the attacks, firings, and killings, students abandoned their peaceful protest and resorted to violence to fight back. Capital Dhaka witnessed violence not seen in decades, firings, arson, and deaths even as the students called for a “complete shutdown” in the country. Following the student deaths, even common people started joining the protest.

On July 20, student leader Nahid Islam was allegedly picked up and tortured. Police allegedly picked up other key organisers of the student’s protest too.

Supreme Court order

On July 21, in a much-needed relief, the Bangladesh Supreme Court reduced the total quota in government jobs to 7 per cent, with 5 per cent being reserved for the descendants of freedom fighter and 2 per cent for members of minorities and people with disabilities and transgenders.

By then, 174 people — mostly students — were dead across the country in only five days and 550 people arrested. Students and some media sources claimed the real figures were much higher. Around 50 of those killed were reportedly children.

The court ordered the government to issue a gazette notification on this immediately and the government complied.

Brutality of crackdown

After this, the protests could have died down. But the sheer brute force the Hasina government used to crack down on unarmed students was not forgiven. Media reports claim that helicopters were used to shoot at protesters. UN officials have also alleged that UN-marked vehicles were used to suppress the protests. Once Internet connections were restored, pictures shared online purportedly showed unarmed civilians being shot at on the streets. Many students have reportedly lost limbs and even eyesight.

On July 30, Bangladesh observed a national day of mourning, with special prayers across the country for those killed in the violence, amid calls for the unconditional release of the six coordinators of the quota reform movement within 24 hours.

Bigger protest

Once the coordinators of the students’ protest were released on August 1, they issued a statement that the government cannot shun the responsibility of killing so many simply by showing a court order. The statement urged students to intensify the “complete shutdown”. In the meantime, more students injured in the government crackdown died in hospitals and the death toll crossed 200.

The government, on its part, banned the Jamaat-e-Islami and its students’ wing Islami Chhatra Shibir under anti-terrorism law on the same day, accusing the fundamentalist party of instigating the protests.

The next day, Hasina urged the agitating students to meet at her Ganabhaban official residence for talks to end the violence. But the students were in no mood to listen.

“Fascist regime”

On August 3, leaders of the student movement refused her invitation and demanded her resignation, while protesters laid siege on major streets in Dhaka.

“We announce the abolition of the government and the fascist regime…We want to build a Bangladesh where autocracy will never return. Our sole demand is the resignation of this government, including Sheikh Hasina, and the end of fascism,” Nahid Islam, the coordinator who was allegedly picked up and tortured, said at a rally in Dhaka.

“This government has killed people and made bodies disappear. How will those who committed the murders provide justice? We don’t expect justice for murder from this government,” he said.

That was also the day when Chittagong saw massive protests with people from all walks of life joining the students.

Action replay

What happened next was an action replay of the July violence. Nearly 100 people were killed and hundreds injured on Sunday in fierce clashes between protesters demanding Hasina’s resignation and Awami League activists in different parts of Bangladesh, forcing authorities to cut off mobile internet and enforce a nationwide curfew for an indefinite period all over again.

But by then, matters were much worse and Bangladesh seemed to be in the grip of anarchy. Thirteen policemen were reportedly beaten to death at Enayetpur police station in Sirajganj. While Prothom Alo reported that they were killed in a “terrorist attack”, media reports attributed their deaths to protesters. Another policeman also died in a similar attack in Cumilla’s Eliotganj highway police station. Helmeted goons could be seen going on a spree of violence and destruction.   

What now?

While Hasina cried herself hoarse that the Opposition BNP and Jamaat were behind the protests, her government also claimed that her administration never fired at students.

However, former army officials in a press conference on August 4 called upon the government to take the army back to the barracks. They protested against the “initiatives…taken to militarise the political crisis”.

Amid the protesters’ call for a march to Dhaka, reports came in on Monday (August 5) that Hasina had resigned and fled to India, possibly on way to London. What happens to Bangladesh now is a matter of wait and watch.