By: Nava Thakuria
In a bid to calm violence that has shaken Bangladesh for weeks, taking the lives of at least 133, the country’s highest court last night ruled to reduce the quota of government jobs reserved for families connected to early freedom fighters and directed that 93 percent of government jobs be selected on merit.
Rather than scrapping the controversial reservation policy altogether, the top court decreased the quota from 30 percent to 5 percent. But the court’s ruling may not quell the protest, as rioting students have vowed to continue until the government abolishes outright what is regarded as political patronage. The students are also demanding the release of all detained student leaders and holding accountable those responsible for killing their colleagues.
Massive political unrest, driven at first by university protests against the quota reservation system for government jobs, has been swelling, with students and young people multiplying national outrage with the ruling Awami League.
Armed troops granted shoot-on-sight orders were patrolling Dhaka’s deserted streets on July 21, with the government having ordered all offices and institutions to stay closed for two days. Four more were killed in sporadic violence in the nation’s capital on July 19. Other nations are warning their citizens not to travel to the nation.
Sheikh Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the orchestrator of Bangladesh’s separation from Pakistan and who implemented the quota system in 1972, which reserves jobs for the family members of the Muktijoddha – the freedom fighters who joined the Bangladesh war of independence 53 years ago against what was then West Pakistan. The quota system, widely regarded as built to favor Awami League members, was ordered scrapped in 2018 in the wake of previous student anger but a court reinstated it on June 5.
Hasina urged the agitators to wait for the apex court’s verdict but indirectly termed the protesters “uRazakars,” or collaborators during the 1971 independence war. The protesting students chanted that they were humiliated by the slur.
The quota system soon emerged as a major driver of public unrest, with the agitating groups demanding not only its modification but also Hasina’s resignation. The country hasn’t escaped global inflation despite a strong economic performance, with the CPI spiking at 7.7 percent in 2022 before falling to 5 percent-plus for the past two years. Nearly 32 million young are either not working or in school of a population of 170 million. It is slowly recovering from torrential rains and flooding in June and early July that killed eight and left more than two million affected.
Sheikh Hasina’s government won its fourth consecutive victory in the last national elections, condemned as flawed and boycotted by opposition parties including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) which argued that free and fair elections were impossible unless a neutral caretaker administration took charge to conduct them.
A countrywide strike subsequently sparked unrest in which 50 died in Dhaka itself. On July 20 the Hasina government imposed a nationwide curfew and deployed the military.
Authorities also restricted all public rallies, processions, and gatherings to attempt to avoid more violent incidents and casualties. As a precautionary measure, the government also ordered all educational institutions to close indefinitely and postpone examinations, imposed an unprecedented communications blackout, shut down the internet, and restricted phone service. Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) personnel were mobilized across the country.
The 76-year-old Sheikh Hasina, who has served as the country’s leader since 2009, called for peace through a televised address and in vain urged the protesting students to sit for talks. Her appeal promoted more anger among the agitating students, who responded by targeting the government-owned Bangladesh Television in Dhaka. Agitators hit the streets across the country, raising national flags and initially facing armed personnel who fired tear gas and fired rubber bullets.
But ruling party supporters and sympathizers reportedly joined police, which stirred opposition party workers to support the students. That resulted in widespread unrest in which parked vehicles were torched and nearly 2,000 individuals sustained injuries, hundreds of them taken to hospitals. Within weeks it engulfed vast numbers of Bangladeshis.
Ruling party leaders allege the BNP along with the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami has hijacked the issue in a bid to topple the government. BNP chief Khaleda Zia’s son Tarique Rahman has also been accused of hatching a conspiracy against the government. The party leaders denied the allegation that the quota facility had only benefited Hasina’s loyalists.
Amid the chaos, a young reporter named Hasan Mehedi was killed in Dhaka on July 18. Mehedi, who worked for the Bangla digital media outlet Dhaka Times, died from a bullet wound in his head. Global media and rights bodies including Paris-based Reporters Sans/without Borders (RSF) and Geneva- Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) expressed shock and grief over the killing of Mehedi and demanded a probe into his death. More than 30 other journalists have been injured.
PEC president Blaise Lempen told Asia Sentinel from Geneva that the media in Bangladesh face severely restrictive laws formulated by the government. He urged Dhaka to look into the matter and adequately compensate the bereaved family as early as possible.
The United Nations has urged the Hasina government to exercise restraint in controlling the student protests, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asking for meaningful and constructive dialogues with the protestors. UN human rights chief Volker Türk expressed worries about the use of armed forces to address the situation and commented that any act of violence resulting in loss of life must be investigated properly.
International rights bodies including Amnesty International also asked the Hasina government to adopt a rights-respecting approach in the policing of protests. The law enforcement agencies should immediately end their unlawful use of lethal force against protesters and ensure that the right of people to peaceful assembly is guaranteed in law and practice, said a statement issued by the rights group, adding that the rising death toll is a shocking indictment of the absolute intolerance shown by the Bangladeshi authorities to protest and dissent.
“The arbitrary imposition of a total shutdown of the internet across the country and a blanket ban on protests announced by the Dhaka metropolitan police further restricts the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Such blanket restrictions are at odds with Bangladesh’s international obligations as a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” stated Amnesty International, adding that the authorities must immediately conduct a prompt, independent, and impartial investigation into the deaths and hold all those found responsible fully accountable.
The Indian government and its high commission in Dhaka are continuing to observe the situation closely and advised its citizens not to visit Bangladesh immediately. The high commission asked the 15,000-odd Indian nationals in Bangladesh to avoid non-essential traveling. The assistant high commissions in Chittagong, Sylhet, and Khulna facilitated those desperate along with students to return. Hundreds of students belonging to Jammu & Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Meghalaya, etc have returned to India. Bhutanese and Nepali students also fled arriving safely in northeast India.