How Bangladesh’s younger generation ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from power

Frustrated by a system that doesn’t reward merit and offers few opportunities to young people, Jannatul Promeh wants to leave Bangladesh after graduating to further her studies or, ideally, find a job.

“There’s very little scope for movement here,” said the 21-year-old, who said that if her family had had enough money to pay for both her and her brother’s overseas university tuition fees at the same time, she would have left sooner.

But recent events have given her hope that she might one day return to a transformed Bangladesh. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been in power for 15 years, He resigned and fled the country. Young protesters, including Promeh, ousted the prime minister last week, saying they were fed up with his increasingly authoritarian rule that suppresses dissent, favours the elite and widens inequality.

Students Initially, it spilled onto the streets of Bangladesh. In June, protesters demanded the government repeal a rule allocating up to 30 percent of government jobs to the descendants of veterans of the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. Protesters argued that the rule favored supporters of Prime Minister Hasina’s Awami League, who led the independence struggle, and those who are already part of the elite. The quota system, along with quotas for vulnerable groups, meant that only 44 percent of civil service positions were awarded on merit.

Such a job is Center of the Movement This is no coincidence: These occupations are among the most stable and best-paying in a country whose booming economy in recent years has failed to create enough solid skilled jobs for its well-educated middle class.

And it is Gen Z is leading this rebellion This is not surprising: young people like Promeh are the ones most frustrated and affected by the lack of opportunities in Bangladesh, yet at the same time, they are not bound by the old taboos and narratives that the quota system reflects.

Their desire to break with the past was made clear when Prime Minister Hasina downplayed their demands in mid-July, asking who should get government jobs if they were not freedom fighters.

“Who? The grandsons of the Razakars?” Hasina retorted, using a highly offensive term to refer to those who collaborated with Pakistan to crush Bangladesh’s independence movement.

But student protesters wore the words as a badge of honour as they marched through the Dhaka University campus, chanting: “Who are you? Who am I? Razakar. Who said this? A dictator!”

The next day, protesters killed in clashes with security forces The demonstrations became increasingly violent and escalated into a broader rebellion against Hasina’s government.

Sabrina Karim, a professor at Cornell University who studies political violence and Bangladesh’s military history, said many of the protesters are very young and cannot remember the period before Hasina was prime minister.

They, like generations before them, grew up hearing a story of the independence struggle centred on Hasina’s family — her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was independent Bangladesh’s first leader and later assassinated in a military coup — but Karim said the story means less to the young protesters than it did to their grandparents.

“It’s not resonating with them as much as it used to. They want something new,” she said.

For Noorin Sultana Toma, a 22-year-old student at Dhaka University, Hasina’s treatment of student protesters as traitors highlighted the gap between what young people want and what the government can provide.

She said she has seen Bangladesh slowly slip away from inequality and people losing hope that things will get better.

This country Longest serving Prime Minister Toma prided herself on raising per capita income and transforming Bangladesh’s economy into one that was globally competitive — fields had become garment factories and bumpy roads had become winding highways. But she said she saw people struggling daily to buy basic goods and find work, and her demands for basic rights were met with insults and violence.

“I can’t take it anymore,” Toma said.

This economic hardship has been felt keenly by Bangladesh’s young people: 18 million young people in the country of 170 million are not working or in school, according to Chietiji Bajpai, a South Asia expert at the Chatham House think tank, and private sector jobs have become even scarcer since the pandemic.

Many young people try to study abroad or emigrate after graduation to find a decent job, resulting in a drastic decline of the middle class and a brain drain.

“The class gap is widening,” said Jannatun Nahar Angkan, 28, who works at a non-profit in Dhaka and took part in the protest.

Despite these problems, none of the protesters seemed to really believe that their movement could unseat Hasina.

Rafizi Khan, 24, was in the streets preparing to join a protest when he heard that Hasina had resigned and fled the country. He called home multiple times to find out if the news was true.

He said that in the final days of the protests, people from all classes, religions and walks of life had joined the students in the streets. Now they are hugging each other, while some sit on the ground in disbelief.

“Words cannot describe the joy people felt that day,” he said.

The euphoria is fading as the enormity of the task ahead becomes more apparent. Muhammad Yunus He was sworn in as interim leader on Thursday and, together with a Cabinet that includes two student movement leaders, must restore peace, build institutions and prepare the country for new elections.

The hope of most students is that the caretaker government will be given time to repair Bangladesh’s institutions while new parties not led by old political dynasties are formed.

“If you asked me to vote in the elections 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 called the “I hate politics” generation.

But Azaher Uddin Anik, a 26-year-old digital security expert who recently graduated from the University of Dhaka, said that’s a misnomer.

They don’t hate all politics, just the divisive politics of Bangladesh.

And while he acknowledges that the structural reforms the country now needs may be harder than removing the prime minister, he is hopeful for the first time in a long time.

“My last experience teaches me that the impossible can happen,” he said, “and that it may not be too late.”