Gen Z and Bangladesh 2.0

A summer of student protests unseated an autocratic regime and potentially transformed the country.

It was the youff that did it in the end. Bangladesh, a nation that’s only existed since 1971, had a founding constitution stressing democracy, secularism and socialism. In recent years the country has become synonymous with authoritarianism and repression. This summer, university students took to the streets, initially over public appointments being treated effectively as “jobs for the boys” of the ruling party. Their demands then spread to wider democracy concerns, as the state switched off the internet and mobile network coverage in an attempt to quell the protests. The police and army used lethal force on un-armed minors, leaving hundreds dead. Stand-offs ensued.

As protests continued to swell, the autocratic prime minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to resign and flee to India. Parliament was swiftly dissolved. After 25 years of continuous rule, a regime that had seemed so entrenched was gone.

Not many saw that coming but then Bangladesh, a plucky young country borne out of bloody struggle to detach itself from Pakistan which it shares no border with, is a mass of contradictions. A population of 175 million in a landmass the size of England and Wales. A garments giant beset by regular natural disasters (currently hit by serious floods). Youth unemployment is sky high and inflation rampant. Having only ever known one government and force fed the narrative of Hasina’s father as the “father of the nation” (his portrait compulsorily hung in every official building), the youth revolted. Their choice candidate became interim leader, the Nobel prize-winning Professor Muhammad Yunus who Hasina was trying to lock up.

Despite my roots in the country, I never wanted to be an MP for all Bangladeshis abroad. Yet the human rights crackdowns came across my caseload when I was contacted by the family of photographer Shahidul Alam, who was imprisoned and tortured for covering earlier student protests. Cartoons were all but banned during Hasina’s later years in power. Young people are now adorning the walls with murals and graffiti, even holding exhibitions. News of embezzlement of funds for infrastructure projects has since come to light following Hasina’s ousting.

As I have said in the past, I’ve always found statutes slightly creepy. That is especially true of the large statues of the deposed prime minister’s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, which were seemingly everywhere when I visited Dhaka in May. Images of these being toppled in the aftermath of Hasina’s fall was akin to seeing the man’s legacy as murdered war-hero effaced due to sins of the daughter. The former family home, preserved as a museum, and Prime Ministerial residence were looted – all recalling Iraq, post-Saddam Iraq. Blind retribution is wrong but it was as if a valve had now opened and pent-up frustrations spilled out; a low point being lads taking selfies while holding up Hasina’s undies.

At 84, Yunus is generations away from the protesters, yet his cabinet has two twentysomethings in its ranks and he’s taken on an astonishing 25 ministerial portfolios though surrounded by ranks of advisors. It’s unclear when the fresh elections that this supposedly neutral administration of non-politicos will oversee will be held, but I’m all for a healthy mix with more young people at the table and less gerontocracy. Sheikh Hasina is 76. Her main rival, the Bangladesh National Party leader Khaleda Zia (newly released from prison), is 78 and poorly. They used to alternate in power before the system was fixed further, locking Hasina in. Zia entered politics after the assassination of her husband, another war hero. Bullets and ballots figure in Bangladeshi history along with dictatorship and family feuds. Both leaders have sons waiting in the wings but the students, free of liberation war hangovers, are mooting their own party.

Hasina’s humanitarian response to the Rohingya crisis by taking in refugees won her plaudits. She had plans for Bangladesh as a middle-income country – in sharp contrast to the poverty-stricken land that Henry Kissinger once called “a basket case”. In May at a United Nations Development Programme conference I attended in Dhaka, she enthused about “Digital Bangladesh”. More realistically as Yunus proclaims it’s time to forge a Bangladesh 2.0 – hopefully free of dynastic politics this time.