On July 16, I was attending a friend's wedding in Naogaon, located around 200 kms from Bangladesh’s capital city Dhaka, where I live now, when a Facebook notification shocked me.
Bangladesh was in the middle of massive protests led by university students and young people like me. Some of the protesters were my own friends. I had, in fact, joined the protests twice in early July, when it was peaceful. We formed human chains and chanted slogans such as, “Quota or merit? Merit, merit!” The demand, as the slogan connotes, was to scrap reservations in government jobs, which, though reserved for descendants of freedom fighters (and women and the disabled), was being exploited to favour loyalists of then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League party. Like all young Bangladeshis, I wanted fair selection for the prestigious civil service jobs.
Various news outlets have coined the current state of the country as “Bangladesh 2.0”. I call it ‘Bangla Bashanta’ – our very own Arab Spring.
But on the day of my friend’s wedding in mid-July, protests turned violent. Hasina had invoked thousands of paramilitary and police forces to crack down upon students. Six people died. Just before Hasina’s government shut down the internet, my Facebook feed showed that among those killed was my own school friend, Jahiduzzaman Tanvin. He was a talented young man who co-founded the country's first and only company focused on drone sales. While the situation in the country had instilled a deep sense of anger in me, his death hit me hard.
The death toll is over 600 as of this month, according to a United Nations estimate. But in the last 48 days since Tanvin’s death, I have gone from utter helplessness, fear and anger, to a strong feeling of empowerment, especially with the way my generation took matters into their own hands.
Often perceived to be completely inept without social media or the internet, young Bangladeshis defied brutal crackdown and internet blockades to drive Hasina, who held the throne for 15 long years with an iron fist, away. One quarter of my country’s population is aged between 10 and 24: The Gen-Z generation. I, myself, am 26. Various news outlets have coined the current state of the country as “Bangladesh 2.0”. I call it ‘Bangla Bashanta’ – our very own Arab Spring.
I have been drawn to the anti-quota movement since 2018. In those years, Hasina would respond to students’ demands and cancel quotas in government jobs. What the students, however, always wanted was a reform, and not a complete scrapping of the reservations.
I’ve never sat for government exams but I’m well aware of the pain and struggles young Bangladeshis go through for these jobs. The Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) exams take three to four years to prepare. Hundreds of thousands of BCS applicants compete for a handful of posts. These jobs are nevertheless coveted because of a common belief that, unlike most jobs, you can never lose a government job.
Behind this prestige and glamour, however, is a history of corruption scandals.
Police investigations have exposed a syndicate involving officials and employees of the Public Service Commission leaking at least 30 question papers for government recruitment tests in the last 12 years. This year, The Daily Star found documents showing how a company founded by former Awami League politicians took out Bangladeshi Taka 95,331 crore (USD7.98 billion) between 2017 and June 2024 from six government banks. Another report found how a former police chief and his family were embroiled in corruption, including buying at least 204.5 acres of land between 2009 and 2023, while also winning awards such as the Best Taxpayer Award and the Integrity Award.
The Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) exams take three to four years to prepare. Hundreds of thousands of BCS applicants compete for a handful of posts. These jobs are nevertheless coveted because of a common belief that, unlike most jobs, you can never lose a government job.
The chequered history of government employees also includes a driver for the Directorate General of Health Services amassed wealth worth more than Bangladeshi Taka 100 crore (USD8.38 million) illegally, while Dhaka Wasa Managing Director Taqsem A Khan, along with eight others, was accused of embezzling Bangladeshi Taka 132 crore (USD11.06 million) from the Dhaka Wasa Employees Multipurpose Cooperative Society Limited. Even Hasina’s office aide amassed Bangladeshi Taka 400 crore (USD33.50 million), while her former private sector adviser Salman F Rahman owes some Bangladeshi Taka 36,865 crore (USD3.09 billion) to seven banks.
We’ve had two anti-quota protests in the last six years so while this year’s anger wasn’t new, it was definitive in its intentions. The protests quickly expanded from scrapping reservations, to demanding Hasina’s resignation. The protests were successful, and how.
What may have worked this time was how students across different university systems united for one common goal. Previously, anti-quota protesters were divided on the basis of institutions: Public, private and national. Public universities are considered the best, while private universities are expensive and widely perceived to be for those who can afford it. National universities aren’t as meritorious as public universities, and their funding is far less. The protests were scattered and weak, owing to strength in numbers. And madrasa students were often looked down upon. These sections didn’t support each other.
This year, these divisions melted away.
In the last two months, these students have been labelled “Razakars”, a derogatory slang used for paramilitary forces that supported and aided Pakistan's brutal military operation against Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War. Then, the police shot at them. The first casualty being Abu Sayed, a student from Rangpura’s Begum Rokeya University, on July 16. As the death toll rose, casualties started to include even those who weren’t protesting but were merely standing on their verandahs or rooftops.
The day I arrived in Dhaka, my father told me, "I was telling my colleagues that maybe my son is alive because he was not in the city. Had he been there, he would have gone to the protests, and God knows what might have happened to him." My mom couldn’t sleep. “I saw those videos [of students getting killed]. What if one of them was my son?” she told me.
On August 5, Hasina fled and security forces disappeared as students and other protesters opened the gates of the Gono Bhaban, which is the official residence of the prime minister. These were spaces considered too elite and inaccessible for people like us.
The day I arrived in Dhaka, my father told me, "I was telling my colleagues that maybe my son is alive because he was not in the city. Had he been there, he would have gone to the protests, and God knows what might have happened to him." My mom couldn’t sleep. “I saw those videos [of students getting killed]. What if one of them was my son?” she told me.
It wasn’t entirely hunky dory though. While many count August 5 as victory day, there was news of rioting and burning down of historical structures. Members of Hasina’s Awami League Party were attacked by students. Hindus and other minority communities were attacked too although in some places, Muslims protected Hindu and Christian places of worship. In the absence of the police, students took over the streets with sticks, cleaning up after the violence, manning the traffic and protecting neighbourhoods from night-time looting.
Under the watchful eyes of students and their demands for Bangladesh 2.0, an interim government has been set up, with Nobel Laureate Mohammad Yunus as its interim leader. Right now, they’re preparing for a snap general election. This is a big change from the previous elections of 2014, 2018 and this year, which people largely believe to be rigged. I remember as a kid, professor Yunus became the first Nobel prize winner from Bangladesh, and that accomplishment made me feel proud of my country. When the student movement coordinators asked him to lead this interim government, it made me hopeful of achieving reforms our country needs right now.
I remember as a kid, professor Yunus became the first Nobel prize winner from Bangladesh, and that accomplishment made me feel proud of my country. When the student movement coordinators asked him to lead this interim government, it made me hopeful of achieving reforms our country needs right now.
In Bangladesh 2.0, my personal vision is to reform the state machinery. Hasina is gone but her corrupt legacy leaves us with a USD156 billion debt. Several banks are on the verge of collapse. A 2023 World Bank report positions Bangladesh second in the list of South Asian countries with bad loan ratio, which is reflective of record-high default loans and also non-performing loans that industry insiders say is a result of corruption and bad governance in Bangladesh. The 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index, released by the Transparency International, shows us ranking tenth from the bottom.
On top of the economic worries, human rights violations and gender disparities plague the nation. Bangladeshi human rights group Odhikar has documented extrajudicial killings of around 3,000 people and enforced disappearance of more than 700. This could just be the tip of the iceberg. Furthermore, Global Gender Gap Index 2024 ranks us 99th among 146 countries even though we’ve had a woman leading the country for 15 years. There’s also a lot of work to be done to protect and uplift indigenous people and minorities. They, too, are Bangladeshis.
With Yunus as their chief advisor, 20 advisors – made up of highly accomplished professionals – are tasked with bringing change. So far, this cabinet has dismissed 876 elected representatives and 25 deputy commissioners in an effort to shed the agents of corruption. This newly-minted cabinet includes students too. Nahid Islam, for instance, is a sociology student at the University of Dhaka, who is now an adviser for information and communications technology. Another Gen-Z, Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuiyan, a linguistics student, now the Minister of youth and sports.
There’s also a lot of work to be done to protect and uplift indigenous people and minorities. They, too, are Bangladeshis.
Even though I’m cautiously optimistic, I’m confident that the events of the last two months will be a part of Bangladesh’s history that will unite and empower generations to come.
