The downfall of Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s ‘Iron Lady’

TOKYO — Sheikh Hasina, who for years ruled Bangladesh with an iron fist, was ousted on Aug. 5 by an increasingly violent wave of protests, eventually fleeing the country.

Crowds rushed into the empty prime minister’s residence, rejoicing in the victory of the “citizen’s revolution” and marking a sudden end to Hasina’s 15-year reign as world’s longest-serving female head of government.

The final 24 hours of Hasina time in office are worth revisiting, as reported by Bangladesh’s Daily Prothom Alo, the Indian Express, and other media outlets, including Reuters.

On Aug. 4 at 6 p.m., Hasina issued an indefinite nationwide curfew aimed at quelling escalating anti-government protests. That night, the army’s top official, Gen. Waker-Uz-Zaman, convened an online meeting with high-ranking officers and instructed them not to fire on civilians who defied the curfew and took to the streets. The army chief then called the prime minister to report that his troops could not enforce a lockdown on Dhaka, the capital.

By the morning of Aug. 5, Hasina was holed up in the heavily guarded prime minister’s residence. Police responsible for suppressing the demonstrations reported that they had lost control of the situation. A senior government official urged Hasina to resign, but she refused.

In desperation, the senior official asked Hasina’s younger sister, Sheikh Rehana, to persuade the recalcitrant prime minister to step down, to no avail. Hasina’s son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, a businessman and government advisor living in the U.S., phoned her and she finally gave way. To ensure her safety, she hurriedly applied for temporary permission to enter India.

Hasina wanted to record a speech to the nation, but her request was rejected by aides. Time was running out. They guessed the crowd would arrive in 45 minutes. She and Rehana boarded a military helicopter at an old airport near the official residence, landing at President Mohammed Shahabuddin’s residence to complete the resignation. At around 2:30 p.m., they took off for India. Some two hours later, Gen. Zaman announced the prime minister’s resignation in a televised speech and declared that he would work with opposition parties to form an interim government.

Protesters shout slogans near a mural of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina defaced with paint and mud in Dhaka on Aug. 3.   © Reuters

The deposed leader, who clung to power until the very end, has led a tumultuous life.

Hasina was born in 1947 in what was then East Bengal. Her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s first president and a hero of the country’s fight for independence from Pakistan in 1971, was assassinated in a military coup in four years later. Six of Hasina’s family members, including her mother and 10-year-old brother, were killed. Hasina and Rehana escaped the massacre because they were in West Germany at the time. They spent years in exile in India.

In 1981, Hasina returned home and became president of the Awami League (AL), a political party founded by her father. After the country’s democratization in 1990, she led the party in the 1991 general election.

But the AL unexpectedly lost to Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

Hasina won the 1996 election, becoming prime minister for the first time, but the two major parties continued to alternate in government. However, after the AL’s victory in the 2009 election, Hasina consolidated power, squashing the opposition and prolonging her rule.

The spectacular downfall of Bangladesh’s “Iron Lady” was triggered by a contentious quota system for government jobs. Bangladesh, long one of the world’s poorest countries, reserved jobs for women, ethnic minorities and people from underdeveloped regions; 30% of the spots went to the children and grandchildren of “freedom fighters” in the 1971 War of Independence.

While the country has enjoyed solid economic growth in recent years, led by labor-intensive industries like garment manufacturing, unemployment among highly educated youth is pervasive. Students took to the streets to protest the quota system, denouncing it as unfair and demanding its abolition.

Six years ago, approximately 50,000 students also demanded reforms to the quota system. Hasina agreed and decided to scrap the set-aside for the freedom fighters. But on June 5 this year, the high court ruled against the abolition of the quota system, declaring the policy decision unconstitutional and reinstating the quota. The court ruling reignited protests.

The government appealed the decision, but the students focused their ire on the government, believing the ruling resulted from political pressure. Hasina claimed that opposition parties such as the BNP were manipulating the students behind the scenes and ordered the security forces to crack down. The situation worsened when Hasina called the protestors a “family of Razakars,” a slur referring to people who collaborated with the Pakistani Army during the war of independence.

The violence transformed what had been a protest over jobs into a movement to overthrow the government. On July 21, the Supreme Court scrapped most of the quotas on government jobs, but it was too late. Clashes between the security forces and the protesters led to numerous casualties on both sides, further escalating the situation. According to a U.N. report published Aug. 16, around 650 people died in the student protests and subsequent turmoil following the government’s collapse.

Hasina paid dearly for her brutal response to the protests. It was a surprising turn for a woman who, 43 years earlier, had been welcomed joyously as the daughter of an independence hero. Now she finds herself once again in exile.

Hasina promoted the deification of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s first president. (Photo by Toru Takahashi)

The big question is why Hasina, who it was hoped would lead Bangladesh’s march toward democracy, became a ruthless authoritarian ruler.

“Hasina did not initially strike me as an authoritarian politician when she first became prime minister in 1996,” recalled Mayumi Murayama, executive vice president at the Japan External Trade Organization’s Institute of Developing Economies. She pointed out that Hasina started showing a penchant for authoritarianism after returning to power in 2009, following two years under a caretaker government.

Hasina amended the constitution, ending the caretaker government system that she had demanded while in opposition. The lack of a system to ensure free and fair elections prevented peaceful transitions of power and allowed her authoritarianism to go unchecked.

She made sure that Zia was brought to trial for corruption and convicted, weakening the BNP, but her authoritarian instincts were not limited to suppressing the opposition. She zealously promoted the deification of her father and created an atmosphere where criticism of the government was not tolerated.

The harshest stifling of free speech took place at universities and in the media. The AL’s student organization dominated universities and critics of the administration were subject to harassment, such as being denied access to dormitories. The protests over the freedom fighters’ job quotas were an outburst of pent-up anger against students supporting the AL, the primary beneficiaries of Hasina’s autocratic rule.

Hasina also ousted close aides who dissented from her policies, dismissing long-serving officials such as economic adviser Mashiur Rahman, who was a secretary to her father, and foreign policy adviser Gowher Rizvi. The Hindu, an Indian newspaper, said Hasina was “progressively isolated from her best advisers.” In the end, it was only her sister Rehana who Hasina felt she could count on.

“Surrounded by yes-men, the prime minister may not have accurately understood the protesting students’ arguments and perceptions,” Murayama observed.

Bangladeshi President Mohammed Shahabuddin, left, swears in Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus as the country’s interim head of government in Dhaka on Aug. 8.   © Reuters

President Shahabuddin, who holds no real political power, cooperated with Gen. Zaman to swiftly deal with the aftermath of the crisis. After consulting with the opposition, civil organizations, and student groups, he dissolved the AL-dominated parliament and formed an interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank, which provides small loans to impoverished people, work that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

Made up of 16 advisers, including scholars, former diplomats, a former central bank governor, retired military personnel, and student representatives, the provisional government is tasked with bringing stability to the country and holding democratic elections as soon as possible.

The electorate in Bangladesh has long been split, with about 30% supporting each of the two major parties, the AL and the BNP, with the remaining 40% unaffiliated or supporting smaller parties. The BNP, led by Zia, who has been released from de facto house arrest, will likely try to regain political momentum. If it regains power in the next general election, the BNP will be tempted to pursue a political vendetta against the AL, raising the grim prospect of a cycle of tit-for-tat retaliation.

Professor Lailufar Yasmin of Dhaka University said, “The people of Bangladesh do not accept the binary politics that went on so far. Having said so, it will also be difficult for any third party to emerge and provide a true alternative to people within a short period of time.”

“Bangladesh has got a second independence,” said Yunus at his swearing in ceremony, underscoring his determination to help Bangladeshis rediscover the spirit of resilience that marked the struggle for independence from Pakistan, and to rebuild the nation.

The question now is whether a truly democratic state, free from military or autocratic rule, can finally be realized by learning from the mistakes of Hasina’s authoritarian regime.

Not only leading democracies, including Japan — the largest aid donor to Bangladesh — the U.S. and Europe, but many countries of the Global South, which includes both authoritarian and democratic nations, will be keeping a close eye on developments in the world’s eighth-most populous country.

source : asia.nikkei