Jennifer Chowdhury
Twenty-five-year-old Abu Sayed, the son of a farmer and one of nine children, was a successful scholarship student at one of Bangladesh’s finest universities. He dreamed of one day securing a government job that would guarantee economic stability, and perhaps propel his family into upward mobility. But when the government introduced a new quota system that awarded the descendants of “freedom fighters” – the people who liberated Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971 – a shocking 30 percent of these highly coveted government jobs, his dreams were dashed.
Sayed knew that there are 18 million unemployed young people in Bangladesh at the moment, and he did not want to be part of this damning statistic once he graduated. So he became a lead coordinator in a countrywide movement to reform the quota system, which came to be known as “Students Against Discrimination”.
At one protest, he stood some 15 metres (50 feet) away from the Bangladesh police and stretched his arms out in defiance.
They shot him dead.
The video of this blatant extrajudicial killing was shared like wildfire online, igniting a fire that brought hundreds and thousands of students across the country into the streets. Educators, lawyers, parents and rickshaw pullers joined them in solidarity, in anger and mourning over the death of Sayed and more than 200 other protesters who died at the hands of government-aligned student activists and armed forces.
Their efforts, and the real risks they took, were not in vain.
The High Court revised the quota system, assigning just seven percent of the jobs to the descendants of freedom fighters.
But even this massive concession did not prove enough to end the unrest.
The violence inflicted on it had drastically changed the student movement. The students now wanted to achieve much more than merely fixing the quota system. They wanted meaningful, systemic change. They wanted a new government, and they wanted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign.
To the shock of much of the world, their demands were met earlier today.
Recognising that she would not be able to break the resolve of the student movement – a movement that represents the very future of Bangladesh – Sheikh Hasina resigned from her post and hastily left the country in a military aircraft.
A student movement, led by idealistic youths like Abu Sayed, managed to get an autocrat who ruled the country with an iron fist for 15 years to escape without looking back after five short weeks.
The success of this movement is the strongest proof that Bangladeshi people are no longer content with economic progress at the cost of human rights, free speech and democracy.
Indeed, in the past decade, Bangladesh under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League flourished economically. But as the economy went from success to success, the government assumed that this meant it could trample on the civil rights and freedoms of the population with impunity, ban opposition parties and rule as it wished, with no respect or consideration for the country’s laws and global democratic norms.
Indeed, for 15 years, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina boasted at every chance she got about how she had slashed poverty in half in the least developing country, and used the country’s economic successes to divert attention from the large number of journalists and activists who were killed, jailed or disappeared for the sole crime of daring to criticise her government.
But Hasina’s attempt to present human rights abuses, oppression, corruption and inequality as an inevitable price that needs to be paid for economic prosperity was an attempt that massively backfired. In the last decade or so, as a new generation came of age in what is repeatedly described as a “prosperous country that is on the rise”, something started to change in the psyche of the nation.
Since Bangladesh secured its independence from Pakistan in 1971, youths in the country, traumatised by the violence inflicted on them and their elders by the Pakistani army, have largely been responding to the political imbalances and injustices that took hold in the newly founded republic in two ways: by trying to work within the system, or leaving.
Indeed, a large number of Bangladeshis in my parents’ generation left the country in droves in the 80s and 90s for the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and even the Middle East in search of better futures. The ones who remained largely kept their heads low and refrained from resisting the government’s excesses.
But in recent years, Gen Z Bangladeshis coming of age began to gravitate towards a third option. Unlike their parents, their dream and ambition was not to leave for the West, or stay and work the system. Their dream was to stay and reform the country. They were not willing to accept the human rights abuses of a corrupt government as the price they needed to pay for economic progress.
Between 2018 and 2020, I interviewed dozens of young people while working as a foreign correspondent in Bangladesh. Almost all of them were incredibly proud of the country’s rapid economic and technological progress, but were in despair over the declines in human rights and democracy. They loved their country, and they wanted to show their love by making things better, not staying silent.
At first glance, it seems the students miraculously toppled Hasina’s all-powerful government in five short weeks, but this revolution was years in the making. Those who participated in the student protests this year – those who gave up their lives – grew up watching the country prosper as the government became more and more authoritarian and abusive.
Many had spent almost all their young lives looking for ways to decouple economic progress from democratic degradation. In 2018, after a bus lost control and killed two teenagers, the road safety movement was born. Students demanded safer streets by taking over the streets for five days, checking licenses and directing traffic which is notoriously difficult to navigate in Bangladesh. That same year, a student movement successfully led to the overturn of the quota system. In 2019, they took to the streets in droves after a student was killed by pro-government activists for his Facebook post criticising the government.
Throughout all these movements, students saw for themselves how the government often blamed opposition parties for the violence perpetrated against protesters, even though government’s own student wing was often responsible for it. They also saw how their elders and those in power pointed to economic successes of the nation as a reason to be supportive of the current government’s actions and policies.
Time and again, their revolutionary spirits were disheartened. Yet as they went from teenagers to young people in their mid 20s, they expanded their knowledge and maturity while managing to keep their passion alive. They wanted to free Bangladesh from its suffocating government and help it reach its true potential – as a democratic nation that respects and protects the rights of all its citizens.
Today, after five weeks of bloodshed, pain, fear and heartache, they achieved their dream. Young Bangladeshis are now in charge of the country and perhaps for the first time in their lives, they have reason to be hopeful for the future.
Sure, there will now be a caretaker government overseen by the Bangladeshi army. Some people are worried about this prospect, as in the past, such governments proved not ideal for protecting human rights and furthering democracy. But student leaders, who brought us to this moment, have already vowed that they will make sure this interim government will not be like any the country has seen before. They promised they will make sure this new government does not step out of line and does not take power away from the people. And I know they will hold to their word, because this is their country, their future, and their lifelong dream that they risked all they ever had to achieve.
This revolution is a clear message from youths to those who have long held on to and abused power, not only in Bangladesh, but across the world. Your time is over. Members of a new generation – not willing to give up on their rights, and ready to fight for justice at great personal cost – are now in charge. Change is now inevitable. We must all get on board, or get off the train.