Bangladesh: Can student uprising bring new, young leaders?

Bangladesh is reeling from a wave of unrest over quotas for government jobs, with the number of casualties still being tallied. The government puts the official death toll at 150, but according to the Bangladeshi media, at least 210 people, mostly young, lost their lives. Thousands more were injured.

As the protests escalated across the country, internet and mobile networks were shut down to prevent communication among the demontrators. The government deployed the police, the military and the border guard paramilitaries to quell the unrest. Additionally, some protesters reported being attacked by the members of the Chhatra League, the student wing of the ruling party, Awami League.

Some restrictions have since been eased, although social media platforms and educational institutions remain closed.

The mostly spontaneous protests were originally prompted by a court ruling that reintroduced the controversial job quota system. However, they  quickly grew to articulate widespread displeasure against the government led by Sheikh Hasina —  only half a year since the last national election.

'Growing distrust towards the government'

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the country's largest opposition party, expressed "surprise" at the emergence of this movement. Barrister Ruhul Quddus Kazal, a member of the party's central committee, said that the protests had unmasked the profound public scepticism towards the ruling Awami League, which has ruled the country for 16 years.

"I think the government will do a lot of calculations now. They have to come out of the mindset that they have a license to do whatever they wanted for next five years," Kazal told DW.

The Awami League won the 2008 election conducted under the military-backed caretaker government. It has since won three more elections, in 2014, 2018 and most recently in 2024. However, all three national elections were marred by allegations of vote rigging and boycotts from the opposition.

How ruling Awami League views protests?

The ruling party has weathered protests before and does not yet seem to have been humbled by the latest student movement. The state response has been harsh — in the capital Dhaka alone, over 200,000 individuals have been implicated in at least 200 cases for their alleged participation in violence. Nationwide, thousands have been apprehended, including a reported minimum of 253 students within a 12-day period, as per Bangladeshi media.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and other leaders of the Awami League are insisting that the movement was effectively hijacked from the students by the opposition parties, namely Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and BNP.

The Awami League's Joint General Secretary AFM Bahauddin Nasim claimed that "malevolent" and "anti-liberation war" elements were involved in the violent episodes of the movement — referring to the independence war from Pakistan in 1971.

"The unfolding of such an event was beyond our wildest imagination," he told DW. He also conceded to the government's shortcomings.

"We acknowledge a lack of coordination among us, and we understand that there was a gap in the leadership as well," he said.

"We have a significant amount of work ahead of us," Nasim added, while emphasizing that any future policies would be determined by deliberations inside the ruling party.

No more 'facade of democracy'

Going back to business as usual might not be easy, however. There have been allegations that several coordinators of the Anti-Discrimination Students' Movement were tortured and taken to the Detective Branch (DB) office of the Bangladeshi police, where they were coerced into declaring the withdrawal of the movement.

Reports from the Bangladeshi media indicate that some of them were apprehended at their residences, while others were taken from hospitals where they were receiving treatment. In a video message recorded in the DB office on Sunday, July 28, six coordinators declared end to the movement.

Later that night, another coordinator surfaced in the media, announcing that movement was continuing.

Ali Riaz, a Bangladesh expert and professor at Illinois State University in the US, believes that the impact of the protests on the ruling party has already become evident.

"The government has attempted to foster a facade of democracy through some so-called elections. That era has ended. This government, which lacked moral justification in the past, is now left with no option but to resort to force," he told DW.

Open door for a new generation of politicians?

The movement, according to political scientist Tasneem Siddiqui, has an "unprecedented" ability to organize protests across the nation without centralized leadership.

She also believes that it is fostering the emergence of a new generation of leadership.

"With the same party holding power for 16 consecutive years, it has slowly evolved into a personalist regime. Everyone turns to the prime minister for solutions to any problem," Siddiqui told DW.

The movement is challenging this political culture, according to Siddiqui. Also, the rivalry between the Awami League and the BNP has not served the younger generation or improved the political landscape, according to the researcher.

She notes that "the youth of the country do not like such politics anymore. If these two parties do not understand it, they will not be the leaders anymore."

Siddiqui also thinks that a strong third political party might be born out of this movement if the parties do not change themselves.

Ali Riaz feels that the government "has crossed all limits" through the "politics of repression."

"What I understand from the people's reaction, the moral legitimacy of the government has also ended with this movement," he said.

"Despite [the government] being somewhat successful in suppressing the movement by force," Riaz thinks, "the movement will not be over."

Edited by: Darko Janjevic

Harun Ur Rashid Swapan, DW reporter in Dhaka, contributed to this report.

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