The quota reform movement in Bangladesh has rocked and shocked the whole nation due to the massive crackdown on the protesters by law enforcement forces and the ruling Awami League’s student wing, known as the Bangladesh Chhatra League. Even I, thousands of miles away from Bangladesh, could not sleep the whole night of July 18-19.
Messages and calls from my students constantly hooked me to my phone long into the night. They messaged me, asking me to write about the protests, to stand up for them and their rights. Some cried, asking rhetorically: “Is this the independent Bangladesh?” Several students wrote Facebook posts to me, saying “We are scared and feeling helpless.”
However, everything seemed to stop after 2.00 a.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time, or 10.00 p.m. in Bangladesh. I rushed to check and learned that the government had shut down the mobile network and internet connection countrywide. It remains so as of this writing.
With a heavy heart, I feel obliged to write for my students and console myself (vaguely) that I did not remain silent.
The Context: The Quota System and Its Abolishment in 2018
The immediate cause of the protests was student anger over the reinstatement of a controversial quota system, which reserves a sizable chunk of Bangladesh civil service jobs. The quota system in Bangladesh was introduced in 1972 and has undergone several changes since then.
In the latest iteration, the quotas applied to 56 percent of Bangladesh civil service jobs. Most notably, 30 percent of government jobs were reserved for the children and grandchildren of freedom fighters, those who fought the Liberation War in 1971 against the regime of then-West Pakistan, now Pakistan. Other quotas reserve positions for women (10 percent), backward districts that are considered marginalized (10 percent), minorities such as the Indigenous population (5 percent), and people with physical disabilities (1 percent).
Civil service jobs are highly sought-after, as these jobs come with higher social status, prestige, pay, security, and future pensions. As a result, the quota system – which reserves over half of available positions for various groups – has been questioned as problematic by students and civil society for a long time.
In 2018, a massive protest broke out when students at public universities countrywide demanded reform to the quota system. They claimed that the 56 percent reserved quota does not fairly consider the merits and the vast number of applicants who remain outside the quota criteria. They were especially concerned about the 30 percent reserved quota for the freedom fighters’ children and grandchildren.
The current ruling party, the Awami League, which has also been in power for the last 15 years, maintains that they are the true holders of the spirit of the Liberation War, and by extension independent Bangladesh. Their politics revolve around the narrative that the opposition parties, such as the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, stand opposed to the spirit of the Liberation War due to their relationship with the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, a radical religious-oriented party whose leaders were accused of collaborating with the Pakistani military and committing war crimes against the freedom fighters and the mass population of Bangladesh during the independence war of 1971. Therefore, it is in the interest of the Awami League to sustain the freedom fighter quota to prove and maintain their political position.
However, the intensity of the 2018 protests was so high that the government was compelled to abolish the quota system, meaning there would be no quota for civil service jobs. After that announcement, the protesters left the street, thinking they had received what they wanted.
The 2024 Protests
On June 5, 2024, the high court of Bangladesh reinstated the quota system in response to a writ submitted by a freedom fighter descent. The verdict mentioned that the quota abolishment was “unconstitutional, illegal, and ineffective.” The quota system was back, as if nothing had happened.
The students did not take it easily. They have again gone to the streets to protest the return of the quota system, an issue they thought had been resolved.
The protests started at the University of Dhaka, arguably the country’s best and most historical university. Soon, students at other universities followed suit, and the protests, for the second time within six years, turned into a nationwide movement.
At first, ruling party politicians and the government were dismissive, saying they had nothing to do with the quota reinstatement, as the order came from the country’s highest court. There was also an argument that the protestors should wait until the appeal hearing, which was set for August 7. But the protesters were not ready to listen. They wanted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to reassure them and act.
The tension escalated when Hasina made a controversial remark on July 14 while answering a question from a journalist regarding quota reform protesters. She said, “Why do they [the protesters] have so much resentment towards the freedom fighters? If the grandchildren of the freedom fighters don’t get quota benefits, should the grandchildren of Razakars get the benefit?”
Following her remarks, thousands of students from the Dhaka University student dorms came out to the street and started shouting a slogan which can be translated as “Who am I? Who are You? Razakar, Razakar. Who said that? Who said that? Autocrat. Autocrat.”
To contextualize the student’s anger and disappointment, we must understand why “Razakar” is such a derogatory label in Bangladesh. The term refers to people who collaborated with the Pakistani military to torture, murder, and rape people of then-East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during the Liberation War of 1971. It is a consensus that the Razakars are the worst traitors in the history of Bangladesh. Any Bangladeshi would take offence if someone calls them Razakar. It was no wonder, then, that Hasina’s remark sparked the students’ anger.
However, following the students’ chant, the government and some of the media chose to distort their anger. They only took the first part of the slogan, which might seem, void of context, to indicate that the students are proclaiming themselves to be Razakars. Hasina and other politicians made harsh statements based on this assessment and threatened the students about the chant, completely forgetting the next part of the slogan and the entire context.
It was an even more inflammatory move for politicians and the government to misinterpret the chant as proof that the students of Bangladesh’s highest educational institutions are claiming themselves as Razakars. Meanwhile, the threats only increased the anger of the protesters. Soon the same chant could be heard in other universities as well.
The government still did not choose to sit for a peaceful dialogue with the protesters. Instead, it instituted a mass crackdown on the protesters through law enforcement agencies, such as the Bangladesh Police and Border Guard Bangladesh, and its student wing, the Bangladesh Chhatra League. As a result, it has been reported that six protestors died, and hundreds were injured on July 16.
The same night, Hasina gave a speech to the nation, claiming she condemned all violence without saying anything that the protestors wanted to hear. The government also shut down all universities, colleges and schools. This did not end the protests.
On July 18, the protesters called for a complete shutdown nationwide, except for emergency service vehicles. This time, students from private universities in the capital city joined students from public universities and students from secondary schools and colleges. The government was still not ready to back down; as a result, the crackdown on the protesters became even more aggressive. There are various reports of dozens dead.
With the situation worsening, the law minister came in front of the media, declaring the government was ready to sit down with the protesters. However, the attack continued on the students. With a massive backlash from netizens seeing horrific images and videos of injured and dead students, the protesters declared that they were not going to talk with the government over the dead bodies of their comrades.
Soon, the government shut down the internet and the mobile network countrywide, making it impossible to know what was happening. Nevertheless, till now, it has been reported that at least 39 protestors were killed over the two days (meaning 33 were killed on July 18), and thousands were injured. Other estimates have the death toll higher, at 64.
It’s No Longer About Quota Reform
The current government and its supporters keep saying that the quota reform movement has been hijacked from the general students by the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami cadres, who are allegedly trying to create chaos. However, the basis of such claims is unclear.
Even if such claims are true, many asked why it would be a crime if the supporters of other political parties attended the protests. Are they not also citizens of Bangladesh? To the government, however, the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami are terrorists and corrupt parties, while the Awami League and its leaders are the ones who are sailing Bangladesh toward economic growth and progress.
In a word, the government says that the current protest movement is not only about quota reform anymore, but it has become a threat to the existence of the current regime. But why?
The current government has been in power for the last 15 years, since 2009. There are wide concerns, both nationally and internationally, around the nature of elections in 2014, 2019, and 2024. Over the past year, the government has failed to manage inflation, amid other crises. There are also wide concerns about corruption in the government sector and private sectors. Recently, news broke out that even the civil service job questions were being leaked by the Public Service Commission (PSC) officials for the last 12 years.
Finally, for a long time, the ruling party’s student wing, the Chhatra League, has been accused of torturing not only the opposition party’s student wing, but also the general student population. The Chhatra League has been used as a shadow army of the government, including in the current protests. It is astonishing to hear the general secretary of the current ruling party asking supporters and activists, which includes the Chhatra League, to “deal with” the Chhatra Dal (the student wing of BNP) and Chhatra Shibir (the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami), who are assumed to be among the protesters. The Chhatra League obeyed their leader’s words and attacked the protesters.
The accumulation of all these factors created mass anger among the youth and the nation’s general population. So, of course, the protest movement might not remain the same as when it started, with the agenda of reforming the quota system alone.
It’s clear that the ruling Awami League sees the protests as an existential threat. If so, the government can only blame itself and its “no compromise” approach for that development. Its recklessness, failure to stop corruption, use of students against students, excessive force, and depriving the voting rights of the general people while claiming the mantle of a democratic government all contributed to the massive public backlash now exploding throughout Bangladesh.
The government might be right that the protests are not only about quota reform anymore. However, it is high time for the government to reflect on how it contributed to that escalation instead of blaming and killing the protesting students indiscriminately.