For the last 15 years, Sheikh Hasina’s iron fist albeit in a velvet glove, had continued to call the shots in Bangladesh, a country she and her array of supporters loved to tout as the newest entrant to the big leagues. All this changed on Monday as protestors stormed her palace in Dhaka, forcing her to run from pillar to post in search of a safe haven. Bangladesh’s army chief, meanwhile, in a televised address urged restraint, announced an interim government and expressed hopes of normalcy soon returning to the country. Her son’s emphatic declaration about the former premier not returning to politics is of little relevance, especially when considering visuals of seething crowds chiselling Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s larger-than-life statue and pouring into the capital in jubilation. And why wouldn’t they?
Even if the breath and hum of discontent seemed libidinous to those constantly tooting the horn of economic progress, the heat had been simmering for years on end. The protest movement eventually became the last proverbial nail that had not appeared out of thin air. Although the Hasina administration deemed arbitrary arrests of over 11,000 people, and widespread crackdowns as a “befitting response” to opposition parties and “foreign” conspirators, every single instance of their intolerance to dissent acted like a good douse of kerosene on the raging fire.
No government that claims to represent the interests of the masses can allow – let alone encourage – its law enforcement agencies to kill close to a hundred civilians in one day. At least 300 hundred have died in the last few weeks, which saw students, exasperated by the limitations to job prospects due to reserved quotas, take to the streets, only to be met with an authoritarian regime. With India rooting in her corner, the likes of the US and the UK had little option but to downplay their reservations about the poor human rights record.
Frenzied by the scale of its investment in the region, Indian media continues to defend Hasina’s legacy, forecasting how the shambles would remain filled with anger, chaos, disagreement, discomfort and bloodshed in the days ahead. It is, definitely, hard to imagine what will come next and more importantly, whether the next in line will be able to calm down an unprecedented uprising. *