Hasina Wazed: A sad saga of a fallen ruler

Amitava Mukherjee

(The author is a senior journalist and commentator)

For any statesman, understanding the nuances of history is very important. It helps him or her reach the right decision at the right moment. It may not always mean a scholastic grasp of historical events. A national leader with an inner eye would thus be able to analyse the course of events from their proper perspective and act accordingly.

This was expected from Sheikh Hasina Wazed, the former Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Her country was now ravaged by students’ protests. Ultimately, she had to resign and flee Bangladesh. It started over the issue of quotas in government jobs for family members of the country’s freedom fighters. The students protested against this quota system and launched massive agitations demanding its abolition. Mishandling by the government resulted in a large number of deaths. Ultimately, the higher judiciary abolished it and allowed only a small percentage of quotas for certain other sections of the population. But the agitation, which had begun only as an opposition to certain administrative measures, turned out to be a full-scale demand for the resignation of the Awami League government led by Hasina Wazed. As the army has taken over in Dhaka, the coming days of Bangladesh’s political trajectory are big with many possibilities. Already, one of the student leaders has averred that students will not accept any military government or one backed by the military.

Here we can turn to history for understanding Bangladesh’s social dynamics. The country can easily be called a product of students’ movements. The first to misjudge students’ power in then-East Pakistan was Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who had declared Urdu as Pakistan’s state language. The discontent in the eastern part of Pakistan ultimately snowballed into the language movement of 1952, when several people laid down their lives in honour of the Bengali language. The names of Rafiq, Barkat, and Salam, the three deceased students, became immortalised.

The second upsurge happened in 1969 during the Agartala conspiracy case, when Sheikh Mujibur Rahaman was incarcerated. This time, demonstrations were also led by students. Conjoined with massive upsurges against Ayub Khan in West Pakistan, it ultimately successfully dethroned Ayub from the position of Pakistan’s President.

Students’ power was most visible during Bangladesh’s liberation war. It is still a matter of conjecture whether Mujibur Rahaman really wanted to declare independence during his address to the nation on March 7, 1971. Some say he only wanted to have maximum autonomy for East Pakistan. Some chroniclers of the liberation struggle allege that four Caliphs (meaning four student leaders), namely Abdul Quddus Makhan, Shajahan Shiraj, Abdur Rab, and Nure Alam Siddiqui, forced Mujib to declare independence. The rest is a saga of the bravery, courage, and fortitude of the people of Bangladesh.

So Hasina Wazed did not keep the history of students’ power in mind when she confronted the anti-quota agitation in her country. Strangely, Hasina had already done what she could to meet the students’ demands. She had already scrapped the quotas for descendants of freedom fighters in government jobs. But the High Court had stood in her way by declaring the government’s action null and void. The road was open to the Bangladesh Prime Minister for an amicable settlement with the protesters. She could have sat with the students, apprised them of her government’s good intentions, and assured them about future governmental actions if the Supreme Court also upheld the High Court’s verdict.

But power had gone into Hasina Wazed’s head. Instead of treating the students as her sons and daughters, she made a terrible statement, which contributed to a large extent to her ouster. “If the freedom fighters (and their descendants) do not get the jobs, then who will get them? Grandchildren of the Razakars?”, thus expressed the former Prime Minister. This single statement was enough to solidify the students’ resolve to challenge Hasina head-on.

Why did Hasina commit such a faux pas? The reason lies in her mental makeup and the circumstances that propelled her to the position of prime minister. She is stubborn and cannot brook opposition. She is basically apolitical, too. She never participated in political activities prior to taking over the reins of the Awami League after her father’s death. This apolitical background prevented her from correctly analysing the potentialities of the students’ movement.

It is true that Bangladesh made some progress in the economic sphere under Hasina’s leadership. But the country has not yet been able to get over the shocks from COVID-19 and the Ukraine war. The rate of inflation is hovering around the 10 percent mark. Earnings from exports and remittances are shrinking. Corruption is rampant. There was no sign that Hasina was worried about this last-mentioned canker. She held elections, which were never above board.

The coming days are extremely important for India too. Already, Mohammed Yunus, the noble laureate from Bangladesh, has held India responsible for pursuing the wrong Bangladesh policy. “I blame India for having good ties with the wrong people. You have a policy towards Bangladesh. Please revisit your foreign policy,” Yunus has said.