Student Protests in Bangladesh Turn Deadly: What to Know
Tens of thousands of Bangladeshi citizens took to the streets on Thursday, joining students who have been agitating for weeks about a quota system for government jobs that benefits certain groups, including the descendants of those who fought for independence from Pakistan.
The protests have turned increasingly violent in recent days, resulting in a groundswell of anger against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after she unleashed a brutal crackdown by deploying the police and paramilitary forces to tame the protesters. As of Thursday, 17 people, most of them students, had been killed and hundreds of others injured. Large areas of Dhaka, the capital, remained empty, and the city shut down its only metro rail service.
Anisul Huq, the Bangladesh law minister, said on Thursday that the government was in favor of overhauling the quota system. Mr. Huq said the government would sit down with student leaders to find a resolution, although he added that the final decision would be made by the Supreme Court.
The protesters, who have launched counterattacks on the police, said they would not negotiate with the government. On Thursday, they targeted the headquarters of the national television station, setting fire to the building.
Here’s what to know about why the quota system has become such a point of contention.
What has happened so far in Bangladesh?
Students at the University of Dhaka, the country’s top institution, started the demonstrations on July 1, and they later spread to other elite universities. Initially peaceful, the protests turned violent when members of the pro-quota student wing of the governing party, the Awami League, began attacking the protesters, said Zahed Ur Rahman, a political analyst. Mr. Rahman added that the group’s assault on female students further inflamed the situation.
Besides sending the police and paramilitaries into the streets, including the Rapid Action Battalion, an antiterrorism unit, the government has also locked down schools and colleges, citing the need to protect students. Officials said they had slowed down internet connectivity to stop the spread of rumors and protect citizens from harm, making it harder for protesters to organize and make plans via social media platforms like Facebook. The police have also used rubber bullets, sound grenades and tear gas to disperse crowds. But the protests still continue.
Why are the students protesting?
At their heart, the protests are about coveted government jobs and who is entitled to them. An old quota system, reinstated recently by the Supreme Court, reserves more than half of those jobs for various groups. The students say the system is unfair and have argued that most of the positions should be filled based on a candidate’s merit. The students consider it an urgent demand in a country where the pace of job creation, according to a World Bank report, has slowed in recent years. Bangladesh is one of the world’s least developed countries, according to a United Nations trade body.
The paucity of jobs has disproportionately affected workers between the ages of 15 and 29, even as more of them graduate from college, the report found. That makes public-sector jobs — already coveted because they are seen as stable and brimming with benefits — even more desirable.
Why were quotas put in place?
The quota system was introduced in 1972 by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whom Bangladesh citizens call the “father of the nation.” Mr. Rahman led his country’s fight for independence from Pakistan in 1971. That war, the Bangladesh War of Independence, was a brutal one, and thousands of protesters and fighters were killed.
The quota system ensured that the descendants of those considered freedom fighters would always be taken care of by the state. Today, a total of 56 percent of government jobs are reserved, a majority of which are for those whose family members fought in the war. Smaller quotas were later introduced for women, minorities and those with disabilities. Protesting students are also calling for the quotas for women and people from certain districts of Bangladesh to be removed, but they are in favor of reserving jobs for disabled people and minorities.
Wasn’t the quota system abolished once?
Yes. In 2018, two students from the University of Dhaka and a journalist petitioned a Dhaka high court, asking for the quota system to be overhauled. The appeal was accompanied by student protests, although they weren’t as violent as this time around. After months of demonstrations, Ms. Hasina, who was prime minister then as well, abolished the system. (She is the daughter of Mr. Rahman.) But in June, the Supreme Court reinstated the quotas after some families of freedom fighters filed suit.
“Under her rule, the judiciary is completely under her control,” said Asif Nazrul, a professor of law at the University of Dhaka who works closely with the student protesters.
The situation has become politicized.
Pro-quota groups are supporters of Ms. Hasina, who won her fourth straight election in January. The student wing of Ms. Hasina’s party also supports the quotas. After some of them attacked the protesters earlier this month, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the main opposition to Ms. Hasina’s party, began calling for more protesters to get involved.
On Wednesday, Ms. Hasina addressed the nation and said the government would create a judicial committee to investigate the deaths — there were six at that time — and that students would get justice. It remains unclear who caused their deaths. Her statements were a change from a few days ago, when she questioned whether the reserved jobs should be allocated to “razakar” — a derogatory term used to describe those who sided with the Pakistanis during the 1971 war. Many in Bangladesh took that comment to be a veiled reference to the students demanding quota reform.
“The prime minister’s comments, where she seemingly compared the protesting students to ‘razakars,’ fueled the protests,” Mr. Rahman, the political analyst, said.
On July 10, the Supreme Court paused the reinstatement of the quotas for four weeks because of the protests.
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