Sheik Hasina, the prime minister of Bangladesh, resigned on Monday and fled the country after a month of huge anti-government protests.
Thousands of demonstrators stormed Hasina’s official residence on Sunday, with at least 90 fatalities reported. The total death toll from the protests is now over 300, most of them civilians who were shot dead by the police.
Hasina, 76, has been in power since 2009, making her the longest-serving prime minister in the history of Bangladesh and the longest-serving female prime minister in the world. She reportedly fled just minutes before the protesters pushed their way into her residence, laying over in India on her way to exile in London.
Video from the capital showed protesters gleefully looting her residence and eating everything left in her kitchen. They even made off with her pets and household animals, pausing to take selfies as they marched through the gates with ducks and rabbits tucked under their arms.
Hasina is the daughter of the first leader of independent Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujb Rahman. In 1975, when Hasina was 28 and living in Germany with her younger sister, her parents and three other siblings were gunned down by army officers in a military coup. Her younger sister, Sheikh Rehana, was reportedly with her when she escaped from the capital city of Dhaka by helicopter.
Hasina returned to Bangladesh after years of exile in India, becoming embroiled in a long feud with military and opposition leaders before winning her first race for prime minister in 1996 and serving until 2001. The 15-year stretch in office that just ended was her second administration.
Politics in Bangladesh has been a blood sport ever since it gained independence from Pakistan in 1971, with factional leaders tossing each other in jail and finding various ways to justify authoritarian rule. Hasina’s admirers credited her with improving national infrastructure, creating educational opportunities for women, and nourishing vital industries. Critics noted she was nevertheless an authoritarian with a penchant for silencing dissidents, punishing the opposition, and rigging elections. Her apologists said her tragic family history made her understandably paranoid about being overthrown in a coup, while her detractors accused her of cynically exploiting her backstory for political gain.
Both the United States and United Kingdom found that her last re-election in January was “not credible, free, or fair,” thanks to “irregularities on election day” and “the arrests of thousands of political opposition members.”
The unrest that brought Sheikh Hasina down began last month, when student groups marched against a baroque quota system for government jobs instituted by Hasina’s father in the 1970s. The original notion behind the quota system was to set aside government jobs as a reward for the “freedom fighters” who fought for independence from Pakistan, and for women who were abused by Pakistani troops during the struggle.
The quota system grew larger and more complicated as the ranks of the aging “freedom fighters” dwindled. Quotas were added for certain ethnic groups, for example, and for people who lived in the most impoverished regions of Bangladesh. The children and grandchildren of freedom fighters also received preferential treatment, even though there was no logical foundation for it.
Opposition politicians accused Hasina and her Awami League party of abusing the quota system to reward their political allies. Hasina’s emotional commitment to keeping the quotas for freedom fighters and their descendants was cited by the opposition as a prime example of her exploiting tragedy for political gain. When the Bangladeshi economy stumbled, government jobs with guaranteed salary increases and lavish perks became very desirable prizes.
Student protesters actually managed to abolish the quota system in 2018 but, in June, the High Court of Bangladesh reinstated it, responding to a petition from the families of freedom fighters. A fresh round of student protests erupted, eventually pressuring courts to reduce the quota from 30 percent of government jobs to five percent.
That concession was not enough for the student protesters, so Hasina dispatched security forces to conduct a remarkably brutal crackdown. Police hit the protesters with everything from tear gas to shotguns filled with buckshot, and eventually Chinese-made assault rifles. Huge numbers of arbitrary arrests were made, including journalists who were covering the story. The Internet was shut down nationwide on July 18, and remained off for five days, with scattered outages persisting in the most restless areas.
A turning point in the crackdown came when the police killed a student named Shaikh Asahbul Yamin in July. Yamin was shot multiple times by the police, who callously tossed his body on top of an armored personnel carrier (APC) without attempting to render medical assistance, drove him away from the scene of his death, and yanked his corpse off the roof to leave it discarded in the street.
The protesters redoubled their efforts and began calling for Hasina to step down. She responded by denouncing the demonstrators as “razakar,” an ugly slur that essentially means “traitors,” but she also denied using excessive force against them. Later she called them “terrorists who are out to destabilize the nation.”
Hasina defiantly rejected calls for her resignation. Her top officials ominously muttered they were showing “restraint” by only killing a few hundred of the traitors, and could unleash a real “bloodbath” if they were pushed too hard.
When thousands gathered for what one opposition leader described as “the final protest” on Sunday, the bloodbath was finally unleashed, with over a hundred people reportedly killed. Protesters vandalized buildings and torched vehicles as they swept through the capital city. Police and members of the ruling party’s youth league attacked the protesters with guns and machetes, and by running over them with vehicles.
Hasina gave up when the conflict reached her residence and fled with the assistance of Indian officials, who helped her aircraft get out of Bangladesh. Protesters were reportedly surprised and jubilant when they learned their nemesis was gone.
Bangladeshi Army Chief Gen. Waqar-uz-Zama announced Hasina’s resignation on Monday and said an interim government would soon be formed – but until then, he was taking power himself.
“I’m taking all responsibility. Please cooperate,” he said in a televised address to the nation.
The general effectively imposed martial law in his announcement, but also promised he would order police and military officers not to fire on civilians.
