Dhaka In Throes Of Challenges

Seven months after her Awami League won 288 out of the 300 seats in parliamentary polls, Prime Minister Hasina Wazed fled to India amidst massive street protests led by students and other youths of Bangladesh. The main opposition, Bangladesh Nationalists Party (BNP), boycotted the election charging the ruling party of using the state machinery and resources to prevent any free and fair exercise. A highly respected economist and Nobel laureate, Mohammad Yunus heads the interim government sworn in on August 8. Representing different political shades, the team includes the BNP but not the League. The July-August violence claimed at least 450 lives and many more injured, with the political outcome presaging a sharp shift in domestic power equation. A special quota reservation of 30 per cent of the jobs in civil service for the descendants of veterans of the 1971 war of liberation was the immediate cause that ignited the street protests.

The provision was believed to give unfair advantage to the League, and the Supreme Court scrapped it in the wake of the street protests.  Apart from a full term in the 1990s, Wazed was in power without a break for the last 16 years. Army chief Waker-uz-Zaman is reported to have given the prime minister a curt 45 minutes’ notice to leave the country or face the mounting wrath of student power. Wazed and her team of about a dozen members did not have time to even pack their luggage. Street scenes stoking disorder are common sight in the so-called colour-coded movements and revolutions, popularised by Western media and enthusiastically embraced by protestors, though the Dhaka movement did not carry the baggage of any colour code.

Int’l reactions 

So far, the United States has maintained a reticent posture whereas Wazed accuses it of aiding the movement against her. Washington has not displayed any overt satisfaction with the outcome while Beijing seems to be considering the development as an internal matter. New Delhi, too, maintains a discreet stance but has announced plans to investigate whether foreign forces were behind the protest movement. Overall, the doctrine of necessity is allowed to float in acceptance of the change. As is their wont, the Western media now describe Wazed as “authoritarian”, “autocrat” and “dictator” who engaged in an “increasingly oppressive” rule. They did not do so when she was in office, though. 

There is, however, a general consensus that Wazed leaves a robust economy, though not without an acute need for export diversification and inequality reduction. The garment industry, which accounts for about 80 per cent of the country’s total annual exports, employs 4.4 million women. With $2 billion in remittances, the country’s per capita compares better than India’s. An emerging economy with a population of 173 million, Bangladesh tried managing a balanced approach to its relationship with neigbours India and China as well as the US-led West. Dhaka has a delicate road to tread. 

Increasingly assertive about its national interests and market prospects abroad, even a small misstep in foreign powers relations in the neighbourhood and beyond might lead Bangladesh to slip, trip and break a few vital ribs of its development pace. Chief Advisor Yunus warns that instability in his country can trigger serious problems for India's North-East and West Bengal state as well as Myanmar. Political analysts do not rule out “Islamic extremism” spreading fast if stability was not restored quickly. 

During Wazed’s three-day official trip to Beijing in July just before the protests unfolded, Bangladesh and China announced an accord to enhance cooperation in financial regulation and increased use of local currency settlement in bilateral trade. After her talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Wazed welcomed Chinese banks to spread its branches in Bangladesh. This might not have not gone down well with Washington. If it used to be cited as a nation of teeming millions, most of whom were in a state of semi-starvation and malnutrition five decades ago, the table has turned for a significant improvement. It now is the envy of many of its neighbours and others that had a better head start but stagnated subsequently.

From “a basket case of Asia”— so disparagingly summed up by the former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinge r—to one of the highest growth rates, Bangladesh has been a notable record. In 2022, it recorded 7.2 per cent GDP growth, one of the fastest in the world.  The Chinese assessed since the 2010s that Bangladesh’s economic stride would lead the country to resounding levels by the end of the 2030s. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic breakout, the economy was developing at an annual rate of 8 per cent.

Fluid situation

However, if stability were to elude Bangladesh, the economy would suffer severely. This retraces the coloured revolutions in different regions of the world. Georgia’s “Rose Revolution”, Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” and Belarus’s “Jeans Revolution” are some of the various shades of colour, prompted by foreign forces or otherwise. In fact, some sections in the West are speculating on a likely “Banana” or “Cornflower Blue Revolution” in that Russian ally. Of note is that the initial rush of enthusiasm for the coded coloured movements largely ended with a thud. The promises expected and promised are yet to be delivered.  Wazed holds the US responsible for her ouster. In a message to her party’s rank and file, she said: “I could have remained in power if I had handed over St Martin’s Island and the Bay of Bengal to America.”

Within a day after seeking shelter in India, Wazed’s son Sajeeb Ahmed Wazed has been issuing contradictory statements. He denies that Washington had anything to do with his mother’s ouster. Contrary to his earlier statement that Hasina Wazed is finished with politics and would “not go back” to Bangladesh, he later rejected she having ever resigned before fleeing and asserted she would  return after elections were announced. 

Notwithstanding the country’s widely appreciated resilient economy, its No. 1 issue is gross unemployment. As many as 400,000 graduates vie for 3,000 jobs in government service, which is widely aspired for when compared with jobs in the private sector. Much is expected of Nobel Laureate Yunus even as various elements press for their individual agendas. At the same time, political backlash is likely, but not without sowing the seeds of a counter-backlash in an undated future.   

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)