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Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s longest serving prime minister has fled the country after weeks of protest against her Awami League government ravaged the nation. Public anger erupted against a government quota that reserves 30% jobs for descendants of the 1971 war.
As the country burnt, 300 people died in police clashes in capital Dhaka amid shoot at sight orders and the shutting down of internet services. In the end Hasina who was in power since 2009 was given 45 minutes to resign and exit by the army and she left hastily on a helicopter.
Bangladesh turmoil in a region experts consider a tinderbox also mirror scenes closer home in South Asia like Sri Lankan capital Colombo in 2022 when protesters swarmed the luxurious presidential palace of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
A year earlier, similar visuals emerged from Afghanistan. Hasina’s sprawling residence is now overrun by protesters. In the free for all, images included a man wrapped in a sari while another fled with a fish.
Bulwark against extremism
Bangladesh has a history of violence nor is the country a stranger to military rule. On the night of Aug. 15, 1975, Hasina’s family, including her father was massacred in a military coup. She and her younger sister were abroad and escaped.
Hasina lived in India in exile and returned to Bangladesh in 1981 where she led pro-democracy protests. Since then, she herself has escaped assassination attempts and it is ironical that in recent months Hasina who was once considered a bulwark against extremism became part of the same vicious cycle. Her fourth straight victory in January was marred by allegation of rigging.
Elections took place without the main opposition party, former PM Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Zia could see a political resurgence as the army rustles together an interim government.
World’s fastest growing economy
India, for long a friend of Hasina’s Bangladesh chose to remain quiet. It did not comment as violence engulfed the country, saying it was an ‘internal matter.’ That it will have to reassess its strategy and relationship with Bangladesh is without doubt, although these are early days.
While India’s neighbourhood is geopolitically sensitive, relations between Haseena and India translated into cooperation on many fronts.
Previously Hasina oversaw Bangladesh become one of the world’s fastest growing economies that had a higher per capita GDP than India and its garment export industry was second only to China.
Stakes are high
The era of stability in the country is over, and the new government will have to tackle unemployment and inflation urgently, it has already knocked on the doors of the IMF.
More importantly, it could be vulnerable to at least two countries that have their own interests in the eighth-most populous country in the world.
Hasina’s ouster has once again complicated the geopolitics of a region where the dynamics are not straightforward.
The army will be pulling the strings once again, as it works on a coalition between Khaleda Zia’s BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami.
New Delhi is cognisant that this could lead to instability on its Eastern front where the Myanmar crisis already has its attention. The stakes are high.
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