With just hours to go for the crucial February 12 general election in Bangladesh, nearly 127 million eligible voters are preparing to send 350 members to the Jatiya Sangsad, their parliament. Since the August 2024 ouster of Sheikh Hasina, the former Prime Minister, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus has led a caretaker government. Hasina was forced to resign and flee after a student-led uprising brought an end to her rule.
According to a February 2025 UN rights report, as many as 1,400 people were killed in 46 days during the mass protests, which later came to be known as the “July Uprising”. The former PM, now in India, was sentenced to death by a special tribunal for the brutal crackdown. Her Awami League has been barred from contesting elections.
How it started
On June 5, 2024, a Bangladeshi court ordered the reinstatement of the job quota, deeming the 2018 abolition illegal. Under this, nearly one-third of civil service posts were reserved for children of freedom fighters who participated in the country's liberation movement in 1971.
Students from government and private universities, especially Dhaka University, started protesting on July 1, demanding reform in the job quota system that reserved more than half of government jobs.
Several of the contemporary political elite were related to that generation, including Hasina, who is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Claiming that the quota system was discriminatory and favuored supporters of Hasina's Awami League party, the protestors asked for a merit-based system, which is fair to all. Further, they noted that they are not aligned with any political group.
Their anger was driven by high unemployment levels in the country, especially among the young ones.
The country witnessed strong economic growth under Hasina's rule, but it slowed down post the COVID-19 pandemic and faced high inflation and depleted foreign currency reserves.
Over 30 million people in the country were not in work or education, according to the same report.
What was the quota system in Bangladesh?
Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, the father of Sheikh Hasina, introduced a quota system that reserved a major percentage of government jobs for children of people who fought in the 1971 war of independence.
Under this, 56 per cent of first- and second-class government jobs were reserved for specific communities, while the remaining 44 per cent were "merit" based. This included:
- 30 per cent for children and grandchildren of freedom fighters
- 10 per cent for women
- 10 per cent “zila quota” for the “backward” districts in Bangladesh
- 5 per cent for ethnic minorities
- 1 per cent for people with physical disabilities
The anti-quota protesters demanded that the 30 per cent quota for children of freedom fighters must be abolished, while they supported reservations for ethnic minorities and people with disabilities.
The Supreme Court later ordered that quotas for veterans' descendants should be cut to 5 per cent, while 93 per cent of jobs should be allocated based on merit. The remaining 2 per cent was set aside for members of ethnic minorities and disabled persons.
The protests turned violent by mid-July after the Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student wing of the ruling party, and the police started attacking the protestors in the capital city. Soon after, the government shut down universities and cut off the internet.
As per Human Rights Watch, the government deployed security forces to control the crowd. They used tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber and live bullets. They even shot indiscriminately into crowds and directly at students.
A video of a protester, Abu Sayed, standing with his arms outstretched as police repeatedly shot at him, went viral and triggered an unprecedented outrage.
The students poured onto the streets and were joined by fellow countrymen and opposition supporters.
According to Al Jazeera, several leaders in the ruling party even tried to paint the protesters as 'anti-nationals,' while Hasina referred to them as “Razakars”.
“Why do they have so much resentment towards freedom fighters? If the grandchildren of the freedom fighters don't get quota benefits, should the grandchildren of the Razakars get the benefit?” she asked at a news conference.
Razakar is an offensive term in the country referring to those who betrayed Bangladesh during the 1971 war by collaborating with Pakistan.
On August 5, 2024, Sheikh Hasina resigned as Bangladesh's prime minister and fled the country after weeks of student protests.
After her resignation, protestors torched several buildings, which included the famous Bangabandhu Memorial Museum - the ancestral residence of Hasina's father, Mujibur Rahman, as per CNN.
The interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, took office on August 8, 2024. It pledged to undo the damage done to human rights and democracy during Hasina's 15 years in office. It is also committed to holding free and fair elections on February 12.
A few months ago, a special tribunal sentenced Hasina to death for "crimes against humanity" over her crackdown on student-led protests that led to her ousting. She was tried in absentia by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in Bangladesh.
Prosecutors accused the leader of being behind hundreds of killings during the protests, while Hasina denied all charges and termed them "biased and politically motivated".
