Hasina's Big Challenge

On July 31, Sheikh Hasina may have become the longest serving prime minister of Bangladesh with a total of 20 years (though not consecutively) at the helm, but she has been on the backfoot ever since the recent, explosive protests by college/ university students over reservation for government jobs resulted in around 200 deaths.

- VEENA SIKRI

That’s because in Bangladesh, students have been in the vanguard of national politics, as opinion leaders and dynamic participants. Since the 1971 Liberation War, Bangla desh has had a provision for a 30 per cent quota in civil service and public sector jobs for children of freedom fighters. There was an oft-stated sub-text that beneficiaries of this quota were an important part of Hasina’s Awami League vote-bank. Despite this, in October 2018, when widespread students’ protests sought quota reform, it was PM Hasina who agreed to abolish all reservation. When the Dhaka High Court reversed this decision on June 5, 2024, thereby restoring quotas, and students’ groups were again out on the streets (this time opposing the court’s decision), the Hasina government immediately filed an appeal in the Supreme Court, making it clear that they were not interested in continuing with the quota.