Sheikh Hasina’s regime, termed a ‘thugocracy’ by The Economist,1 ruled Bangladesh for over 15 years, making Hasina the longest-serving woman head of state. Relying on ‘patronage politics’, the Hasina-led Awami League government captured all state institutions, effectively vanishing the differences between the state and the ruling party.2 The country was on the verge of becoming a totalitarian state after three sham elections overseen by Sheikh Hasina’s government in 2014, 2018 and 2024, in which AL won landslide victories by rigging the elections and disenfranchising the people.
Because of the lack of democracy, accountability within the institutions declined, giving birth to some significant structural issues—large-scale financial scams in banking sectors, money laundering, and crony capitalism—which eventually resulted in jobless growth, where the economy expanded but did not generate sufficient jobs to absorb the growing workforce, especially for graduates and skilled labour. According to the Labour Force Survey 2022, graduate unemployment in Bangladesh increased to 28% by 2022.
The lack of decent jobs in the private sector, especially for graduates, made public sector jobs more demanding than ever. Hence, in June 2024, when a Bangladeshi court decided to restore the discriminatory quota-based recruitment system for public jobs where 56% of jobs are reserved for different groups of people, youth in Bangladesh who were already suffering from an acute job crisis due to the decade-long jobless growth under the Hasina regime, started protesting.3 By mid-July, the protests turned deadly when Sheikh Hasina’s government ordered a brutal crackdown, and within weeks, the death toll went beyond hundreds.
As the protesters, led by the youths, asked for accountability for the murders during the crackdown, Hasina’s government ignored the call and ordered fresh violence on protesters on August 4. More protesters died on the streets, mainly in the hands of Awami League-backed cadres, on that day. This triggered the protesters to declare the ‘March to Dhaka’. As protesters came out on August 5, defying curfew, Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled.
With Sheikh Hasina’s downfall, the aspiration for democracy was renewed.
In this context, the Asia Democracy Network (ADN) and Sydney Policy and Analysis Centre (SPAC) organised the fourth bimonthly webinar series on Bangladesh on August 23, 2024. During the webinar, the participants discussed the nature of Bangladesh’s youth uprising and the future of Bangladesh’s democracy.
This brief provides a summary of the discussion.
Bangladeshs-Youth-Uprising-Towards-a-Democratic-Future-Final-Approved-2