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The mass uprising in Bangladesh and the fall of Sheikh Hasina
NISAR AHMED, former chair of the Bangladeshi Workers Council and long-time community activist, talks to Jamshid Ahmadi, editor of the Liberation Journal, about the momentous struggle that toppled a 15-year regime
People gather in front of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) headquarters during a rally in Dhaka, Bangladesh, August 7, 2024
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Jamshid Ahmadi: Can you briefly outline the background of the student movement that led to the recent mass uprising in Bangladesh?
Nisar Ahmed: The background to the student movement lies in the quota system of allocating 30 per cent of government jobs to children and grandchildren of freedom fighters of the 1971 national liberation war that established the state of Bangladesh. After 53 years had elapsed, such a scheme did not make any rational sense to the students.
Moreover, in the past 15-year rule of the Awami League and Sheikh Hasina, it was misused to benefit party members and to politicise the state machinery. With acute unemployment among youth following two decades of neoliberal economic policies, it was a ticking bomb waiting to detonate.
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