Protesters in Bangladesh Want an End to State Repression

Lydia Silva

The protests began when the Supreme Court of Bangladesh revived a quota reserving 30 percent of government jobs for descendants of freedom fighters who participated in Bangladesh’s war of independence, reversing a reform to the quota system the people won in 2018.

This quota system started in 1972 when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the key leader of the independence movement, introduced it to a war-torn country to recognize those who fought in the independence struggle. However, there was discontent against it from the start, and there have been movements against the quota system on and off ever since, like the mass protests in 2008 and 2013 that were unsuccessful.

In 2018, the quota remained at 56 percent: 30 percent for the descendants of freedom fighters, 10 percent for women, 5 percent for ethnic minorities, 10 percent for specific districts, and 1 percent for people with disabilities, leaving 44 percent for merit-based candidates. This meant that working-class students with high scores could be deprived of jobs and opportunities by those privileged by the quota.

Students led a massive antiquota movement that year and gained substantial public support. They successfully compelled the government to reduce the quota for government jobs. But problems remained regarding the fair implementation of the quota system.

In June this year, the Supreme Court reversed the 2018 reforms, which renewed the students’ antiquota movement. Initially, the movement was confined to public universities. Sheikh Hasina’s government responded with violence and refused to engage in dialogue with the student leaders, which could have spared the country the atrocities we have seen in recent weeks. The government instead waited in silence for the court’s verdict and ignored the campus movement.

Moreover, Hasina further incensed student protestors by asking on…