Fight goes on for real change in Bangladesh

Students called for an end to the corrupt and discriminatory quota system in Bangladesh (Photo: wikimedia)

The students and democracy activists that last week overthrew hated dictator Sheikh Hasina must not now be cheated out of total victory. Bangladesh last week swore in an interim government, headed by 85-year-old Nobel laureate Muhammed Yunus.

This pioneer of microfinance lending schemes is the choice of many student activists and has some popularity with the poor. Among his new cabinet are Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud, student activists who helped lead the anti‑government protests.

The decision to name Yunus as the chief adviser of the interim government followed a meeting last week between the military, the BNP official opposition party and the students.

Representatives there agreed that full, democratic elections should be held within three months. And the students rightly insisted that the army should be excluded from the interim administration. Democratic In office, Yunus will be forced to perform a balancing act.

He sees his first job as reassuring the students that the old regime is dead and further democratic change is coming. But he also wants to reassure the ruling class that he can stabilise the country and restore the authority of the state.

“You have placed your trust in me, the students have called upon me, and I have responded to that,” Yunus said, surrounded by student leaders decades younger than him.

“Make sure that no one is attacked anywhere in this country. This is our first responsibility,” he added.

During his brief statement, he repeatedly fought back tears as he spoke about Abu Sayeed, a student protester whose murder by cops was caught on camera and helped fuel insurrectionary rage.

“My first word is that you protect the country from disorder,” Yunus pleaded. Ongoing violence in Bangladesh is a reality. The hated police have disappeared from the streets and gone into hiding.

Students seeking revenge for their dead and injured comrades are hunting them and burning down police stations. Along with local mosques, they are also trying to keep a semblance of order in many neighbourhoods.

The civil service is also largely paralysed, and the economy is in tatters, with foreign currency reserves dwindling. The collapse of much of the state means there is an atmosphere of extreme tension.

Regional powers, India and China are watching anxiously, determined that whatever government finally emerges, it does nothing to upset the strategic balance of power. India cherishes its relationship with the Bangladeshi ruling class, in part as a bulwark against its arch-enemy Pakistan.

China hopes to pull the country further into its economic orbit as part of its rivalry with US imperialism. Both powers might be happier if the army was in charge. The army says it supports Yunus and has so far made no attempt to take power for itself. Its leaders have long been used to corrupt handouts from the old Awami League-run state.

But the League is now a broken force, with Sheikh Hasina forced into exile last week and many other leading figures being pursued by the furious students.

The generals in Bangladesh will try to pressurise the interim government to allow them to play a role in “restoring order”—and to continue the flow of cash and power to the army.

For now, they know that any attempt to impose a military regime would re-ignite the mass movement and is therefore too risky. Its force of 200,000 troops cannot rule easily over a population of over 170 million people, and it has little popular standing or credibility.

But the army will seek to regain domination. There is also a threat that either the neoliberal Bangladesh National Party or the right wing Islamic party, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, could try to fill the political vacuum.

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Socialist activist Mushtuq, based in the capital Dhaka, told Socialist Worker that the students’ leadership is aware of the dangers.

“The student mass uprising is not only for removing Hasina, but must also dismantle the autocratic system,” he said.

“Student leaders are already the most powerful stakeholder in the interim government.”

 And Mushtuq was positive about the way students were now patrolling the streets of the capital and beyond.

“They are maintaining the law and order situation in Dhaka city in the absence of the police.

“The lawlessness and vandalism is orchestrated by defeated, armed goons of the Awami League, and by organised clandestine groups of Islamist militants,” he said.

“The student leadership and democratic left have combined to call on the people to resist them and sustain the victory.”

The movement has always reflected an anger about Bangladeshi society that goes wider than dictatorship and corruption. Its initial spark was a court decision to reinstate a quota system for government jobs that benefited Awami League supporters.

But that anger was itself a reaction to massive levels of graduate and youth unemployment. And it is also a reaction to a huge cost of living crisis, borne by workers, the poor and much of the middle class.

That calamity has only grown in recent weeks, putting the interim regime under enormous pressure. The ambition to create a new, democratic and socially just Bangladesh hangs in the balance.