What triggered the Bangladesh anti-government protests?

DHAKA, Bangladesh

The current massive anti-government protests in Bangladesh have their roots in student-led rallies that began in mid-July, during which demonstrators voiced opposition to a high court decision to reinstate quotas for government jobs after they had been abolished in 2018 following massive student protests.

Under the quota system, more than half of civil service jobs were reserved for specific groups. For example, 30% of government jobs were set aside for family members of veterans who fought in the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

In response to the public anger, on July 21 the Supreme Court cut the quotas, advising that 93% of all appointments should be based on merit with immediate effect, with 5% going to descendants of so-called freedom fighters, and 2% to people from ethnic minorities or with disabilities.

The government accepted the advice of the court, but this failed to mollify protesters, who continued to stage wider anti-government demonstrations calling for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to step down, a demand with which she has now seemingly complied.

The protesters have also called for authorities to be held accountable for those killed during the protests, the number of which is estimated to be in the hundreds. 

In confirming Hasina's resignation on Monday, Bangladesh's army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman added that authorities would "punish" those responsible for protest deaths. 

"The country has suffered a lot, the economy has been hit, many people have been killed, it is time to stop the violence," he said in a televised speech. 

Hasina's ruling Awami League party has claimed the transformation of the rallies into broader anti-government protests is an indicator that the protests have been appropriated by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the now-banned Jamaat-e-Islami party.

Having served for a combined total of over 20 years (June 1996 to July 2001 and January 2009 to August 2024), Sheikh Hasina is the longest-serving Prime Minister in Bangladesh's history.

The daughter of Bengali nationalist leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father and first president of Bangladesh, she survived a 1975 coup d'etat, which saw her father and most of her family murdered.

Having been visiting Europe at the time, Hasina took refuge in the house of the Bangladeshi ambassador to West Germany with her husband and children. After accepting an offer of political asylum from Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the family remained in New Delhi for six years, but Hasina was banned from returning to Bangladesh by the military government.

She finally returned home in May 1981 as head of the Awami League, became leader of the opposition in 1991 and became Prime Minister for the first time in 1996.

After returning to opposition in 2001, she survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Dhaka in 2004 before being detained on extortion charges during the 2006-2008 political crisis.

After her release, she won a second term as Prime Minister at the head of a "Grand Alliance" in 2009, going on to win third, fourth and fifth terms in elections regularly boycotted by opposition parties and criticized by international observers.

She resigned and fled the country on August 5, 2024.