M. Rashiduzzaman
Multiple assumptions emerged from the furious anti-job quota protests that recently catapulted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (Hasina) to her worst encounter during her last 15-years of uninterrupted rule. The number of deaths swirled beyond two hundred as of this writing; overwhelming brutalities, rampant arson, prolonged curfews, internet suspension and countless destruction of public and private properties triggered severe damage to the country’s economy. What began as a student protest soon yielded to a populist uprising! The stunning national turbulence uneasily paused when the military patrolled the streets but the roil had already dwarfed all the opposition stirrings staged since the birth of Bangladesh. While closing this article, Dhaka was still under flexible curfews and the searing student dissent, sometimes in company with the political and civil society leaders, sporadically continued in parts of Dhaka and other neighborhoods of Bangladesh.
And yet, the wrangle over the thirty percent job reservation for the 1971 “freedom-fighters” (Muktijuddas) as well as their descendants is at the center of the larger and the yet-to-be-resolved questions of Bangladesh history that still twist politics as much as it did in the past. In the sphere of identity, the Muktijuddas’ (freedom fighters) special job allotment intertwined with the Muktijuddar Chetona (independence struggle’s consciousness), embellished as the newfangled nationalist glue instead of Muslim nationalism that clenched earlier East Pakistan.
Blame it on the BNP, the Jamaat-e-Islami (Jamaat) and other colluding groups, however, became a worn-out stance of the AL and its known allies. I wonder how the recent outlawing of the Jamaat would bring relief to the incumbents facing an escalating hostility heading towards its final reckoning. Such blame-shifting ignores the vibes of the country’s worst civil strife that set Bangladesh on the edge of a civil war that already saw an enormous loss of lives and destruction of infrastructures. Political parties usually take advantage of widespread civil agitations to promote their respective goals—a well-known reality of politics. Hasina declared perilous victories in the last three swindled elections, including one earlier this year. Her resilient entitlement to power came from Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, her father, whose obdurate articulation of East Pakistani grievances eventually led Bangladesh to its independence in 1971.
This article, however, offers a historical trajectory of the contemporary anti-quota gripes with discerning hints for its readers.
The epoch-making anti-quota turmoil further echoed the nation’s bifurcated history and divided national perceptions. Thousands of individuals who fled the Pakistani onslaught in 1971 demanded, on their return from India, a payoff for their professed services as well as the sacrifices made during the battles for independence. It was during that period of patriotic euphoria; Sheikh Mujibur Rahman hosted a quota classification in 1972 for the participants in the 1971 war and the victims of the Pakistani repression. They were not alone. The East Pakistani Bengalis of the Pakistani military and civil services who, in 1971, defected and worked with the exiled Bangladesh government in India, got additional promotions in newly independent Bangladesh. Such tailored backing also went to their family members, sometimes on compassionate considerations. Few questioned those patronages on grounds of the established recruitment and seniority rules for public officials. Whoever could exhibit the rudiments of proof for serving as a freedom fighter and whoever carried a political endorsement for such a petition, received state aid including stipends, pensions, and employment, both at the higher and lower echelons of bureaucracy. A new band of civil servants emerged at the dawn of Bangladesh independence— commonly, the cadre, I believe, carried the name of a young but prominent AL leader in the opening years of Bangladesh. Those officials later became full members of the Bangladesh Civil Service ranks, and the carefully picked colleagues of that bunch enjoyed favored postings during Hasina’s term. Under the cover of such reservations, the real target was, to the detriment of the country’s national interests, to create a partisan bureaucracy.
The consensus for such privileges slowly eroded for a range of scandalous abuses under the Hasina regime, riddled with gigantic corruption charges at the highest places. Fake recipients of the Muktijudda quota still made disturbing news from time to time. It did not take long before people realized that the so-called quota system became a partisan concealment for outright bribery. When the 30% freedom fighters’ set-aside added with other such allocations, the total percentage of reserved civil service positions reached 56%. It left only 44% of the civil service slots for the meritorious students in a country with staggering unemployment problems for the educated young men and women. That is what produced the dark clouds over the quota landscape!
When the huge job reservation for the Muktijuudas originated in independent Bangladesh, the country’s locus of power rested with Sheikh Mujib’s popular charisma, —far less on the remains of the new country’s institutional process! While he was in Pakistan jail in 1971, it was Tajuddin Ahmed who conducted the independence struggle joined by other like-minded groups and leaders. Still, the AL surrendered the party’s as well as the country’s exclusive authority to Mujib. Later in 1975, he abruptly switched his AL into a single party reign through the Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BKSAL), his new outfit until he died in a violent coup in 1975. The emotional make-up of the nation, of course, changed significantly when the 1975 bloody coup transferred power to the new military-cum-civilian rulers for over a decade. They offered alternative visions of history and identity. Sheikh Hasina’s call for her father’s mantle facilitated her rise in the AL leadership, while the party had no dearth of senior and more experienced leaders at the time of her shift to the party’s highest peak.
When Sheikh Hasina brought the AL back to power in 1997 after a 21-year interval, she took quick steps to restore Sheikh Mujib as the “sole founder” of Bangladesh—the father of the nation. Those steps added to her followers’ obligation to accept her presumptive leadership of the AL. Once Hasina established herself as the country’s authoritarian prime minister, she used a string of patronages, including job allocation, direct and indirect favors to the shady businesspeople, politicians, and her allies to spawn her loyal enclaves across the gamut. Those covert sources of power and her repressive stratagem faced the ire of the country’s violent upheaval at this writing.
Prime Minister Hasina’s jibe that the opponents of the quota allocations were the descendants of the Razakars, an epithet habitually hurled at those who supported Pakistan in 1971, became the catalyst for a peaceful protest exploding into a violent confrontation. Of course, she denied the allegation later. Her merciless crackdown by the police, the Chattra League (the AL’s student wing) and their armed goons spiraled the protest with calamitous consequences. But it was the same Prime Minister who, out of frustrations, cancelled the job quota to diffuse a growing student agitation in 2018. Afterward, the special job allocations reverted in full gear when, in June 2024, the High Court reinstated the disputed job allocations.
Will Sheikh Hasina jettison the quota system for the 1971-veterans as well as their successors? More recently, the Supreme Court has reduced the Muktijudda quota to 5% and only 2% of such allocation will now go to the selected disadvantaged groups. Hasina, so far, has not abolished the quota privileges. The Supreme Court’s quota reduction, however, came too late when the horrible massacres already changed Bangladesh’s political map. Soon the anti-quota movement became a nationwide protest that wanted regime change. The legacy of the Bangladeshi students’ history-churning movements unrolls back to its East Pakistani and Colonial Bengal eras although in the contemporary years such colossal agitations were less visible for a plethora of logistical and political reasons. Prime Minister Hasina will, however, hesitate to ditch the patronage to the 1971 freedom fighters and their heirs. Her dilemmas are not far to imagine! If she rescinds the Muktijudda job quota under the tsunami of protests now, it will then turn up like a humiliating defeat for her. But it will be grueling for her to stick to power amid the national mayhem and the international vehemence against the massive loss of life and continuous repression in the country.
Unfortunately, the Muktijudda-quota’s selection and disbursement saga remain shrouded in half-truths, lies and sleaze. Beyond the published quota for the Class 1 and Class 2 civil servants, huge influence-paddled appointments go to the much larger sectors of Class 3 and Class 4 government officials in the lower ranks. Conspicuously, the patronage power gives Hasina the carrot with which she created her own enclaves—her political armor– in the bureaucracy, security forces and police which are her newfound pillars of power. Those who enjoyed the reserved jobs and other payments were her core supporters among people.
To climb the highest ladder of power in Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina recycled history as the Bangabandhu-Kannya (daughter of Bangabandhu/Sheikh Mujibur Rahman). With the protesters demanding Hasina’s resignation, did history also turn against her own personal privileges derived from her father? In the middle of the agonizing showdown with the devastating anti-quota pickets, Bangladesh faces a worrying existential challenge. Only time will tell how this mutiny over history will unfold!
M. Rashiduzzaman is a retired academic who occasionally writes Bangladeshi political history and Muslim identity issues.