Dhaka, Bangladesh – All of it started with a single phrase: “Razakar“.
In Bangladesh, “Razakar” is a extremely offensive time period. The phrase means volunteers however it refers to those that supported the Pakistani army’s operation to quell the 1971 Bangladesh liberation conflict and have been accused of heinous crimes.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, 76, who resigned and fled the country in a military helicopter on Monday amid widespread unrest, has been identified for utilizing this time period to label anybody she perceived as a risk or dissenter throughout her greater than 15 years in power.
The daughter of the nation’s founding father and former President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina was the chief of a pro-democracy rebellion that toppled army ruler and then-President Hossain Mohammad Ershad from energy in 1990.
Hasina first grew to become prime minister after her Awami League occasion received the elections in 1996. She got here to energy once more in 2009, serving to to realize spectacular financial development, whereas rising more and more autocratic, cracking down on free speech, dissent and opposition in Bangladesh, a rustic of 170 million and the world’s eighth-most populated.
Hasina’s tenure because the longest-serving feminine head of presidency in Bangladesh was marked by means of safety forces, together with the infamous Fast Motion Battalion paramilitary, which she was accused of utilizing to abduct and even kill opposition members and dissenters, and allegedly rig the elections.
Even the judiciary, a largely bipartisan establishment, grew to become compromised throughout her tenure based on critics, forcing a chief justice to flee the nation after he opposed her in a ruling.
Then there was the mainstream media, which, critics say, Hasina managed to craft and preserve a story towards her opponents. Most of Bangladesh’s mainstream media retailers are owned by companies with ties to the Awami League.
The management over the media allowed Hasina to depict her supporters because the reliable heirs to the legacy of the nation’s independence and its achievements, whereas portraying dissenters and opposition members from the Bangladesh Nationalist Social gathering and Jamaat-e-Islami (Bangladesh Islamic Meeting) as remnants of treasonous and “extremist” factions.
Former Prime Minister and key opposition chief Begum Khaleda Zia was imprisoned in 2018 on corruption fees, whereas a number one determine in Jamaat-e-Islami was executed in 2016.
Nevertheless, Hasina made a essential misstep by labelling college students protesting for job quota reforms as “Razakar”, thereby crossing the rubicon.
Heavy-handed response sparks fireplace
Throughout a information convention on July 14, Hasina was requested by a reporter concerning the pupil protests towards job quotas which had been occurring for greater than every week.
In response, Hasina dismissively remarked, “If the grandchildren of freedom fighters don’t obtain [quota] advantages, who will? The grandchildren of Razakars?”
Her feedback ignited protests nearly instantly. College students felt her remarks unfairly dismissed their efforts to deal with the “unfair” quota system in authorities jobs, which reserved some 30 % of positions for the descendants of freedom fighters of the 1971 liberation motion.
The scholars started protesting inside hours, marching by Dhaka College’s campus, chanting a provocative slogan: “Who’re you? I’m Razakar.”
Hasina’s response was heavy-handed, involving her occasion’s pupil wing, the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), and the police to quell the protests. This led to a day of violence on July 16, which resulted in six deaths.
Over the following 4 days, greater than 200 folks died, the vast majority students and everyday citizens, as police and BCL armed cadres fired dwell ammunition.
Quite than condemning the violence, Hasina centered on the injury to authorities property, equivalent to metro rail and state-owned tv buildings.
This solely fuelled the anger of the scholars, who initially demanded a nine-point list of reforms, together with Hasina’s unconditional apology and the elimination of the minister for house affairs, Asaduzzaman Khan, in addition to different ministers.
The protesters’ calls for ultimately coalesced into one cry: Hasina’s resignation.
Hasina’s ascent to energy
Born in 1947 in what was once East Pakistan, Hasina was politically lively from a younger age. Her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, often known as the “Father of the Nation”, led Bangladesh to independence from Pakistan in 1971 and have become its first president.
By that point, Hasina had already made a reputation for herself as a outstanding pupil chief at Dhaka College. The assassination of her father and most of her household throughout a 1975 army coup left her and her youthful sister as the one survivors, as they have been overseas on the time.
After spending a interval in exile in India, Hasina returned to Bangladesh in 1981 and took over the management of the Awami League, the occasion based by her father.
She performed an important position in organising pro-democracy protests towards Normal Hussain Muhammad Ershad’s army authorities, quickly gaining nationwide prominence.
Hasina first grew to become the prime minister in 1996, incomes recognition for securing a water-sharing settlement with India and a peace accord with tribal fighter teams in southeastern Bangladesh.
Nevertheless, her administration confronted criticism for alleged corruption and perceived favouritism in direction of India, which led to her shedding energy to her former ally-turned-rival, Begum Khaleda Zia.
In 2008, Hasina was re-elected as prime minister in a sweeping victory and subsequently led the federal government for the following 16 years.
All through her prolonged tenure, Hasina’s administration has been characterised by widespread political arrests and extreme abuses, equivalent to compelled disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
Tainted legacy
Rezaul Karim Rony, the editor of Joban journal, advised Al Jazeera, “She ought to have been tried for these crimes towards humanity. Hasina has dominated by worry, implementing repressive legal guidelines and utilizing her safety forces to commit these atrocities.”
In accordance with Human Rights Watch, since Sheikh Hasina’s tenure started in 2009, safety forces have been implicated in additional than 600 enforced disappearances.
Between January 2015 and December 2020, at the least 755 folks described as “militants” or “terrorists” by safety forces have been killed in 143 alleged shootouts and gunfights throughout the nation, based on one other HRW report.
Rony added: “A whole bunch of 1000’s of individuals have been compelled to depart their houses and dwell in hiding for years as Hasina used police forces to legally harass them and permit extortion.”
Political analyst Zahed Ur Rahman advised Al Jazeera that essentially the most important injury Hasina has inflicted on the nation is corruption in key establishments such because the judiciary, election fee, media and regulation enforcement. He famous that recovering these establishments can be a prolonged course of.
Hasina beforehand mentioned she was cracking down on corruption, however critics mentioned there was no proof that the federal government was ever critical about tackling the difficulty.
Moreover, Hasina has tarnished the legacy of Bangladesh’s liberation conflict by distorting its narrative.
“The scholar protesters have been so angered by Hasina labelling them as ‘Razakar’ that they started utilizing the time period themselves as a type of protest towards her divisive ways for political acquire,” Rahman mentioned.
“In the end, this contributed to her downfall.”