Beyond the Revolution: Building a New Bangladesh

Hasina’s ousting as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh on August 5, 2024, as the longest-serving Bangladeshi head of state and world’s longest-serving female over job quotas, has left the new interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus with a range of issues including resurgent Islamist parties, communal tensions, lawlessness, surging inflation, and inability to hold perpetrators of the revolution’s victims accountable. Bangladesh’s strategic location in the Bay of Bengal near the strategic chokepoint of the Strait of Malacca, which handles 33 percent of global trade and half of the world’s container traffic, has made the country of 180 million a battleground for US-China competition in the Indo-Pacific. Bangladesh’s 2022 inauguration of the Chinese-built Padma Bridge, the 2023 inauguration of the Chinese-built BNS Sheikh Hasina naval base and its place as the second largest destination for Chinese military imports have distanced Washington as a strategic competitor in the region, presenting new challenges for New Delhi as well. Once touted as the “Iron Lady” of Asia, Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was both the longest-serving Bangladeshi head of state and the world’s longest-serving female. However, on August 5, 2024, her reign came to an unceremonious end as a student-led revolution, which started after the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh reinstated a quota system for government jobs on June 5, 2024, forced her to flee to India and resign from office. Today, “July 36” refers to the date of Hasina’s resignation and subsequent collapse of her Awami League government, which has also been heralded in pop culture as Bangladesh’s “Second Independence.” According to a report by the Human Rights Support Society, more than 30,000 people were injured and more than 875 were killed in the collective unrest, 77 percent of whom died from gunshot wounds. While Nobel laureate and social entrepreneur, Dr. Muhammad Yunus’s appointment to lead the fifty-three-year-old nation—born after a revolution celebrated and strongly supported by Western capitals to provide Bangladesh a fresh start—was positively received at home and abroad, his task of assuring that the country’s institutions regain public trust, once captured by Hasina’s fifteen-year electoral autocracy, is daunting. The growing challenges ranging from Islamist parties, communal tensions, surging inflation, and inability to hold perpetrators of the revolution’s victims accountable seem distant from reaching the solutions the Yunus-led interim government promised: establishing reforms in the election commission, civil administration, and implementing judiciary and security forces in time for the upcoming elections.