Speaking to journalists on 26 July, the Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina could not stop herself from weeping. She had spent fifteen years developing her nation, she said, and now the fruits of that development were being destroyed. Hasina was referring to a metro station in Mirpur – a shining symbol of the country’s plan to upgrade its infrastructure – which had been vandalized by student protesters. She alluded to a conspiracy involving the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, whom she accused of waging a campaign of violent sabotage. She said nothing, however, about the hundreds of demonstrators who had been shot dead by state forces over the previous week.

The trigger for the unrest was the decision to restore a quota that reserves 30% of government jobs for the extended families of veterans of the 1971 liberation war, which effectively means supporters of the regime. The so-called ‘freedom fighter quota’, along with corruption in the civil service exam, bars many of the brightest students from such professional opportunities. This is anathema to Bangladesh’s middle-class youth, who are both deeply aspirational and fiercely patriotic. Many of them have the skills to find work abroad, yet they are determined to stay and serve their country. Last month they took to the streets in their thousands to demand the reform of the system. Hasina’s ruling Awami League responded with a brutal crackdown, sending in its militia and security officials. Some protesters tried to fight back. Others, whom the government claims were infiltrators from opposition groups, attacked government buildings and public infrastructure. A nationwide curfew was imposed and the internet was shut down; arbitrary detentions and raids are ongoing. The court abolished the quota, but the movement is now demanding justice and accountability. As the death toll rose to 250, the government tried to coerce the detained student leaders into calling off the protests. It has so far been unsuccessful.

‘Bloody July’ has shocked the nation. Millions watched viral videos that showed the 22-year-old activist Abu Sayeed being shot by police at a protest in Rangpur and another young protester being tossed from the top of an armoured military vehicle and left for dead on the side of the road. Such images will not be forgotten. The Awami League appears to have squandered whatever legitimacy it may have had. This was not only its most significant political crisis to date; it was also a direct challenge to the party’s narrative of ‘development success’. The government had assumed that if it could deliver high growth rates and some public services, its one-party rule would be secure.

But while GDP has grown by 6% annually and infrastructure investment has been significant, prosperity has failed to trickle down to the middle and working classes. Development projects are marred by corruption and enrich those close to power. The broader macroeconomic situation is gloomy, with an IMF programme in place that demands spending restrictions and liberalizing reforms. The government has borrowed heavily from other Asian countries, leaving the economy vulnerable to currency and market volatility. When the protests erupted, Hasina had just returned from a trip to Beijing, where she was seeking $5 billion to shore up the country’s dwindling foreign-exchange reserves. Meanwhile, most Bangladeshis have suffered a punishing cost-of-living crisis, precipitated by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, with the current rate of inflation close to 10%. Even the relatively privileged have felt the bite.

Since winning a landslide in the last free elections in late 2008, the Awami League has manipulated each subsequent ballot. It has done so with an increasingly heavy hand, seeking to marginalize or eradicate opposition parties. Thousands of BNP activists and leaders have been jailed. The former BNP Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia is under house arrest, while her son, Tarique Zia, is in exile. The party could not mount an effective opposition to the boycotted elections of 2024 nor the rigged ones of 2018. Jamaat-e-Islami has been banned, yet the government continues to invoke the threat of an Islamist takeover – alleging, without clear evidence, that Islamists were behind last month’s attack on the Narsingdi jail, which led to the release of 800 inmates including some convicted terrorists.

Public criticism of the government has also been criminalized over the last decade. Human rights advocates face harassment and arrest; journalists are hit with multiple lawsuits if they fail to toe the line; ‘disappearances’ are frequent. All this has been enabled by the Awami League’s unprecedented success in fusing with the state apparatus – the bureaucracy, security forces, judiciary – while also co-opting civil society and big business. While the spectre of a military takeover has haunted previous governments, Hasina has managed to satisfy the army via contracts, licences and strategic appointments, along with lucrative UN peace-keeping missions for the rank-and-file. Previously, Bangladesh’s state institutions have been known to break with the government and ‘align with the people’ – as in 1990, when military rule was overthrown by a mass popular movement, and 1996, when another uprising succeeded in establishing a caretaker government. But the current fusion of party and state has foreclosed this prospect. With Bangladesh turning to China and India for finance, it is no longer clear that Western countries have enough leverage to promote political alternatives, as they did during the 2006-08 transition.

With each new election over the past fifteen years, the political settlement comprising the ruling party, the state machinery and big capital has been further consolidated. Yet the general population has grown disenchanted as the promise of equitable development has been betrayed. Now, the strength of this elite power bloc seems less assured. Bangladeshi history has been punctuated by moments of mass mobilization which have often toppled unpopular incumbents. The current uprising is being likened to the 1952 Language Movement, when students in what was then East Pakistan protested against plans to make Urdu the official state language, which would have deprived Bengalis of jobs in the elite civil service corps. This was the opening salvo in the longer struggle that culminated in the 1971 war of independence. Will Bloody July light a similar fuse?

The young people who have been killed and brutalized over the past month have contributed much to Bangladesh: building its IT sector (with little government assistance), starting thousands of initiatives to support people during the pandemic, providing disaster relief and setting up non-profits to help the poor. This educated stratum is essential for a deprived nation trying to grow into a middle-income one and diversify its economy. Yet Hasina’s regime seems intent on alienating them. In doing so, many believe it has sown the seeds of its eventual downfall.

Read on: Tariq Ali, ‘Bangladesh: Results and Prospects’, NLR I/68.