By Sazzad Haider
As like the Arab Spring, “the monsoon movement” is stirring the skies of South Asia. The youth of the South Asian countries have taken to the streets with unprecedented courage, pouring blood from their chests, chanting “We Want Justice”.
Bangladeshi students took to the streets to remove discrimination. In this movement, they dismissed the old political philosophy—they wanted to end all inequalities. They rejected nepotism, muscle power, corruption, lawlessness and dictatorship in politics.
After Bangladesh, the air of India and Pakistan is now full of similar slogans. These are the uprising of Generation Z “the group of people who were born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s, who are regarded as being very familiar with the internet.”
Following month-long movement in Bangladesh- Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year democratic dictatorship has been swept away by this Generation Z uprising. Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League are now in the past in Bangladesh. Like every other infamous dictator, Sheikh Hasina did not hesitate to commit genocide before her fall. According to the United Nations, 650 people lost their lives, including 32 children.
From mid-July to August 5, the people of Bangladesh spent a night of death, murder, fire and terror. On the afternoon of August 5, hours after Sheikh Hasina had fled to India, a large sculpture Sheikh Mujib that had been placed on the streets of Dhaka fell to the ground. Hasina saved her life by putting her ministers, party workers, police and other law enforcement officers in danger.
As like Romanian Ceaușescu or North Korean Kim, several hundred status of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the architect of Bangladesh were installed and Hasina had taken a variety of legal measures to ensure the people’s respect for her father.
Like an autocrat, she had created Sheikh-family, giving a monarchy status, making law to protect her own family. The Sheikh family was involved in every development project which she promoted. In her latest press conference as Prime Minister, she made a comment that her office peon owns 40 million rupees by malpractice. From this example one can infer some of the corruption of the last 15 years. It can be said that the Sheikh family became the owner of the entire country. People’s anger against this family is so great that after Hasina’s fall, numerous sculptures of her father built with people’s money all over the country were razed to the ground, her father’s residence was set on fire – Sheikh Hasina’s official residence, her personal residence, relatives, ministers and party leaders’ residences were also burnt.
All the qualities of a modern dictator were existed in this democratic autocrat. Sheikh Hasina fell due to the following five reasons among numerous reasons.
1. Hasina came to power in 2008 and adopted an approach that ensured her power would last forever. For this she set a vision 41 – that is, her party Awami Leugue will be in power till 2041, in other words she will be in power for as long as life lasts. After coming to power, she set into motion the plan to remove the obstacles by suppressing dissentients. She never hid her love for India. To get India’s favor, she fulfilled all India’s demands, signed India favored unequal treaties. Within months of coming to power, a mutiny by Bangladesh Rifle ( Border Guards) killed around eighty military officials. Sheikh Hasina wasted unnecessary time in taking a decision to suppress this rebellion-which makes this rebellion as a mysterious event.
Allegedly, this rebellion took place at behest of India to weaken the Bangladesh Army, which had anti-India attitude. The lack of transparency in government investigations further fueled this allegation. After this mutiny, a purge was carried out in the army and Hasina’s staunch loyalists were appointed to high posts. Then Sheikh Hasina embarked on a mission to eradicate the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the main political opponent. The leaders and workers of this party are burdened with assault cases and torture. Hasina turned the police into a party force.
Then she brought the high court under her directive. As a Chief Justice refused to write a verdict on Hasina’s wish, that Justice was tortured by military intelligence forces and sent out of the country. She politicized the entire administration as she politicized administration, the military and the high courts. She brought the Election Commission under her will. In the future, only Awami League people get all the government jobs, therefore, she set a quota of 30% of government job for the grandson/granddaughter of the so-called freedom fighters.
2. Hasina’s obedient, the Election Commission, conducted North Korea-style three national elections without voters, without participation of opposition parties. The younger generation has never given vote in their lifetime. Sheikh Hasina formed the so-called opposition party in parliament with a faction of her own party. She was slowly moving towards one-party rule.
3. Sheikh Hasina enacted various laws to curtail freedom of expression – one of which was the Digital Security Act. One of the goals of this law was to control various media based on the Internet, especially social media. During her tenure, all the newspapers and television channels were owned by her flatterers. So, through all these propaganda tools, the drum of development activities was constantly played as like North Korea style. She sent independent journalism into exile successfully. There are allegations that many journalists were jailed, some had gone missing, and a writer has been killed in jail.
4. She used to spread the myth of Islamic militancy to keep the opposition under pressure and gaining western supports. She used various laws to suppress militancy. Her police were given a license to kill so called militants in a sight. Another force—the Rapid Action Battalion—or RAB ( which is under US sanctions) was tasked with staging cross-fire dramas and killing people in the name of counter-militancy. Thousands of people were victims of these extrajudicial killings every year. Sheikh Hasina built a torture house called “Mirror House” operated by army intelligence. Suspects were brought to this building to be tortured before being killed, and the suspects were held for years without any information being provided to the families.
From politicians to common people used to suffer from mirror anxiety. After the fall of Hasina, many people were rescued from this Mirror House who had been missing for eight years. Their families assumed these members were not alive. Apart from this, there were the gangs of ruling Awami League and its wing organizations Jubo League and Chhatra League. They set many precedents of beating people to death and shooting indiscriminately.
5. In the last fifteen years, Sheikh Hasina had manifested corruption all over the country. From cabinet to throughout the administration, a group of “yes man” were nominated—whose main job was to support Sheikh Hasina’s corruption. Moreover, members of the Sheikh family acted as godfathers to supervise the ministers. Other autocrats in the world, Sheikh Hasina took many big projects for the country’s needs/non-needs. The Hasina family used to get a large share of all these big projects. The Hasina family used to get a large share of all these big projects. Ousted Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy and niece Tulip Siddiq embezzled $5 billion from overpriced $12.65 billion Rooppur nuclear power plant through Malaysian banks, according to report by Global Defense Corporation.
Several cases of genocide has been filed against Sheikh Hasina. Various international organizations, including the United Nations, have also started investigating Sheikh Hasina’s crimes. Sheikh Hasina has no chance to sleep in peace even though she is under political asylum in India.
About the author:
Sazzad Haider is Writer & journalist, lives in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is Editor-in-Chief of Diplomatic Journal.
