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 battle and have been accused of heinous crimes.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, 76, who resigned and fled the nation in a military helicopter on Monday amid widespread unrest, has been identified for utilizing this time period to label anybody she perceived as a menace or dissenter throughout her greater than 15 years in energy.
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 get together gained the elections in 1996. She got here to energy once more in 2009, serving to to attain spectacular financial progress, 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 in response to 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 keep a story in opposition to 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 reputable heirs to the legacy of the nation’s independence and its achievements, whereas portraying dissenters and opposition members from the Bangladesh Nationalist Occasion 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 crucial 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 scholar protests in opposition to 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 virtually instantly. College students felt her remarks unfairly dismissed their efforts to handle 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 means of Dhaka College’s campus, chanting a provocative slogan: “Who’re you? I’m Razakar.”
Hasina’s response was heavy-handed, involving her get together’s scholar 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 individuals died, the overwhelming majority college students and on a regular basis residents, as police and BCL armed cadres fired dwell ammunition.
Somewhat than condemning the violence, Hasina centered on the injury to authorities property, similar to metro rail and state-owned tv buildings.
This solely fuelled the anger of the scholars, who initially demanded a nine-point checklist 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 energetic 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 distinguished scholar 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 get together based by her father.
She performed an important position in organising pro-democracy protests in opposition to Basic 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 dropping 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, similar to pressured disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
Tainted legacy
Rezaul Karim Rony, the editor of Joban journal, instructed Al Jazeera, “She ought to have been tried for these crimes in opposition to humanity. Hasina has dominated by means of worry, implementing repressive legal guidelines and utilizing her safety forces to commit these atrocities.”
In response to 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 individuals described as “militants” or “terrorists” by safety forces have been killed in 143 alleged shootouts and gunfights throughout the nation, in response to one other HRW report.
Rony added: “Tons of of hundreds of individuals have been pressured to go away their properties and dwell in hiding for years as Hasina used police forces to legally harass them and permit extortion.”
Political analyst Zahed Ur Rahman instructed 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 legislation enforcement. He famous that recovering these establishments can be a prolonged course of.
Hasina beforehand stated she was cracking down on corruption, however critics stated there was no proof that the federal government was ever severe about tackling the problem.
Moreover, Hasina has tarnished the legacy of Bangladesh’s liberation battle 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 in opposition to her divisive ways for political achieve,” Rahman stated.
“Finally, this contributed to her downfall.”
