Bangladesh on boil: quota, nationalism, Sheikh Hasina’s politics, ‘razakar’ taunt, job crisis

I wish Shekhar Gupta has actually talked with some Bengali Journalists from West Bengal to understand the situation a little bit better. The high court and Supreme court is following Sheikh Hasina's orders nowadays. Our Chief Justice Surendra kumar Sinha has to go to Canada for asylum because he refused to do Sheikh Hasina's bidding. Then our Noble winner Dr. Younus was in jail because he is not following her. Anyone who is against her got termed as Razakars. Like Jamat e Islam uses religion for politics, Awami league uses our independence war for politics.

There is no high court, supreme court, army, police in Bangladesh. Hasina is the only authority there. She's trying to blame HC for the ruling.

Btw August 15 has a kind of status in the subcontinent 's history. India's independence in 1947; Sheikh Mujib's assassination in 1975 & Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021

There is a huge difference between the judiciary system in India vs BD. In BD Sheikh Hasina is everything. A complete totalleterian!

You are trying to sugar coat the dark episodes here. From 1972 all the Freedom fighter quota jobs went to Awami League party people.Now 56% is quota and rest of the jobs 44 percent is also unofficially in the hand of the Awami League political cadres. Basically 100% of the govt job including civil bureaucracy, judiciary, police and you name it. Now military cadet are also from the political family connection preferences.

you perhaps have consciously forgotten to mention that - The judiciary in Bangladesh is not independent but 100% partial to Awami League. Hasina government doesn’t have people’s mandate to cling on to power. Both of the last two elections were rigged the last one being with no practical opposition since Hasina had put the opposition leaders in jail prior to election. There is plenty of research data confirming the so called GDP rise during Hasina’s tenure is based on manipulated data. Finally, the opposition parties had nothing to do with the students movement from the outset - but hasina kept blaming them to mis-portray their sentiment. The mere excessive use of force -ongoing arbitrary killing of young lives to quell the movement in fear of losing tenure on the face of protests -itself confirms the autocratic nature of the kleptocracy Bangladesh has at present, which again along with the historically unprecedented level of corruption in Hasina’s administration you didn’t mention - but you should have, for a genuinely rounded analysis.

Mr. Gupta, your analysis is riddled with errors and biases. First, you make Jamat appear to be a formidable force. Truth is, unlike India, religion based politics has never been big in Bangladesh. On their own, Jamat can maybe win 5 seats. Also, there’s no significant difference between Hasina and Khaleda’s parties in terms of their alliances. They both have both Islamists and Socialists as allies. It is true though that Awami League is the pro-India party. Secondly, there’s no independent judiciary in Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina IS the “hukum”. The court decision was a game she wanted to play which went horribly wrong. Finally, nobody with an ounce of knowledge in official statistics believes Bangladesh’s economic data. The state bank had to revise the export figures down only days ago. The exporters have been saying for years that the data is seriously inflated. IMF forced Hasina to revise the foreign reserve figure previously. The rosy picture of Hasina’s economic development is pure nonsense. This is a volatile time for Bangladesh. Kindly do a bit more research next time if you’re speaking on this issue.

I never supported CAA or Farmer Proetst. But this is something i want to see in IndIa also - A Nationwide Protest against ALL Reservations and Quotas. How unfair it is for Students to be treated like sh*t, When Merit and Hard effort is ignored in the name of Reservation and Quotas.

Usually Shekhar is not a fan of authoritarians. But perhaps because of Sheikh Hasina's India tilt (or his worry of Islamists coming to power) he seems willing to forgive her quite extreme ways: the judiciary (all the way to the supreme court), press, bureaucracy, police, and opposition have been brutalized by her. I am surprised and a bit sad to see this. But I suppose at least he is doing this in service of patriotism (since this authoritarianism is "positive" for India).

@SG You too have believed the propaganda that Pakistan dishes out to its population wrt East Pakistan aka Bangladesh. Fact is, in 1947, East Pakistan used to have bigger economy than West Pakistan. This situation started changing after the 1958 coup by Gen Ayub Khan. This is when West Pakistan started impoverishing East Pakistan to enrich itself. . This is the genesis of the resentment of the Bengalis towards West Pakistan. The Bengalis who visited newly created Islamabad, used to say that they can smell their looted money to create this city. It was not the politicians, public or journalists but the Bengali economists who were the driving force behind the 6 points of autonomy of East Pakistan from West Pakistan which ultimately led to the 8 months long bloody civil war and birth of Bangladesh. In fact, a Harvard educated Bengali economist had predicted breakup of Pakistan to Gen Ayub Khan way back in 1960. As per Tariq Ali, 70% of Pakistan's foreign exchange in 1971 used to come from the jute trade in East Pakistan. Pakistan was broke from the very beginning. It got the recruitment ground of the British India Army but not the economy. With the breakup of Pakistan in 1971, Pakistan is economically unviable. After 1971, it has been artificially propped up by USA, Saudi Arabia and China. Withdrawal of US support after 2022, has started Pakistan's current economic crisis. Saudi Arabia too is no longer keen on carrying the burden of Pakistan for too long. Only China is still propping up Pakistan with one loan after another leading to China becoming the largest debtor of Pakistan. Economic collapse of Pakistan will lead to further breakup of that country artificially created by forcibly merging parts of India, Afghanistan and Balochistan to house all the Muslims in the Indian subcontinent.

Many illegal bangladeshi has aadhar card and job, while I still dont recive my aadhar card and i live in ladakh.

Dear, this quota hasina keeps only for staying power for her party like saddam hossain, bashar al asad bath party. By so called freedom fighters and their children quota. All Bangladesh was involved for independent not only freedom fighters. Bangladesh is independent not for only awamileage hasina. If people have no equal rights then why need independent from Pakistan.

She didn’t make the razakar statement in the middle of the chaos, her statement started it all.

It’s a Sham election 😂 …my cousins and other relatives said they showed up to the election poll and they were notified that they already voted when they were not in the city

High time reservation is removed from India too. It has overstated its welcome.

As a bangladeshi i would justify this video explanation as a manipulative, misleading and wrong narrative. This is bad

1971 was 53 years ago . That time Jamat e Islam did not trust India and wanted to stay with Pakistan and opposed the independence war. Now things are different . Bangladesh Jamat e Islam is same like Indian BJP as a religion based political party. Who think India is trying to control Bangladesh. Eventually dictator Sk. Hasina is a partner of India. That's the reason general public of Bangladesh don't like India. There is no Razakars and even Razakars ( if any) don't believe they will go back to Pakistan. Sheikh Hasina is in 4 term in power without public votes. People of Bangladesh think India doesn't want a democratic government in her neighbor Bangladesh. People think she is in power for Indian support. Which is bad for both India and Bangladesh.

This analysis is 100% one sided and sounds like written by awamileague and completely ignores the fact that students has massive public support and govt is hanging on to power forcefully for a long time. Iranocally, its the exact excuse given by Pakistani govt in 1971 for their brutal crackdown . "Students" are misguided by mujib and "hindus" will take over Pakistan if he is allowed to go to power.

Protest in democracy is okay...but students shouldn't be harmed and they should understand the ball is in court... their is nothing that govt can do... peace ✌️🕊️

Sheikh Hasina should’ve allowed more opportunities for Bangladeshi people instead of using police as things to keep her family and allies in power.