Bangladesh’s ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is currently living in exile in India after being forced to resign during the 2024 student-led protests, served the longest tenure in the country’s history.
In January 2024, it was the fifth time that she was elected as Bangladesh’s Prime Minister, fourth time straight since 2008. However, it turned out to be her shortest term, shadowed by the student uprising over the country’s quota system for government jobs which later snowballed into a full-fledged revolution that led to the ouster of Hasina’s government and her exile.
Here’s a timeline of what went down in 2024 in Bangladesh –
January 7, 2024 – Sheikh Hasina became the world’s longest-serving female head of state when her Awami League Party secured absolute majority in the elections held in January 2024. However, the elections were marred by criticism from the west for the crackdown on opposition members who were arrested ahead of the polls. The elections also saw a low voter turnout of just around 40 per cent and were boycotted by former Bangladesh PM and Hasina’s rival Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
June 5, 2024 – The Bangladesh high court reinstated the reservation system in government jobs in Bangladesh which Hasina’s government had scrapped in 2018 following protests. The high court in June 2024 reinstated the 30 per cent quota for the children and grandchildren of freedom fighters in first and second class government jobs in Bangladesh. This triggered another quota reform movement in the country as Dhaka University students took to streets and blocked major intersections in Dhaka’s Shahbagh, a protest which continued for days.
June 6, 2024 – Students from as many as six universities participated in peaceful protests against the reinstatement of the freedom fighters quota. The students of Dhaka University, Jahangirnagar University, Jagannath University, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Rajshahi University, and Chittagong University participated in the protests, reported Bangladesh’ local news website The Daily Campus. The protests were peaceful as students demonstrated rallies, symbolic blockades of roads, sit-ins, and human chains, among other ways of protest.
July 6, 2024 – The peaceful protests gained more momentum as the students called for a countrywide ‘Bangla blockade’ and vowed to take over the streets of Bangladesh until their demands were heard and met, reported the Daily Star. While students of Dhaka University, BUET, and Eden College blocked the key Shahbagh intersection in Bangladesh’s capital, which is also considered Ground Zero for the 2024 student protests, demonstrators in other parts of the country and city also blocked other key intersections in Dhaka and also highways in Bangladesh.
July 7, 2024 – The protests remained peaceful and for better coordination for protests across the country, the students formed a 65-member coordination committee. “From now on, we will coordinate our movement through this committee…We will work together to build a larger blockade on July 10,” the Daily Star quoted Nahid Islam, a Dhaka University student and one of the key organisers of the protests, as saying.
Mid July, 2024 – The students-led protests across Bangladesh took a violent turn after on July16, 2024, at least six people were killed and several others were injured as protesters and Bangladesh’s security forces and the ruling party’s supporters clashed, reported the New Age. While three people died in Chattogram, two were killed in Dhaka and one was killed in Rangpur, and around 500 people were injured across Bangladesh during clashes. The casualties began to rise and the Bangladesh government went to shut down the universities and cut off the internet in the country. The government also imposed a night curfew and deployed military.
July 21, 2024 – The Supreme Court of Bangladesh termed the high court’s verdict on quota system illegal and brought down the quotas to just seven per cent from the previous 56 per cent.
July 26, 2024 – Three student leaders — Nahid Islam, Abu Bakar Mazumdar and Asif Mahmud — were taken into custody by Bangladeshi authorities from a hospital in Dhaka after reportedly forcing their discharge, reported Al Jazeera.
July 28 – 29, 2024 – On July 28, the six coordinators of the student movement released a video statement announcing withdrawal of their programmes while in custody of the detective branch of Dhaka Police. “Our main demand was for logical reforms of the quota. The government has fulfilled this. We now strongly call upon the government to reopen all educational institutions in order to restore a healthy educational environment. In the overall interests, we hereby withdraw all our programmes,” read the statement, according to a report by Prothom Alo. However, on July 29, 2024, the protests re-erupted after other coordinators reportedly said that the agitation would continue until their demands were not met.
August 1-2, 2024 – The authorities release the six coordinators from custody on August 1, 2024, in an attempt to calm the anger among the people, particularly over the crackdown on students during the previous month’s protests which led to hundreds of deaths and cases against students across the country. However, the release of the coordinators did little in that direction as the agitation furthered on August 2, 2024 with demands of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation mounting. The renewed protests led to further clashes, civilian deaths and the government reinstating social media and internet ban in parts.
August 3, 2024 – Hasina called on the student leaders to meet her at her official residence Ganabhaban. She said the doors of her residence were open. “I want to sit with the agitating students of the movement and listen to them. I want no conflict,” she said, reported the local media. However, the student leaders refused to negotiate with the government and continued their demand for Hasina’s resignation.
August 4, 2024 – This one of the deadliest days Bangladesh witnessed during the 2024 student agitation as police continued to use force against the demonstrators using tear gas, rubber bullets and other means. The clashes also reportedly saw firing, and at least 91 people were killed across the country, including 14 police officials, reported news agency Reuters. The government declared an indefinite nationwide curfew starting at 6 pm on August 4, 2024, and Hasina called the protestors “terrorists” and not students. “Those who are carrying out violence are not students but terrorists who are out to destabilize the nation,” Hasina said after attending a national security panel meeting with the chiefs of the army, navy, air force, police and other agencies. “I appeal to our countrymen to suppress these terrorists with a strong hand,” Hasina said.
August 5, 2024 – The D-day saw thousands of protests engulfing the government buildings in the morning including the Prime Minister’s Office, Bangladesh’s Parliament, and Ganabhaban. As protestors broke through barricades to make their way into government buildings, it was announced that Sheikh Hasina had given into the protestors’ demands and resigned and had flown out of the country “for her own safety”, according to her son Sajeeb Wazed. Hasina flew to India and landed at Ghaziabad’s Hindon Air Base where she has been living in exile. After Hasina fled Bangladesh, protestors stormed her official residence Ganabhaban, visuals of which surfaced on social media showing them vandalising and looting the place while celebrating her ouster.
Interim government and the upcoming polls
On August 8, 2024, an interim government was formed in Bangladesh headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus and well over a year later, the country is set to choose its next government in the general elections slated to be held on Thursday, February 12, 2026. The run up to the upcoming elections in Bangladesh was also marred by the recent violence in the country over death of student leader Osman Hadi, who was being viewed as a key candidate, followed by protests, clashes, and several incidents of attacks on minorities in Bangladesh.
