One of the most striking images from Dhaka this week has been the razing of the statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s first elected prime minister, and the father of the now ousted prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wajed. Bangladesh is a country steeped in, and a product of, modern history. To understand the significance of this toppled statue, we need to make sense of how the country got to this point.
In 1947, Pakistan comprised two territories: West Pakistan (now Pakistan) and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). A chasm opened up between the two halves, driven in part by linguistic difference (Urdu was the national language, despite East Pakistan speaking Bengali). In 1970, Mujib, as he was known, led his party, the Awami League, to a spectacular victory in East Pakistan; he won an absolute majority (160 seats) and should have been invited to form the government of Pakistan. The Awami League had been campaigning for greater autonomy for the east; the west saw that as a potentially secessionist demand.
After the election results were announced, Gen Yahya Khan, the military ruler in charge of Pakistan, dithered: the military did not want the country’s leadership pass into the hands of the leader of the country’s eastern wing. On 25 March 1971, the military unleashed a reign of terror in the east, called Operation Searchlight. Mujib was among the first to be arrested and was jailed in West Pakistan. In the massacres that followed, Pakistani troops killed thousands of students, academics and Bengali nationalists in the first few days, and over the nine months that followed killed many more, a figure the Bangladeshi government puts at 3 million and recognises as genocide. More than 10 million refugees went to neighbouring India, which supported Mukti Bahini, the liberation movement. Then, in a reckless move, Pakistani aircraft attacked Indian airfields in December, giving India the excuse to formally enter the war. Indian troops overran East Pakistan within two weeks; Bangladesh was liberated; the refugees returned.
Mujib was released and made a triumphant return to Bangladesh. The Awami League won the first elections in Bangladesh with a thumping majority. He undertook several economic measures that western governments did not like. But by 1974 his unpopularity grew, especially after a drought that threatened to cause famine. Militia loyal to him terrorised campuses, and in 1975 he turned Bangladesh into a one-party state, banning all opposition parties. A few months later, in August, he was assassinated along with most of his family in Dhaka. Hasina and her sister Rehana survived only because they were abroad. Successive governments undermined Mujib’s role, and he would have become a footnote in history.
However, in 1981, Hasina returned to Bangladesh, and was seen as the harbinger of democracy. Wildly popular, she promised democratic reforms and change, and challenged military rule, most notably by Gen Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who took over in 1983. She ran a spirited campaign against him, joining hands with all parties, including her arch-rival Khaleda Zia – and democracy returned. I met her in 1986 in Dhaka, when as a young reporter I had spent weeks in Bangladesh. She took me to her old family home, where the staircase still carried the bloodstains of her father. She showed me around the house where her family was murdered. After she took office, over the years the house was turned into a museum. On Monday, a mob ransacked the house, setting fires inside, erasing a part of Bangladesh’s history.
Hasina was first elected prime minister in 1996, lost in 2001, and returned to power in 2009. She continued in office until Monday; and while she held three elections since coming to power, opposition parties boycotted two of those – in 2014 and 2024; and while the opposition participated in 2018, it withdrew its candidates within hours due to widespread allegations of voter intimidation and rigging. In her early years, Hasina took many steps to empower the poor and Bangladesh improved its economic indicators and reduced poverty, boosted by garment exports and remittances from Bangladeshis working overseas. By 2026, it is forecast to graduate from its status as a “least developed country”. Those are major achievements.
However, her rule also turned authoritarian – businesses close to her party prospered; she appointed loyalists to senior positions in the bureaucracy and police forces; political opponents disappeared; there were extra-judicial killings; the press was attacked and newspapers sued; a draconian digital security act placed significant curbs on freedom, and corruption flourished.
The proximate cause of her downfall was a protest among students against preferential quotas in government jobs for freedom fighters and their progeny. There was no sunset clause, meaning these quotas were to stay in perpetuity, and at 30% were vastly disproportionate to the actual number of freedom fighters. It became an exercise in job-creation for those loyal to or close to the Awami League.
Instead of negotiating with the students, Hasina dug in stubbornly, until the agitation grew, and in mid-July she called those who opposed the quotas “razakars” – a pejorative term describing those who collaborated with Pakistani troops in the liberation war, not far off “quisling”. The youth wing of the Awami League began beating up the protesters, and the police started shooting – at least 200 people, many of them students, were killed, and the demonstrators then sought first an apology, then her resignation. She clung on; over the weekend the violence escalated, and another 100 people died, including more than a dozen policemen. She showed no sign of compromise, until the military told her that her position had become untenable, and she left office in disgrace, bound for India. It is not known where she will settle eventually.
The Indian cricketer Vijay Merchant said: “Retire when they ask why, and not when they ask why not.” But politicians are different. They feel they are invincible. And, in South Asia, they often expect their children and grandchildren to continue operating the “family business”. The Nehrus in India (and many more in almost all political parties, including the ruling Bharatiya Janata party, which is filled with Scindias and other scions), the Sharifs and Bhuttos in Pakistan, and Ziaur Rahman and Mujib’s progeny in Bangladesh, continue to see the countries as their personal fiefdoms.
To overcome that, voters in Asia, and perhaps beyond, have to think beyond the families that were so crucial in post-colonial nation-building, and start experimenting with leaders whose claim to leadership rests not in their genes but in their character.
In order to reassure the international community, the markets and, importantly, Bangladesh’s closest neighbour, India, the army has now announced that the Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus will lead an interim government, whose task will be to oversee elections. Perhaps this will be the beginning of a process that allows Bangladesh to show the way forward.