University students in Bangladesh, who were on a country-wide struggle since July 5 against an unfair quota system in recruitment to white collar government jobs, won the battle on Sunday when the Supreme Court scrapped most of the quotas and enthroned merit as the principal criterion.
The is the second landmark victory of Bengali students. The first was the successful four-year battle to install Bengali as one of the official languages of Pakistan. That battle ended in 1956 with a constitutional amendment making both Urdu and Bengali as the official languages of Pakistan.
The just-ended struggle was for justice in an economic situation where joblessness among the university-educated is as high as 46%.
The second struggle was no less hard as the police opened fire at several places and the students wing of the ruling Awami League mercilessly attacked fellow students, both boys and girls, with sticks. The death toll was 114. Hundreds were injured in clashes across the country.
All telecommunication channels and internet connections were cut and all educational institutions were shut for weeks. Dhaka's streets were littered with charred vehicles. There were demonstrations in Kolkata in India too. The US State Department and the UN Secretary General condemned the violence unleashed on the students.
However, peace was restored on Sunday when the army was deployed and the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court directed that 93% of government jobs should be open to candidates on merit. The court directed the government to cut the job quotas for families of freedom fighters to 5%. The remaining 2% of jobs would be set apart for people from the backward communities and the disabled, the court said.
Previously, various quotas were taking up 56% of the jobs, with the quota for the descendants of freedom fighters accounting for a whopping 30%.
The quota system in Bangladesh has a long history. In 2018, Sheikh Hasina's government had scrapped the quota system entirely following an agitation. But in June this year, the High Court reinstated the quotas. And Sheikh Hasina indicated that the quotas will be resumed as per the court order. This touched off a massive agitation on July 5.
The students' objection was not to the entirety of quotas but only to the quantum of quotas for the descendants of freedom fighters, which was 30%. Students were supportive of quotas for disadvantaged groups like women, the disabled and ethnic minorities but not for freedom fighters over generations.
But Sheikh Hasina, who gets offended whenever anybody questions the wisdom of her father (and founder of Bangladesh), Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, would not countenance diluting the quota that he had assigned to freedom fighters' families and their descendants.
In addition to the 30% quota for freedom fighters' families, Sheikh Mujib had assigned 10% reservation for women who were "victimized" during the war; 40% for people from underrepresented districts; and only 20% for meritorious candidates.
After Mujib's assassination in 1975, and the removal of his Awami League from power, the successor government reduced the quota for people from underrepresented districts to 20%. This increased the quota for merit-based candidates to 40%.
As the quota for women who were victimized in the war largely went unclaimed, the quota for them was thrown open to all women in 1985. The district-based quota was reduced to 10%. But the government created a new 5% quota for the indigenous (tribal) communities.
Be than as it may, these measures increased the quota for the merit-based candidates to 45%.
By 1997, 26 years after the Bangladesh Liberation War, the population of the actual freedom fighters had decreased and the quota for them was not getting filled. Sheikh Hasina, who had come to power again by then, widened the quota to include the children of freedom fighters. In 2010, when Hasina was again back in power, the quota for freedom fighters was extended to include their grandchildren also! To this she added a 1% quota for disabled candidates in 2012.
University students found this to be ridiculous. It looked as if Hasina was creating a new privileged class based on birth in particular families. The quotas cumulatively decreased the merit-based recruitment to 44%.
The government was oblivious to the fact that, despite the 30% quota for children and grandchildren of freedom fighters, actual recruitment in that category never exceeded 10% and that many jobs in government were going unfilled.
On 8 March 2018, the Bangladesh High Court rejected a petition challenging the legality of the quota system. On March 21, 2018 Hasina stated that she intended to keep the quota for descendants of freedom fighters. This triggered a student agitation. Piqued by it, Sheikh Hasina ordered the abolition of all quotas.
But this came as a shock to students because they were demanding a "reform" of the quota system, not "abolition" of all quotas. But Hasina stuck to her decision and in July 2020, the decision to abolish quota became effective.
However, on 5 June 2024, the Bangladesh High Court nullified the government notification abolishing all quotas. The government filed an appeal against the High Court order with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.
Tired of the ding dong legal battle, students, across Bangladesh, launched the "2024 Bangladesh quota reform movement." The Appellate Division then stayed the High Court's verdict till it finished its hearing on the government's appeal.
In the meanwhile, students said that they want the government to discuss the matter with the them and come to an executive decision on a rational and socially justifiable quota system which will also do justice to merit.
Over time, it became clear that Sheikh Hasina would not countenance the removal of a large quota for freedom fighters' families as she considered it to be her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's sacred legacy.
But the protesters said the quota system created a "two-tier Bangladesh" where a politically connected elite benefits by birth in particular families. Freedom fighters and many women had indeed sacrificed a lot for freeing Bangladesh, but a quota for them spread over generations would not be fair, the students argued.
Many also saw the quota system as a device to recruit supporters for Hasina's Awami League.
Protests escalated when Sheikh Hasina refused to talk to the students, calling them "Razakars" (pro-Pakistan storm troopers who killed freedom fighters and raped women after the Pakistani army launched a crackdown in March 1971). The students swore that would not stop the agitation unless she apologised for the insult.
Hasina unleashed stick wielding members of the Bangladesh Chatra League – the student wing of the ruling Awami League – on student protesters including girls. She also deployed the Rapid Action Battalion, which was sanctioned by the US in 2021 after "widespread allegations of serious human rights abuses."
Sheikh Hasina did not realise that there was a massive problem of unemployment among the university educated in Bangladesh. Economic growth had not generated employment for the educated.
And given the fact that the private sector was not expanding, government continued to be the principal employer. But government recruitment was vitiated by the quota system.
The latest Labour Force Survey (LFS) by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) showed that 46% of the unemployed youth were university graduates. In one case it was found that 500,000 to 600,000 young men and women were competing for 600 to 700 government jobs. But they came up against normal competition based on merit as well as several quota barriers. Frustration swelled.
