Jubilation spread quickly among members of Winnipeg’s Bangladeshi community on Monday as news broke that the South Asian country’s prime minister had resigned and fled the country following weeks of protests against a quota system for government jobs that devolved into violence.
“People are very emotional. They say it is the best day for our lifetime,” said Abdul Baten, acting president of the Canada-Bangladesh Association of Manitoba.
Baten said the news sparked an impromptu gathering in the early hours of Monday morning in a Winnipeg park, where some cried tears of joy after many sleepless nights over a deadly crackdown on the peaceful student protests.
“And all these things happened just because of our student community,” he said. “We used to say that this generation … they do the Facebook and all other things. But this generation, they learn from each other, they share the information.”
Protests from frustrated students demanding an end to a system they said favoured those with connections to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party began peacefully last month, but later morphed into an unprecedented challenge to the party and Hasina’s 15-year rule.
Attempts to quell the demonstrations with force, leaving nearly 300 people dead since mid-July, also fuelled outrage against the government.
The protests continued even after the Supreme Court last month ruled that the quota system — which set aside up to 30 per cent of government jobs for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence against Pakistan — must be drastically cut.
In parts of Bangladesh, thousands of demonstrators stormed Hasina’s official residence and other buildings associated with her party and family. But in other areas, protests were peaceful, with thousands gathered Monday evening outside the presidential palace, where the military chief, opposition politicians and the country’s figurehead president met.
Crowds also ransacked Hasina’s family’s ancestral home-turned-museum where her father was assassinated in 1975, as well as the house of the country’s chief justice and Hasina’s previous personal home in Dhaka, the capital. They torched two major offices of the ruling party.
Fear of targeting
Fears also rose among Hindus that they might be targeted in the unrest since they are generally thought to be supporters of Hasina’s party.
It’s a fear shared by Sutirtha Saha, whose Hindu family still lives in Bangladesh.
“People basically in Bangladesh associate Hindu people with the … former party,” he said. “It has always been like this, it’s always synonymous with Hindus being pro-Awami League ruling party and pro-India.
“This is what people think,” said Saha. “Sometimes they consider us as outsiders, they think we are more Indians than Bangladeshi, which is not true. Our language is Bengali, we were born there and we have been brought up there and I don’t know why people would assume otherwise.”
Saha said his parents live in a part of Bangladesh where it’s known that some Hindu families live. He said he watched earlier in the day on security camera footage as his family’s home in the country was attacked.
He also said he’s been monitoring that camera just in case something happened while his parents were asleep.
“I felt helpless, powerless, just concerned about how my family would be,” he said. “I have been in contact with them … for the past couple of hours I’ve been calling them every few minutes, the whole day I’ve been watching my phone looking at the CCTV camera.”
Hundreds attend gathering Monday afternoon
Baten said he appreciates the support he’s seen in Canada for the protesters and was joined by hundreds of community members as they gathered to celebrate the news Monday afternoon at Kirkbridge Park in south Winnipeg.
“We are very happy — very, very happy,” he said. “And we hope for the best for Bangladesh.”
And Ashraful Alam, who attended the gathering, said he wants those celebrating Hasina’s resignation back home to do so calmly and peacefully.
“The first thing is that it is achieved, but now we have to be united back again and rebuild the country,” he said.
Alam said while the gathering was a celebration, it was also the chance to spread a message of unity.
“It’s a country with many races and many people of different faith,” he said. “We want to live in harmony with all of them.”
More than a hundred students from University of Manitoba Bangladeshi Students’ Association (UMBSA) had also gathered in mid-July to show their support for the protesters in Bangladesh and to voice criticism’s of the country’s leadership.
Hasina, 76, was the country’s longest-serving female head of government. She was elected for a fourth consecutive term in a January vote that was boycotted by her main opponents. Thousands of opposition members were jailed in the lead-up to the polls, and the United States and Britain denounced the result as not credible, though the government defended it.
Hasina had cultivated ties with powerful countries, including both India and China. But under her, relations with the U.S. and other Western nations have come under strain, as they have expressed concerns over human rights violations and press freedoms in the predominantly Muslim nation of 170 million people.
Her political opponents have previously accused her of growing increasingly autocratic and have blamed the unrest on that authoritarian streak.
The prime minister’s departure threatens to create even more instability in the nation on India’s border already dealing with a series of crises, from high unemployment and corruption to climate change. Amid security concerns, the capital’s main airport suspended operations.
