Sheikh Hasina effectively turned Bangladesh into a one-party state and accelerated its slide towards authoritarianism by doubling down on the suppression of opponents, triggering a wave of unrest in the country with student protests in August 2024, forcing her ouster
Sheikh Hasina’s legacy remains contested since her ouster from power in August 2024. Her infrastructure push is visible but overshadowed by inequality and authoritarianism under her rule and the youth-led uprising that hastened her downfall despite looking invincible when she was reelected in January 2024 for a record fifth term.
For her supporters, Hasina, the world’s longest-serving female leader, transformed Bangladesh from a poor nation to one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies, thanks to ambitious projects such as the country’s longest bridge over the Padma worth $3.6 billion. The 6.15km double-layer steel truss bridge connects Dhaka to Bangladesh’s underdeveloped southwest via a four-lane highway on one level and a single-track railway on another.
The bridge, an ‘engineering marvel’ over the most treacherous river after the Amazon in South America, has the world’s thickest and deepest piling, driven 400 feet into the river bed. It involved the first use globally of modern friction pendulum bearings to support the steel superstructure and the concrete pier foundation. The bridge can withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake and sustain over 10,000 tonnes, exceeding the limit of any other structure globally.
Mega Projects, Missed Priorities: The Economic Strain Behind Hasina’s Fall
In September 2023, Sheikh Hasina unveiled an 11km elevated $1bn expressway over Dhaka’s traffic-clogged streets. A new airport terminal and an underwater tunnel road were also key to her infrastructure push. The focus on mega infrastructure projects fueled her unpopularity as misplaced priorities led to rising inflation and took the shine off what was described as Bangladesh’s economic miracle. She failed to address basics—education, health, freedom of expression, and human rights.
Bangladesh’s ability to maintain its growth rate remained in question due to its dependence on imports amid a failure to diversify the economy. The over six percent annual gross domestic product growth was largely due to the garment sector, which accounted for around 85% of Bangladesh’s exports. The world’s second-largest garment sector after China has generated millions of jobs and helped reduce poverty by half to 20% since 2008.
The foreign debt doubled after 2016. In 2023, Dhaka was forced to take a $3.3bn International Monetary Fund loan. Food inflation hit a decade-high of 13% even as it cooled globally the same year amid warnings of a further rise in inflation and debt. Bangladesh’s foreign reserves declined, prompting credit rating agency Fitch and financial market indices creator S&P to negatively revise Bangladesh’s debt outlook.
Inequality, Corruption, and Bangladesh Student Uprising
In August 2023, an Asia Foundation survey confirmed brewing public discontent, with only 25% of respondents feeling Bangladesh was heading in the right economic direction. Soaring prices angered the poorer sections of society, for whom mega-projects made little sense as they struggled to make ends meet. The projects increasingly defined Bangladesh’s growing inequality. Sheikh Hasina’s showpiece 11km elevated Dhaka expressway soaring over a slum near its start was off-limits for an average citizen’s mode of transportation—motorbikes and autorickshaws. The country’s poor felt excluded.
Corruption fuelled anti-government protests. About 1,500 people were killed when students took to the streets against public sector quotas amid high youth unemployment and stagnant job growth in the private sector in July 2024. Tens of thousands of students joined the nationwide protests, the first major since Sheikh Hasina won a fourth straight term in January 2024, blocking highways and rail links. Riot police barged into university campuses to quell protests.
Prolonged repression under Hasina’s authoritarian regime since 2009 triggered the student protests. Geoffrey Macdonald, a visiting expert on South Asia at the US Institute of Peace, wrote that the quota issue was the tip of the iceberg of economic and political discontent that lies underneath the surface.
Fading Legitimacy: How Hasina’s Rule was Undermined
Rising inflation, a poor job market for graduates, and corruption exacerbated the unfairness of guaranteeing jobs to the grandchildren of freedom fighters, seen as a giveaway to loyalists of Hasina’s Awami League, which led the independence fight. The legitimacy of Hasina’s government was undermined due to a lack of transparency in elections since 2008:
Bangladesh’s university students [had] essentially only known AL rule and [were] consequently directing their frustrations at a ruling party for which elections are no longer an accountability mechanism
In 2012, the World Bank withdrew from a $1.2 billion loan agreement for the Padma Bridge over allegations of corruption. Asian Development Bank and Japan International Cooperation Agency followed suit. This prompted Hasina to announce the self-funding of the bridge despite doubts, as Bangladesh lacked experience in executing a mega project without the backing of multilateral donors. The project cost rose to almost three times the initial estimate of $1.2 billion amid the devaluation of the Bangladeshi currency, Taka.
A faltering economy and misgovernance doomed Sheikh Hasina’s rule after unleveling the political playing field. Her crackdown on political opponents ahead of the 2024 polls followed a pattern of unfair electoral processes. The economic mismanagement coincided with the weakening of democracy and institutions. Her government resorted to repression against journalists, rights activists, and political opponents.
The leaders of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) were slapped with cases and arrested. Sheikh Hasina refused to hand over power to a caretaker government for free and fair elections, and promoted the BNP to opt out of the polls.
How Manipulation Entrenched One-Party Rule in Bangladesh
In 2011, Sheikh Hasina amended the constitution to abolish a provision for a non-partisan caretaker government to supervise fair elections despite the BNP’s opposition. The BNP boycotted the election that followed in 2014. In the run-up to the 2018 polls, BNP leader Khaleda Zia was jailed for five years for corruption.
Sheikh Hasina appeared adamant about winning another term by hook or by crook. She effectively turned Bangladesh into a one-party state. Low voter turnout and allegations of manipulation marred the polls in 2014 and 2018 when Hasina was reelected for the second time.
Macdonald wrote that Bangladesh lost dignity and credibility at home and abroad. He added that instead of securing foreign investment and negotiating deals to cement Bangladesh’s progress, the country’s diplomats were busy fending off criticisms from international groups over the country’s human rights record. Macdonald warned Bangladesh’s political crisis would not end on election day. Protests and strikes eroded the Awami League government’s legitimacy, offering a path to power for its opponents.
Silenced Opposition Under Hasina’s Rule
Sheikh Hasina accelerated Bangladesh’s slide towards authoritarianism. She plunged BNP into disarray through relentless slapping of cases. Ahead of the 2018 polls, Bangladesh’s parliament approved a bill to regulate online publishing and social media. The vague clauses of the legislation provided for prison terms of up to 14 years for those spreading ‘propaganda’ about the 1971 war, which led to Bangladesh’s creation. Another clause outlawed what was described as ‘aggressive or frightening’ content.
Sheikh Hasina, who came to power in 2009, justified the legislation, saying it was important to prevent radicalism and pornography amid fears that it could be weaponised against journalists. The Economist noted the bill was not the government’s only weapon. It added that newspaper editors who publish unfavourable articles have been charged repeatedly with sedition and defamation, with one facing over 80 lawsuits at one point.
In August 2018, photographer Shahidul Alam was arrested for ‘spreading false information’ after he spoke out in support of students protesting against Dhaka’s unsafe traffic. The Economist reported that the government orchestrated complaints to Facebook about posts criticizing its handling of the protests, prompting the social media company to ask some users to delete the offending posts, even as the firm said it should not have happened.
Global Concerns Over Bangladesh’s Democratic Decline
The government accused Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha of corruption while he was abroad and forced him to resign without returning to Bangladesh in 2017. This came after the Supreme Court nullified a constitutional amendment that in 2014 made it easier for the government to dismiss judges. Sinha’s autobiography, published a year after his unceremonious ouster, accused the ruling Awami League of attempting to intimidate judges.
An ‘anti-drugs campaign’ in 2018 claimed around 200 lives. The government claimed most of the deaths were caused by resistance to arrests or crossfire. The Economist cited a recording by the family of one of the unarmed victims suggesting he was shot with his hands tied in police custody. The opposition accused the government of using the crackdown to kill opponents.
The Bangladesh student protests escalated global concern over Sheikh Hasina’s authoritarianism, which prompted American visa restrictions on Bangladeshis for undermining the election process. Washington said the move reflected ‘concerns where we see actions that undermine democracy and human rights in Bangladesh’. In 2021, the US slapped sanctions on a Bangladesh police unit accused of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
How Authoritarianism Threatened Bangladesh’s Standing
The authoritarianism sullied the country’s image, which improved significantly thanks to the global attention it drew for its seeming rapid economic growth and sheltering of over a million refugees from neighbouring Myanmar. The country appeared to be scripting a success story after embracing electoral democracy in the 1990s following military rule.
The return to democracy coincided with the pulling of 15 million people out of poverty between 2006 and 2021. The overall poverty rate was cut in half since 2000 as manufacturing flourished in the world’s eighth most populous country, whose slide into authoritarianism threatened to reverse the gains and spawned unrest.
Sheikh Hasina’s ouster reshaped Bangladesh’s politics and recalibrated its position in a region amid contested strategic alignments. Her diplomacy deepened ties with China and ensured India’s backing, but her authoritarianism and human rights record strained relations with Western powers. Bangladesh remains a vital player in South Asia for the US, China, and India. It faces a challenge of balancing external expectations with internal demands for reform, transparency, and economic justice. Bangladesh can reemerge to realize its potential, with a more representative and resilient democracy that cares for all its citizens.
