Hasina On The Edge: Bangladesh’s Long Road To Recovery Is Littered With Landmines

After five days of unprecedented violence and deaths of over a hundred people, mostly students, last week, Bangladesh is now enveloped in a deathly calm. 

But the curfew-induced calm with army and paramilitary soldiers patrolling the streets of Dhaka and other cities and towns of the country of 174 billion people is very fragile. 

Though no fresh incidents and demonstrations have been reported from any part of the country over the past three days, tension is once again brewing over the government not responding to a set of eight demands, some of them impossible even after the expiry of the 48-hour deadline set by protesting students on Tuesday (23 July) evening. 

The government has announced that while Internet cables that were damaged by protestors in many parts of the country are being restored, curfew will also be lifted in a phased manner. Wednesday (24 July) saw curfew being lifted for seven hours from 11 am to 5 pm, and offices being allowed to reopen for four hours between 11 am and 3 pm. 

But as the country limps back to a semblance of normalcy — even that looks a bit uncertain at present — now, the much graver concern is the hit that Bangladesh’s economy has taken.  

According to economists, the country has already suffered a cumulative loss of over $1.3 billion since the total shutdown, including a communications and Internet blackout, that has severely paralysed the country since last weekend. 

Captains of industry in Bangladesh met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday and requested her to allow industries and private establishments to function normally. They also asked for security cover of the Dhaka-Chittagong highway, the country’s lifeline, by the army. 

Bangladesh’s readymade garments sector, which accounts for 80 per cent of the country’s total export earnings of over $50 billion, is suffering losses of about $150 million a day. 

Steel manufacturers say that the sector has been incurring losses to the tune of $110 million a day ever since the closure of all industrial units, business establishments and offices across the country. 

Similarly, the ceramics industry is losing about $8 million a day, while the ITES (information technology enabled services) sector’s loss is pegged at $3 million a day. The country’s e-commerce sector is also suffering an estimated revenue loss of $5 million daily. 

These losses will be difficult to recoup and will push up inflation, which is already very high. The country’s fast-depleting foreign currency reserves will also be hit severely and will have a debilitating impact on the already-tottering economy. 

Bangladesh Exporters’ Association president Abdus Salam Murshedy told Swarajya that it will take a long time to regain the confidence of importers.

“Exporters will default on their delivery schedules and that will result in loss of trust of their importers. It is not easy to regain that trust,” he said. Murshedy added that he expects export earnings to take a severe hit over the next two to three years at least. 

A sharp fall in export earnings will lead to job cuts and will push the country into a deeper economic crisis. Bangladesh is barely able to keep its head above choppy waters now, and an inevitable fall in its forex reserves as well a sharp economic downturn will  push the country into a deep depression. 

That, says Bangladeshi economist Sarawar Hossain, who is on an exchange programme with a Malaysian University, will trigger more social and political tensions. 

“People are, as it is, angry over rising food and fuel prices and over acute unemployment. If the economic situation becomes worse, disaffection with the present government will rise. Opposition forces will leverage that anger to launch protests and movements, thus destabilising the country politically and economically. It seems Bangladesh is headed for a downward spiral now and there is no predicting what the future holds,” Hossain, who teaches at a prestigious private university in Dhaka, told Swarajya over phone from Putrajaya. 

To make matters worse, there is no indication as of now that the anti-quota protests which hit the country last week are anywhere near resolution. 

Though the core issue of reservations in jobs has been taken care of with the Supreme Court ordering a drastic reduction of the 30 per cent job quota for children and grandchildren of ‘mukti-joddhas’ (freedom fighters) and the government saying it will legislate the order, students have come up with some fresh demands which the government might find impossible to concede. 

Among these difficult demands are the resignation of Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan and police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamum, banning the Bangladesh Chhatra League (the students’ wing of the ruling Awami League) from campuses, sacking of police officers responsible for deaths of students and an apology from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for the killings of protestors. 

Students have warned that if these demands are not met, they will renew their agitation in violation of curfew and prohibitory orders. 

It is quite apparent that the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh which had hijacked the anti-quota stir and had encouraged students to intensify their protests, thus leading to violence and deaths, are now instigating the students to make these impossible demands. 

It is widely suspected that the BNP-Jamaat combine took advantage of students’ anger over attacks on protestors by BCL activists and encouraged them (the anti-quota student protestors) to intensify their agitation.

BNP and Jamaat activists also participated in the street protests and indulged in arson, leading to firing on mobs by police that led to an unspecified number of deaths (some reports put the death toll at over 300). 

The BNP-Jamaat will not let go of the opportunity to create more chaos. The two opposition forces will continue to instigate the students and keep the situation on the boil. 

That only means that along with a severe economic downturn, the socio-political situation in Bangladesh will continue to be tumultuous. 

The danger for Bangladesh is that the Hasina government, which tends to be very authoritarian, is unlikely to allow dissent and will try to crush protests against job losses, inflation and an economic downturn as well as severe disaffection among people in its typical heavy-handed manner, thus exacerbating the crisis. 

That can only create an explosive situation in the country in the weeks and months to come.