THE extraordinary rapidity with which a student revolt around the issue of quotas for jobs has morphed into a mass uprising of millions and toppled the authoritarian regime of Sheikh Hasina and the ruling Awami League of nearly 16 years has taken everybody by surprise.

Even the student leaders did not expect such a turn of events. What then turned a seemingly technical issue of jobs into a political earthquake that has seen the prime minister scurrying to board a military aircraft and flee the country?

The move from protests on employment issues to a mass upsurge, from July 14 to August 5 — a mere three weeks — was triggered by an answer that Hasina gave in reply to a journalist on the quota movement.

She opined that the student protests were being conducted by the children of Razakars (a term akin to Quislings), a hated group who collaborated with the brutal Pakistani army in Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971.

This immediately led to the students, all over Bangladesh, streaming out in their hundreds and thousands onto the street between July 14-16.

The Awami League regime then sent in the police and armed battalions of their student wing to evict the protesters from the various educational institutions and residential halls.

The students fought back valiantly and within 24 hours defeated the vicious onslaught and liberated the schools, colleges and universities in Bangladesh and especially the capital city Dhaka.

Once that happened the regime sent in a further contingent of repressive forces of Border Guard Bangladesh and Rapid Action Battalion along with the police.

In a 24-hour orgy of violence, over 100 people were killed and over 1,000 injured. Bangladesh had, in its 53 years of independence, never seen such wanton and ruthless state repression. The regime felt that the job was done and the students would accept defeat.

The result of such repression was both spontaneous and decisive. For the next few days, people from all walks of life and throughout the length and breadth of urban and rural Bangladesh came out in droves to support the students.

Masses in their hundreds and thousands showed their solidarity and catapulted it into a truly mass uprising and a festival of the oppressed.

But why did such a student movement supported by an overwhelming majority of the population become a huge people’s revolution? The answer lies in the developments that have been brewing for the past 15 years in the political and economic spheres.

Firstly, the near absence of any democratic accountability, countless violations of human rights and above all the shameless rigging of elections in 2014, 2018 and 2024. In 2014 the entire opposition, including the left, boycotted the election and 153 (out of 300) members of parliament were elected unopposed.

In 2018 the opposition parties along with the left front participated but the election was hijacked the night before when the ballot boxes were filled and the Hasina regime got nearly 100 per cent of the seats.

Finally, in 2024 the entire opposition boycotted the elections as the regime unleashed unprecedented violence and arrested thousands of potential opposition candidates before the elections on trumped-up charges. Hence the election was between Awami League candidates and was boycotted by nearly 50 per cent of voters.

In all these elections the Awami League used the police, paramilitary services, bureaucracy and all other sections of the state machinery. Such a total disregard for democratic norms and absence of accountability by depriving the masses of casting a vote created huge and pent-up resentment that found an outlet in the “July Revolution.”

Secondly, in the economic sphere, Hasina pursued the neoliberal economic policies formulated by the World Bank, IMF and WTO and underwritten by US imperialism which has been the fate of post-colonial states.

Such slavish pursuit of market fundamentalism left the economy reeling from dwindling foreign exchange reserves, mounting inflation, severe inequality and poverty, youth joblessness, near breakdown of banking and financial sectors, the siphoning off of assets and funds abroad by a section of the capitalists linked directly with the regime. All these formed a deadly cocktail.

When the student quota movement was being met with deadly violence, the pent-up frustration, alienation and intense anger of the people joined forces with it to produce a potent and deadly combination.

The wanton brutality of over 200 killed within a few days ignited the fuse for the direct defiance of 24-hour curfew and the armed might of the state.

On August 4 the students gave a clarion call for the people to show solidarity and unity to defy the armed might of the state. All these coalesced into a single slogan: “One point, one demand, Hasina must go!” The government’s attempt to counter this failed miserably.

The crucial tipping point for the regime came when the students gave a call for all in Bangladesh to make the “long march” to Dhaka on August 5 and assemble at 2pm. From there they planned to march to the prime minister’s official residence Gonobhabon.

As a final throw of the dice, Hasina conferred with the military chiefs and asked them to impose a curfew in a draconian manner to stop the masses from coming to the march and meeting on August 5. Effectively it was an order to shoot and kill.

This last desperate gamble failed when unanimously the army, navy and airforce leadership defied her and refused to obey her order.

Finally, she unceremoniously fled Bangladesh on an aircraft on the morning of August 5 and landed in India awaiting asylum in some Western country.

What lies ahead? As for the immediate future things are becoming clearer. The army chief, on August 5, met the president of the country to request he dissolve the parliament.

The next step was to meet representatives of political parties, student leaders and members of civil society and get agreement on the need to form an interim government to take on the governance of the country.

On August 6, in consultation with the student leaders, he announced the name of the Nobel Laureate for Peace and the pioneer of micro-credit Dr Muhammed Yunus to serve as the head of the interim government which will consist of around 15 members.

Yunus arrived in Bangladesh on August 8 and the interim government has been sworn in Dhaka. It includes two members from the students’ committee.

As an urgent set of tasks, the new interim government will have to deal with the law and order situation, stabilise the economy, prevent revenge killings, stop attacks on religious minorities, institute quick and initial changes in different parts of the state machinery, open all educational institutions, release 5-10,000 political prisoners, establish a working relationship with the student leaders who are still on the streets and are demanding a radical reform of state institutions.

The question of how long the interim government should be in place will itself be a battleground between different contending forces.

Above all, the interim government has to balance the pressures, coming from political parties, for quick elections, and the desire of student leaders and those still continuing the struggle who are arguing for a thoroughgoing reform of the state before any electoral battle can commence.