Why students in Bangladesh are protesting again

Soon after her departure from Dhaka, Bangladesh Army Chief General Waqar-uz-Zaman announced Hasina’s resignation in a televised address. Shahabuddin too said in a televised address on August 5: “Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has tendered her resignation letter to the president and I have received it.”

But there are no photographs or video footage of Hasina tendering her resignation. Despite Hasina’s intentions to the contrary, she was not allowed to make a public statement before her exit. No one has heard from her since then.

After a Bangladeshi newspaper published what it claimed was Hasina’s resignation letter, on August 11, Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wazed posted on X that his mother “did not make any [resignation] statement either before or since leaving Dhaka”. He has subsequently maintained this position. These claims have, of course, been dismissed by the newly-formed interim government under Mohammad Yunus.

President Shahabuddin’s U-turn

In an interview given to journalist Matiur Rahman Chowdhury published in daily Manab Zamin on Saturday (October 19), Shahabuddin made a notable U-turn regarding his stance on Hasina’s resignation.

He said that he had only “heard” about the former prime minister’s resignation from General Zaman, but did not “have any documentary evidence” to support the fact. “I have failed [to find a resignation letter] despite many attempts,” he said.

Shahabuddin’s latest claim departed significantly from what he had said on August 5, flanked by Bangladeshi generals.

The interim government’s Law Affairs Adviser Asif Nazrul on Monday accused Shahabuddin of spreading “falsehoods”, saying his remarks were “tantamount to violation of his oath of office”. He said if Shahabuddin remained firm on his comments, the interim government would need to think whether he was still qualified to hold his office.

For student protestors, Shahabuddin’s statement is tantamount to supporting the disgraced leader in exile. “The president is an ally of fascism. He was in favour of genocide. We demand his resignation,” student leader Nasir Uddin Patwari told the media.

What is the big deal here?

Hasina is out of power. Whether she resigned formally or not does not change this fact. The 77-year-old is deeply unpopular in Bangladesh, has tens of cases registered against her, and may well spend the rest of her life in exile outside her country.

But many observers have questioned the legitimacy of the current interim government. There is no provision in the extant Bangladeshi constitution to account for such a setup, and Hasina’s departure was hardly by-the-book. In fact, for all intents and purposes, Hasina was thrown out in a military coup, and Mohammad Yunus’s government too was installed courtesy the military.

Any hint of Hasina’s ouster being illegitimate is thus taken as a challenge to the legitimacy of the current government, and strikes a nerve among those who once faced her ire and fought to ensure her exit. That Shahabuddin had been appointed as president by Hasina last year makes things only worse.

Student leader Rafiq Khan called Shahabuddin a “culprit” who was “unlawfully” appointed by “killer Hasina”. “We request him to resign immediately and vacate the Bangabhaban. Otherwise, we will start another movement like the one in July,” he said.

What Shahabuddin’s critics have missed (or chosen to ignore), however, is the fact that the president himself makes it clear that there should be “no debate” about Hasina’s status — and that of the interim government.

After Hasina’s ouster, Shahabuddin took the question of Hasina’s removal and the creation of an interim government to the Appellate Division of Bangladesh’s Supreme Court, the country’s highest judicial authority, “so that this question never arises”.

Then Chief Justice Obaidul Hasan opined on August 8 that an interim government may be constituted to fill the constitutional vacuum in situations that arise, and for the smooth running of executive functions. Hasan said that the president can administer the oath to the Chief Adviser and Advisory Council of the Interim Government.