Bangladesh student protests: Top court axes 30% jobs reservation
What began as Dhaka University students protesting job quotas turned into a bloodbath, involving students from universities across the country, both public and private.
In a week’s violence, till today, the body count from firing by the police—now acting under shoot-at-sight orders, given by a government desperate to bring the situation under control—is, at least, 133, posing perhaps the toughest challenge to Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule as prime minister, and certainly to her nascent fourth consecutive term (begun earlier this year).
The issue behind all the protests is the reintroduction of a 30 per cent reservation quota in government jobs for the grandchildren of the freedom fighters or ‘muktijoddhas’ (that is, those who had taken part in the 1971 Liberation War) by the orders of the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh on July 5. The court nullified the Sheikh Hasina government’s decision to scrap the quota system, which was done heeding a long-standing demand of the student community.
The government had appealed to the Supreme Court to review the decision, with August 7 being the date set for the hearing. However, the hearing was brought forward to today, seeing the gravity of the situation.
Today, the apex court of Bangladesh deemed the High Court order bringing back the quotas “illegal” and scaled back the quotas for civil service jobs to 7 per cent—5 per cent for the children and grandchildren of Liberation War veterans and 2 per cent for other designated categories. Thus, 93 per cent of civil service jobs are now open to all, to be given purely based on merit.
Unemployment is a major concern in Bangladesh, and so, the reservation of almost a third of jobs in the public sector and higher education institutions for a small group of people is something that students from across universities and political lines have been up against for a long time.
