Thread by @borrowed_ideas

I received a couple of DMs asking about "hey, what's going on in Bangladesh"

While I left Bangladesh in 2017, my almost entire family still lives there. So I'm keenly aware of what's going on. I'll briefly cover what happened and the implications.

let's start with the end result. The Prime Minister (PM) Sheikh Hasina or SH (who's the Head of State in Bangladesh) fled the country after facing intense protest from Bangladeshi students. Her exact location doesn't seem to be confirmed yet (rumored to be India or EU).

Let's back up a little and give some brief historical context.

SH came to power in 2008. Her father- Mujib was the architect in mobilizing people in Bangladesh to gain independence from Pakistan in 1971. Following independence, Mujib became the first PM of Bangladesh.

He, along with his entire family, was assassinated by the a faction from Bangladesh Army in 1975. Only two people survived. SH and her sister Sheikh Rehana who only survived because they weren't in Bangladesh.

SH came back to Bangladesh in 1981 and along with other political parties, she forced the Army to arrange a fair election to transition to democracy in 1991.

SH, however, lost the election but managed to win the next one in 1996. Then she lost the next election in 2001.

Then in 2004, the then government party BNP tried to assassinate SH. The message seemed quite clear: BNP wanted to eliminate SH and preferred a path to autocracy.

SH was understandably convinced there wouldn't be free, fair election under BNP. A huge protest followed.

BNP then had to give in and let the Army take over for a couple of years to stabilize things before the next election in 2008.

SH had a landslide victory. However, following 2008, SH essentially decided to implement and execute BNP's "dream": autocracy.

Bangladesh has had four elections since 2008. These elections are closer to what happens in elections in Russia than what you see in the US or India. They are all sham elections.

Opposition party was basically surgically exterminated.

Many appeared to be "okay" with autocracy because it has created stability instead of the recurring violence and instability that ensues in election cycles.

What perhaps many have misinterpreted is autocracy will ALWAYS appear stable until it is about to be toppled.

Democracy is chaos most of the time. But it IS antifragile. But because of the chaos of democracy, it feels counterintuitive and you may be tempted to think "what's so wrong about autocracy? Look at X,Y, Z data and how things are getting better vs history"

So, what toppled SH?

About a month ago, students started protesting the "quota" system for public service job. This system allowed ONLY 44% of the govt jobs to be based purely on merit. ~30% of the jobs was allocated to 1971 freedom fighters' heirs.

Students thought allocating such a massive quota based on historical grievances is unjustified. So, they hit the street, but the govt decided to take a heavy handed approach to tackle the students.

Videos of police shooting unarmed students completely unprovoked started circling on social media. Death toll started to rise. Unofficial sources claim it can even be in four digits!

Govt kept taking the protest in a rather nonchalant manner and perhaps expected it to be squashed in a week or two. But as death toll started to rise and their cavalier attitude to such deaths were shared on social media...

...the protesters eventually coalesced to just one single demand: "Step Down Hasina"

Over the last week or so, govt finally grasped the gravity of the situation. While Army and Police are all sympathizers of the govt, it remained difficult to control the situation.

Ultimately, it proved too difficult to keep shooting at your own brothers, friends, and acquaintances. Army seemed a bit un-cooperative to do the govt's bidding. Some police themselves were starting to be killed by some faction of the protesters.

Govt imposed a curfew today in Bangladesh. But protesters called everyone to not abide by it and asked people to march towards Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. And people listened.

For context, Bangladesh has half the population of the US even though it is the size of NY in area.

So if a few million people just start walking to the PM's palace without fearing for their lives, it's hard to protect the PM. SH realized her fate has been sealed and fled.

Most Bangladeshis I can see seem to be jubilant today. My Facebook feed is mostly an exuberance of a new sense of "independence" from the autocracy.

While I understand the sentiment, my opinion is Bangladesh is likely to move in a circle from here. Why?

Most countries, including Bangladesh, never quite address the root cause of the structural problems and tend to pin things down to specific individuals as the sole poison. The reality is far from that.

Unless Bangladesh ever seriously considers: the independence of judiciary, executive, and legislative branch of the govt, the independence of monetary and fiscal policy, freedom of expression, a banking sector that's not a source of "free money" for the people at power...

...it is more likely than not that I may have to write another thread like this in 10-20 years from now.

So, while most of my friends back home seem to be quite happy today, I am mostly indifferent until and unless I can see the desire to address structural issues.

Right now, it is not even clear who is in power. The Army seems to be in power, but given how close they were to the penultimate govt, it may prove to be a very short-term solution. I don't have confidence to predict what happens from here, especially sitting thousands of miles away.

Whatever happens, my best wishes to my fellow Bangladeshis and I hope my bit of pessimism turns out to be incorrect.

*addendum: did a stupid mistake of saying Sheikh Hasina was the Head of the State, but actually she was the Head of the Government. Head of the State is President which is largely a honorary position in Bangladesh and the Head of Govt holds the power.