M. Niaz Asadullah
In recent weeks, the Bangladeshi government has cracked down violently on students demanding equitable access to coveted government jobs amid an unemployment crisis. To contain the protests, authorities have shut down all educational institutions, imposed a strict curfew, and cut off internet access. Thousands of police officers and paramilitaries have been patrolling the streets, and more than 170 people have died.
Such unrest in one of Asia’s most populous and promising emerging economies, which has made remarkable progress on development and political stability in the half-century or so since it gained independence, did not come out of nowhere. Bangladesh’s youth uprising, with its echoes of the Arab Spring, illustrates how corruption, cronyism, and inequality tend to accompany GDP growth, especially under an increasingly authoritarian regime.
Since taking power in 2009, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League has largely failed to deliver on promises of job creation. To be sure, Bangladesh’s public-sector workforce has expanded over the past two decades, and civil servants have received steady raises and improved benefits. But access to these jobs is now a matter of politics. The implicit social contract, whereby the youth population remains compliant as long as the government provides jobs and keeps the cost of living down, has been broken.
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