The rise and fall (and rise?) of Bangladesh as a development darling

After weeks of civil unrest in Bangladesh — which resulted in the deaths of over 300 civilians and the ousting of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina — microfinance pioneer and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was last week sworn in as interim leader. It marks a dramatic turn of events for Bangladesh’s beleaguered development sector, which witnessed violent crackdowns against human rights activists and civil society leaders during Hasina’s 15-year rule. Yunus himself, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for helping to lift thousands in Bangladesh out of poverty, had up until last week been facing a string of criminal charges, which supporters say were politically motivated. Other members of the newly appointed administration include the previously imprisoned leader of a human rights organization, and an environmental campaigner whose husband was forcibly disappeared — one of an estimated 600 enforced disappearances, meaning abductions and detentions that are never accounted for, committed by the state since 2009. “It’s incredible what’s happened from a development perspective,” said Taqbir Huda, South Asia researcher at Amnesty International. “You have these three NGO leaders where the state did everything in its power to persecute them, who are now part of the interim government.” The sudden change in leadership has thrown Bangladesh into a period of uncertainty — but many also hope that it will lead to a reformed political system that restores democratic freedoms and better upholds citizens’ socioeconomic rights. The road here Under Hasina’s leadership, Bangladesh witnessed rapid economic growth and significant progress in areas such as health, education, and female empowerment. It is currently on track to graduate from the United Nations’ Least Developed Countries, or LDC, list by 2026. But impressive gross domestic product figures obscured rising levels of inequality, meaning that “the growth narrative may not resonate with everyday youth in Bangladesh,” said Mubashar Hasan, a political analyst at Western Sydney University and former human rights defender who was imprisoned in 2017 before emigrating to Australia. According to the World Inequality Report 2022, an estimated 1% of the population of Bangladesh holds 16.3% of the total national income. “We are dealing with humans, we’re not dealing with figures and numbers,” said Hasan. “If they’re feeling oppressed, then we’re talking about development in a pressure cooker.” The unrest began in early July as a student-led protest against civil service job quotas, but police violence to shut down the protests left hundreds dead and unleashed public resentment against a government that many saw as increasingly authoritarian. The bloodshed came to a head on Aug. 5, when protesters stormed the prime minister’s official residence, forcing her to resign and flee the country. Naomi Hossain, a professor of development studies at SOAS University of London, said that the unrest was less about economic failures and more about justice and accountability, describing the protests as ones “of aspiration, not desperation.” She pointed out that the oft-forgotten 16th Sustainable Development Goal promotes peace, justice and strong institutions. “That’s the one that nobody ever mentions,” she said. Once seen as a “poster child for development,” she said, Bangladesh now served as a lesson for other emerging economies on “why you don’t really get development without human rights — not over the long term.” A period of transformation Hasina’s ousting has left Bangladesh in limbo. Her Awami League party ruled heavy-handedly over many of the country’s institutions, including the police and judiciary — resulting in a near-total breakdown of the state machinery upon her hurried exit from power. With much of the police force now in hiding, civilians and students have stepped in to fill the gaps, volunteering as traffic wardens and guarding Hindu temples against opportunistic attacks on Bangladesh’s minority communities. Weeks of chaos have also come at a cost to the economy, with the curfew and five-day internet blackout implemented during protests resulting in over $10 billion in estimated losses. A breakdown in the supply chain also left some nonprofits scrambling to provide essential services. “The last two to three weeks have been extremely difficult for many of our staff to actually deliver services,” said Mohammad Akmal Shareef, country director at international humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger. A lack of supplies and restrictions on movement across the country has particularly affected humanitarian work in the Rohingya camps, he said. But in the long run, Shareef is optimistic that having Yunus at the helm will bring about positive changes for the development sector. “Being a development practitioner himself, he knows how the humanitarian sector operates,” he said. “In terms of regulations, in terms of processes, we look forward to having a more simplified way of working.” Under the previous government, NGOs faced an increasing number of limitations and bureaucratic hurdles, said Huda. The NGO Affairs Bureau wielded complete power over activities conducted by nonprofits and foreign funding, and also arbitrarily deregistered several organizations whose work was viewed as a threat to the state narrative, such as the human rights group Odhikar. The nonprofit’s founder, Adilur Rahman Khan — now a member of the interim government — was arrested last September. Fear of reprisals led many civil and human rights-based organizations to “shift to socioeconomic rights because that was more likely to get accepted from the NGO Affairs Bureau,” said Huda. As a human rights researcher from Bangladesh, Huda was forced to work anonymously from abroad, using a burner phone on visits back home. When Hasina was ousted, he said he “breathed a sigh of relief that finally, being someone who works on human rights is hopefully no longer going to be self-incriminating.” An uphill task for Yunus Yunus was chosen to lead the interim government, which includes two leaders of the student protests, “because of the hope that he would be a unifying figure,” said Hossain. “He would be somebody that the world would know about and recognize.” In a public statement the day before his swearing-in, Yunus appealed for citizens to “refrain from all kinds of violence” and “get ready to build the country.” Many people in Bangladesh “have put a lot of faith in him that he will be a savior to them,” said Hasan. But a change in leadership does not mean a change in the state machinery, he warned, with systemic reforms needed in the military, police, and bureaucracy to ensure meaningful change. Amnesty International has recommended that the interim government remove certain arbitrary powers of the police and repeal repressive laws, such as the Cyber Security Act, which criminalized criticism of the government and was “weaponized to target journalists, human rights defenders and dissidents,” it said. “Our history suggests that no matter who’s in power, these oppressive powers are then used to crush dissent and limit civic space,” said Huda. “As long as those remain in place, I don’t think we would be any freer.” Rebuilding impartial and accountable state institutions will be “an uphill task” however, said Hasan. At a press briefing in Dhaka after his swearing-in, Yunus called for the restoration of freedom of expression and an independent judiciary but did not detail how the new administration planned to do this. “The fact is we don’t really know what sort of reforms we are talking about. We need an independent judiciary, but OK, what do we have to do for that? We need an independent bureaucracy, but how will you make it up?” said Hasan. Currently, it is unclear how long the interim government under Yunus intends to stay in power before calling for new elections. Restoring stability and enacting reforms that will prevent future abuses of power will take time, said Hasan. But at the same time, there are dangers to Yunus — who holds no public mandate to rule — staying in an unelected position of power for too long, he said. Bangladesh “came to this point of chaos” in the first place because of a lack of free and fair elections, he pointed out. Whether he leads an interim government for months or years, that decision will have to be made inclusively, said Hasan, to ensure that political parties do not restart street protests. For lasting stability, that inclusivity should go beyond political parties, however, said Hossain, and should incorporate decision-making from underrepresented groups such as garment industry workers. “These interim structures tend to be really elite,” she said. “They’re not as representative as they might be.” Bangladesh’s export-led model of growth has relied on these often exploited labor forces, which regularly face low wages, unsafe working conditions, and deadly crackdowns against protests. “People used to say [Bangladesh’s] development happened because of the Awami League, but I would say it happened in spite of it,” summarized Huda. “We prospered in spite of overwhelming repression.”