Time is up for Sheikh Hasina

It came down to two public pronouncements: the first, a thirteen-minute answer at a press conference, and the second, a seven-minute address to the nation, both delivered in front of a bookshelf that boasted little more than books on Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, beneath a portrait of him.

Whatever happens to the Awami League now, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s time as the autocrat-in-chief is up.

Whether it was hubris or delusion, the self-belief derived from over fifteen years of uninterrupted authoritarian rule led her to needlessly denigrate and denounce the future of the nation.

In doing so, she unwittingly ensured that she could have no future in the nation. Through that first pronouncement, Hasina signalled her approval for the violent suppression of a peaceful protest by calling the protesters “progenies of Razakars”.

Rather than quelling the protests, the sight of armed Chhatra League cadres standing shoulder to shoulder with law enforcement and bloodying young students coalesced a movement into a revolution. When Hasina appeared in black and spoke to the nation a second time in a sombre tone, recounting the loss she suffered at being orphaned, the people neither had the patience to listen nor any sympathy to give. It was the moment when the Awami League’s lies lost their stranglehold on Bangladesh.

When a prime minister has taken the approach of ruling her people rather than serving them for a decade and a half, she may not realise that there is a limit to how much oppression the people will bear.

When a government and a party play the role of sycophants in court, they start believing the lies they tell the people a little too much, losing the ability to remind their leader of the truth from time to time. Hasina has been credited with being a successful autocrat where others before her failed, by defanging the military and civil society as political forces, bringing the deep pockets to heel, nullifying opposition parties, flooding the state machinery with loyalists, and having the unwavering support of India. None of that can save her premiership now.

Until Hasina spoke and until her courtiers echoed her command, all that existed was a fledgling peaceful anti-discrimination movement. By her decree, a country already crippled by corruption, crony capitalism, and the erosion of human rights, the rule of law, and basic civility, was set ablaze.

There is no way for Hasina to escape responsibility for the death and destruction that has brought a struggling Bangladesh to a standstill. There is no way that the people will not hold the Awami League accountable any longer for the shameless mismanagement of the country and a crisis of its own making. There is no way for the Chhatra League to avoid being designated a militant terrorist outfit. They have been cruel, they have been careless, they have been corrupt. Now, their heartless stupidity and incompetence have been laid bare too.

In choosing violence, believing that to be the only option available, the authoritarian government of Bangladesh has run out of options to remain in power. That unprecedented levels of state terror have not intimidated the citizens, let alone made them bow to their ruler, is a sign that the Awami League has thoroughly lost the mandate to govern.

What can be hoped for, albeit not expected from this vile coterie, is that there is a peaceful transition to a civilian government that has the mandate of the people so conclusively lost by the Awami League. No more blood needs to be spilt, and Hasina and her lackeys already have more than enough on their hands.