By Afshain Afzal

We all know that it was Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed annulled Quota System from Bangladesh in 2018, and the new 100 percent merit-based recruitment was fully implemented since then. She as a Prime Minister is not above the law therefore she was supporting the rule of law and honoured the verdicts of Bangladeshi courts. In her statement, Prime Minister Hasina on 7^th July 2024 said, “After the court’s verdict, there is no justification for the anti-quota movement.” Again, on 14 July she said, “Why do they have so much resentment towards the freedom fighters? If the grandchildren of the freedom fighters don’t get quota benefits, should the grandchildren of Razakars get the benefit?” Although the statements of the Prime Minister were quite impolite but such statements became necessary to support the judgments passed by the Courts. Just to remind that in Bangladesh, Razakar” are Urdu-speaking who collaborated with Pakistan during the unrest and military crackdown of Bengali-speaking locals in East Pakistan in 1971.

In the early years following independence, the quotas were reserved for war veterans themselves, and then it expanded to include their children in 1997 and then grandchildren in 2010. Students protested in 2018 that it was clearly discriminatory and needed to change. Prime Minister Sheikh, Hasina promised the students to abolish the system, when she announced, “There is nothing to get angry at, the students are demanding end to quota, and I totally accept it.” Prime Minister Hasina scrapped the entire quota system. The 2018 circular said “Direct recruitment in all government jobs in 9th grade (old first class) and from 10th to 13th grade (old second class) will be completely based on merit”, abolishing the existing quota system.

There were protests from civil society groups who called for reform of the quotas, rather than outright cancellation, but the government remained unmoved, and the agitation died down. In June 2024, when a group of people, including relatives of war veterans, went to the High Court and challenged the government’s 2018 order to cancel the quotas. The court ruled that the government order was illegal and restored the quotas in their entirety. On 5 July 2024, The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court has upheld (for now) a High Court judgment that declared illegal a 2018 government circular abolishing the 30 percent quota system for the Freedom Fighters' children in the ninth to 13th grades of government jobs.

Bangladesh’s High Court on 14 July 2024, gave its decision to retain the 30 percent government job quota for the children of freedom fighters in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. Following widespread student protests, the Appellate Division of Bangladesh’s Supreme Court has suspended the government service quota system for one month. The Supreme Court order dated 21 July 2024, pronounced that the quota for veterans’ descendants be cut to 5 percent, with 93 percent of jobs to be allocated on merit. The remaining 2 percent will be set-aside for members of ethnic minorities and transgender and disabled people. One wonders that when Prime Minister Hasina Wajed abolished the quota system in her previous term of government, why she is being blamed for the action taken by the judiciary against her decision to abolish quota system? The Western and Indian pressure groups to include transgender and militant groups in quota have directly started interfering in the internal affairs of Bangladesh. This also led to the abduction and imprisonment of sitting Prime Minister with her whereabouts unknown. Prime Minister Hasina is still the legitimate Prime Minister as she never resigned and under what law new interim government has been established? Is this democracy? Why UNO and Human Rights groups are silent?