AS Sheikh Hasina Wajed boarded a military helicopter to flee from Dhaka last Monday, TV television screens showed scenes of angry protesters ransacking her official residence and hacking away at statues of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first leader of Bangladesh, who himself was assassinated this month in 1975.
The student-led protests over civil service job quotas spiralled out of control and became the immediate cause for the downfall of Sheikh Hasina, who ruled Bangladesh from 1996 to 2001, and then again from 2009-2024. However, most Bangladesh watchers believe she was sitting atop a volcano waiting to erupt, a volcano that her own repressive policies, human rights abuses, and a rigged election last January had created.