Sheikh Hasina was given 15 minutes to vacate. What followed for Bangladesh’s Hindus is grimmer than the headlines suggest.

Dr. Sanchita Bhattacharya, research fellow at the Institute for Conflict Management, breaks down the 2024 Bangladeshi regime change with forensic precision: the quota agitation that triggered protests was not new — students had agitated before — but this time Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatro Shibir hijacked the movement and drove most of the atrocities. The quota system itself traces to 1972, when 30% of government jobs were reserved for Mukti Jodha war veterans. Most chillingly, Bhattacharya notes that female protesters are now identifying as “Razakars” — the term for collaborators who aided Pakistani atrocities in 1971, including the rape and murder of female students in Rukaiya Hall. The rot runs deep.

About the Speaker:
Dr. Sanchita Bhattacharya is a Research Fellow in New Delhi based Institute for Conflict
Management. She is part of the South Asia Terrorism Portal project. She has co-
authored the book, “The Taliban Misrule in Afghanistan”, with Musa Khan Jalalzai. She
works on terrorism and socio-political issues of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and
India. Her articles and commentaries have been published in The Interpreter, The Quint,
East Asia Forum, Australian Outlook, The Kabul Times, The Friday Times, The Outlook,
Firstpost, etc. She has written research papers in national and international journals and
also contributed chapters to various edited volumes.