I'm not nearly as optimistic as you are. Hasina rigs three elections back to back, but the thing that provoked the biggest protest was government jobs. This doesn't bode well for any future administration that's planning to do privatisation and/or civil service reform. Even BNP ran explicitly on a left wing agenda in the last "election".
Obviously, civil service jobs always had prestige attached to them but in the 90s and 2000s, it had lost most of its appeal. But after the 2010s, civil service jobs became attractive again. Businesses complained about civil service taking away skilled workforce from the private market. Even engineers and doctors started applying for the general cadre.
This isn't something that can be solved with simple economic growth. As long as the wage premium for public sector workers (formal or informal) exists we wouldn't be able to cut down the civil service. In fact more economic growth will more lucrative opportunities for rent seeking and more people capable of passing the exam.
This is probably the worst thing Hasina has done to Bangladesh. She has made more like socialist India where the greatest aspiration of the youth is to be a tax funded parasite. This is going to be a permanent blight on our nation.
The quotas were the spark. The uprising involved people from all walks of life and it was Hasina's callous disregard for any dissenting view and the regime's heavy handed actions that led to its fall. I wouldn't read too much into any socialist aspiration.
Given that the GenZ generation (the largest generation - basically our boomers) have never voted we don't really know their political preferences. The student protests were a very urban phenomenon. Most Bangladeshis are still rural.
The gap between rural and urban Bangladesh isn't as vast was in the past. Most villages have electricity, internet and good road connectivity. Protests were nationwide and many students come from rural areas. We have no idea about their political preferences, nor those of people in their late 20s and early 30s.
The gap is lower but modern amenities have only arrived in rural areas less than 10 years ago. Many still don't have a bank account. I'd even argue that people from Dhaka are very different to the rest of the urban population - for better or for worse.
I'm not nearly as optimistic as you are. Hasina rigs three elections back to back, but the thing that provoked the biggest protest was government jobs. This doesn't bode well for any future administration that's planning to do privatisation and/or civil service reform. Even BNP ran explicitly on a left wing agenda in the last "election".
Obviously, civil service jobs always had prestige attached to them but in the 90s and 2000s, it had lost most of its appeal. But after the 2010s, civil service jobs became attractive again. Businesses complained about civil service taking away skilled workforce from the private market. Even engineers and doctors started applying for the general cadre.
This isn't something that can be solved with simple economic growth. As long as the wage premium for public sector workers (formal or informal) exists we wouldn't be able to cut down the civil service. In fact more economic growth will more lucrative opportunities for rent seeking and more people capable of passing the exam.
This is probably the worst thing Hasina has done to Bangladesh. She has made more like socialist India where the greatest aspiration of the youth is to be a tax funded parasite. This is going to be a permanent blight on our nation.
The quotas were the spark. The uprising involved people from all walks of life and it was Hasina's callous disregard for any dissenting view and the regime's heavy handed actions that led to its fall. I wouldn't read too much into any socialist aspiration.
Given that the GenZ generation (the largest generation - basically our boomers) have never voted we don't really know their political preferences. The student protests were a very urban phenomenon. Most Bangladeshis are still rural.
The gap between rural and urban Bangladesh isn't as vast was in the past. Most villages have electricity, internet and good road connectivity. Protests were nationwide and many students come from rural areas. We have no idea about their political preferences, nor those of people in their late 20s and early 30s.
The gap is lower but modern amenities have only arrived in rural areas less than 10 years ago. Many still don't have a bank account. I'd even argue that people from Dhaka are very different to the rest of the urban population - for better or for worse.