Bangladesh’s future trajectory after Sheikh Hasina’s resignation and flight from the country is still uncertain. At the same time, competing explanations of the protest being student-led, a genuine democratic outburst, or an Islamist counter-revolution are being offered. Without prejudice to what happens in the future, a demographic analysis of Bangladesh suggests that conflicting binaries might not be useful to understand what has transpired in Bangladesh. The survey also found overwhelming evidence for widespread dissatisfaction with the state of democracy and
- Are students capable of a bringing a regime change in Bangladesh?A lot of the commentary on the ongoing protests in Bangladesh has described them as being led by students. In fact, a consortium of student bodies called Anti-Discrimination Student Movement has been at the forefront of the protests. Are students capable of shifting politics in Bangladesh? A key metric which can tell us about the feasibility or lack of such a possibility is the median age of the country’s population. Student protests will have more traction in a country which has more young people. Data from United Nation’s World Population Prospects shows that while Bangladesh is among the youngest countries in the world in terms of median age of the population (25.7 years), it is not the youngest in the South Asian region. But a higher enrolment rate than its younger peers means it has more college students (and potential student protestors) than younger countries in the region.
- To be sure, the share of older population is much higher than what it was during the 1971 liberation struggleThis is yet another interesting aspect of Bangladesh’s demographics. The share of the 15- to 29-year-old population in Bangladesh is marginally higher than what it was when the country fought for its liberation war against Pakistan in 1971. However, what is noteworthy is that the share of population which is 30 year or older is significantly higher today than what it was in 1971. This means that the older population has a much bigger role in Bangladesh politics today than it had fifty years ago when the country was formed.
- Support for more Islamic politics in Bangladesh is higher among the less educated…This was among the key findings in a 2017 survey (https://tinyurl.com/bd3vhjp5) conducted in Bangladesh by Ali Riaz and Syed Salima Aziz. Riaz is a professor of political science at Illinois State University and considered among the most eminent scholars on Bangladesh in the US. The survey, which was conducted by the Resolve Network housed at the United States Institute of Peace, found that support for tough religious penalties such as stoning and harsh physical punishment declined with rise in education levels in Bangladesh and fell by almost 20 percentage points among graduates compared to those with no education. To be sure, these numbers were not insignificant for graduates as well. This suggests that it is entirely possible that the students at the forefront of the anti-Hasina protests are entirely driven by Islamic politics.
- ... but labelling even pro-Islamic elements undemocratic could have been Hasina’s fatal mistakeThis is among the most crucial takeaways from the survey by Riaz and Aziz. “The survey results do not validate the common perception that support for democratic principles and practices is at odds with support for Sharia. Instead, the results suggest that support for both democratic principles and Sharia can be concurrent,” the report noted. More than 75% of the respondents preferred a “somewhat” or “much larger role” for Sharia in Bangladesh’s legal system. More than 80% of Muslims – they are more than 90% of Bangladesh’s population – responded in favour of large or some influence of religious leaders in the governance process. However, the survey found that this was not necessarily in conflict with support for democratic principles. “Strong democratic principles constitute one of the key aspects of the mindset of the people of Bangladesh. Respondents highly valued the security of individual property rights, elected representation, and judicial independence. These attitudes coexist with overwhelming support for a greater role for Sharia and religious leaders in the legal system and for harsher punishments,” it said.
Roshan Kishore is the Data and Political Economy Editor at Hindustan Times. He heads the newsroom's data journalism team, which produces Number Theory, a daily data-driven feature for the print edition and the HT app. Number Theory uses data analysis and story-telling based on it to add value to the newsroom’s daily coverage by putting stories in a larger context on a range of issues, including politics, macroeconomy, markets, global affairs and climate. Under his leadership HT’s data journalism work has established itself as a niche product in Indian journalism and pushed the boundaries of marrying academic rigour with news sense and speed. Along with writing and editing data stories, he has also been writing a weekly political economy column called Terms of Trade for HT Premium. A trained economist with an MPhil degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Kishore has also been a visiting fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania. Along with his journalistic work, his writings have also appeared in journals such as the Economic and Political Weekly and working papers for CASI and UNESCAP.
Abhishek Jha is Assistant Editor-Data at Hindustan Times. He uses statistical programming to generate newsworthy insights from large datasets. He is part of the team that produces Number Theory, a daily data story feature of the paper’s print edition. Since March 2024, he has been writing Weather Bee, a weekly column for the Hindustan Times website. He is a chemical engineer by training, who specialises in stories related to weather, climate, and the environment. Jha has been at HT since 2018, where he offers data-driven perspective and analysis on politics, environment, weather, climate, economy and society. His work includes data coverage of elections in India and abroad, including the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections; the disasters and extreme weather resulting from changing climate, such as floods, droughts, heat waves, cold waves, and dwindling snow cap in the Himalayas; the factors that drive poor air quality in northern India; the changing patterns of land use; the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on labour market conditions; the changing pattern of consumer spending seen in the new consumer spending surveys; and social norms seen in the surveys such as the National Family Health Survey.