WEBVTT - After a Deadly Student Uprising, Bangladesh Starts Over, Again 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:08.160 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:12.280 Bangladesh, the South Asian country that's home to nearly one 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:15.560 hundred and seventy million people, has a new government. 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:22.319 This Bangladesh has been reborn. Our resolve is to see 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.600 it move ahead at a very rapid pace. That is 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:26.880 what we want to protect. 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:31.840 After weeks of protests that led to some four hundred deaths, 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.400 Prime Minister Sheik Hasina was forced to step down and 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.920 flee the country, putting an abrupt end to her fifteen 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:40.000 years in power. 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:41.519 That this is not just. 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:43.640 The end of the Titan shake Asina. 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.800 With this, we put an end to the mafia state 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:47.640 that she hastrated. 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.920 In a startling turn of events, Nobel Prize winning economist 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:56.520 Mohammed Unis stepped into the leadership vacuum. Yes, the same 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:00.440 Mohammed Unis who we reported just last month was facing 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:04.520 nearly two hundred criminal charges that his supporters believed were 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:08.520 politically motivated. Earlier, Yunis told Bloomberg that he didn't have 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:13.640 political aspirations, but after Hassina's departure, he was chosen to 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:15.960 be the chief advisor of the interim government. 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.120 We must protect this freedom and not only protect it, 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.440 but take the fruits of this freedom to every household. 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:27.560 Otherwise this freedom has no value. 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.800 What happens next in Bangladesh is being closely watched by 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:36.160 international investors who've come to see the country as a 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:37.880 potential rising economy. 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:41.720 Bangladesh, when it was inaugurated as a nation as an 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.120 independent nation in the nineteen seventies, was something like the 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:49.000 second poorest country on Earth. Now it's a lower middle 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:53.480 income economy, so it seemed as a fairly robust success 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.040 story in the region. And I think that that reputation 0:01:57.240 --> 0:01:58.160 is what's at stake. 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.240 Bloomberg reporter Kai Schultz has been closely covering the events 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:05.400 in Bangladesh over the last few months, and he says 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.880 one thing Muhammad Unis's interim government will need to do 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:11.600 is to shore up confidence in the country. 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.600 One of the things that Unice and his interim government 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.480 will want to do is just ensure the international community 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:19.359 that this is still a place to park their money, 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.359 that it's a country that still has a very positive trajectory. 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:31.600 Welcome to the Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:36.840 wanh today on the show how student protesters toppled a 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:47.000 fifteen year rule in Bangladesh and what's next for Bangladesh's economy. Kai, 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.880 we spoke last month about the celebrated economist Muhammad Yunis, 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.280 whom you met earlier this year in Bangladesh. He was 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:58.400 then fighting very serious criminal charges that his supporters believed 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:02.160 were being driven by former Prime Minister Shai Casina, And 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:07.239 now weeks later, we have such a dramatic turn. Hassina's 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:10.720 resigned abruptly and has fled the country, while Unice is 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:13.920 now in charge of an interim government. Did anyone see 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:14.440 this coming? 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:19.399 Nobody saw this coming. It's been a complete shock. It's 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:23.000 wild that Unice is the leader of the interim government, 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:29.359 precisely because he was such a target of Hassina's administration, 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:31.919 or at least it was perceived that way by him 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:36.400 in his camp. He faced life imprisonment and now he's 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:41.600 ruling over a massive country and many now are hoping 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:46.000 that this ushers in a new era for the country, 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.119 but with so much uncertainty, it's hard to say. 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:50.960 Okay. So take us back to the protests in July 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.280 that led to the Prime Minister's ouster. What got people 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:55.160 to the streets. 0:03:55.520 --> 0:04:02.360 The protests started with fairly narrow to points. Mostly they 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:07.119 were on the streets contesting a law that preserves government 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:09.160 jobs for specific groups. 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:13.720 So wait, why did protesters care so much about these jobs? 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.640 So under the quota system, about thirty percent of jobs 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:21.760 were reserved for the families of veterans who fought in 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:27.039 Bangladesh's War of independence. Hasina's party, the Iwami League, was 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:31.239 instrumental at that time in pushing for Bangladesh to become 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:35.960 an independent nation. So many students felt like this system 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:42.960 favored loyalists of hers. And Bangladesh's economy has lately slowed, 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.839 there's still a sense, particularly among young people, that quality 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.840 jobs are in short supply. So the protest movement was 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:53.919 largely led by students, at least initially. 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:56.599 And how did the then prime minister has seen it 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:58.880 react to the protests and criticism. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:04.320 Sure, Hassina reacted with force in those early days. 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.359 The army has now been deployed in the country's capital 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:12.240 to enforce a strict curfew with a shoot on site order. 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.760 And the way they cracked down was by deputizing the police. Eventually, 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:20.159 the army shutting down communication so that people couldn't as 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:22.160 easily organize. 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.880 With the government imposing a nationwide internet blackout. The US 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.040 embasc and a statement saying reports indicate hundreds have been injured, 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.000 adding the situation is extremely volatile. 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:37.760 For several days, WhatsApp was basically unusable, so internet services, 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:42.880 phone communications, all of that was cut, and the protests 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.760 became very violent. According to figures that we have, which 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:50.640 are pulled from a variety of sources, including hospitals, several 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.479 hundred people were killed, perhaps more than four hundred. 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.760 Okay, so you've got Prime Minister ship Casina. She's been 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:02.599 ruling Bangladesh with an ironclad fist and took a really 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.960 strong stance against these protests, forcefully suppressed the demonstrations, and 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:11.279 then weeks after she's basically resigned abruptly fled the country. 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:13.440 What was a turning point here? 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:19.040 So at one point, several days into the protests, Hassina's 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:24.520 administration made a concession. The veterans quota was cut to 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.760 five percent, and that seemed to quell a lot of 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:32.600 the anger. The protests died down, but soon after, and 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:37.640 it's unclear exactly why this occurred, the protesters returned, and 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.039 when they returned, they wanted her to resign. And we 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:45.200 think that part of the reason that these persisted was 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.440 because by that point a few hundred people had already 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.560 been killed, and Bangladeshi's were so tired of living in 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:56.120 a country that they felt did not have a justice 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.920 system that favored them, but had a justice system that 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:04.279 favored the elite, and their agenda narrowed to a single 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:08.400 bullet point, which was effectively to push her out. The 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.240 streets of Dhaka were at their bloodiest. I think the 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:15.000 day before she resigned, something like one hundred people alone 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:18.840 were killed. And that's really the moment when a lot 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.280 of security personnel felt like they could no longer protect 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:26.640 Shei Casina and they could no longer stand behind her administration. 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:32.200 So Hassina resigns and Mohammed Yunis, the Nobel Prize winning economist, 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:35.960 steps in to lead the interim government at Bangladesh, backed 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:38.880 by the military. What happens next here. 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:44.040 What happens next is the interim government will start to 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:49.080 put together an agenda to rebuild Bangladesh to take the 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:53.640 country forward. Right now, ideally elections would be held within 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:56.600 three or so months. I think it's a ninety day period. 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.320 So there are a lot of moving pieces at the moment, 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:04.160 herself may come back to Bangladesh and contest elections. But 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:06.600 it could be a situation where they're held in three months, 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:08.840 it could be a situation where they're held in two years. 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:09.600 We really don't know. 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:12.280 I imagine that the next few weeks will be really important 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.840 to re establish in a security for Bangladesh. What are 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:19.000 the most important things that UNICE and the military need 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.840 to do to get daily life in Bangladesh, you know, 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.480 running smoothly again right now? 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.800 A lot of services simply aren't working, so the police 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:33.600 were on strike. Many businesses are still shuttered. They're worried 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:39.040 about arsonists, about looters. After Shai Casina left, after she 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:44.160 fled to India, the protests continued in some sort of spirit, 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.360 and in many parts of the country they continued to 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:54.000 be violent. So we've encountered reports of minority Hindus being attacked. 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:58.040 There's a sense that if Bangladesh doesn't get a hold 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:01.439 of the security situation, it could be another Pakistan in 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.280 the sense that it could be a place that harbors 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:08.200 Esamist extremists. And so I think that that will be 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:12.840 top of the agenda in the immediate month for Unis 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:18.080 and for the military establishing some sense of security at 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:20.960 least in the capital and the bigger cities in Bangladesh. 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.520 And what are the risks here to Bangladesh's economy. It 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.360 is the second largest garment exporter next to China. 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:34.400 The garment exports industry has been disrupted, of course by 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.720 the protests by curfews, so a number of factories have 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:43.400 temporarily shuddered as these protests became very intense. Much of 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:48.280 the industry is centralized around Dhaka, the capital where many 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.559 of the protests were held, so there's been a bit 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:55.480 of a spillover effect. Foreign direct investment has been falling 0:09:56.240 --> 0:10:00.400 pretty rapidly in Bangladesh for a few years. The desk 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:05.439 suffered immensely from the pandemic and supply chain disruptions. Blangladesh 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:09.600 Banks governor recently resigned. There's been enormous shakeup in the 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:14.760 finance ministry, which is creating quite a bit of turbulence, 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:16.080 at least in the present moment. 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:23.520 After the break, Bangladesh heads into an uncertain future with 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:27.360 a reluctant leader. What does Muhammad Unis have planned for 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:40.360 Bangladesh now that he's in charge kai This is a 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:44.000 very dramatic turn of events in Bangladesh. When you visited 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:46.840 Muhammad Unis earlier this year at his home in dot Com, 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.320 he was facing a very different future. How did he 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.720 go from facing life in prison to leading the country. 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.840 It's hard to know exactly why he was chosen. He 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:02.400 was the person that student protesters wanted to lead this 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:08.599 interim government. He's an intellectual, He's someone who is mostly apolitical, 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.520 and I think that a lot of Bangladeshi's gravitate towards 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:15.319 that they're tired of the same leaders with the same agendas, 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:20.040 constantly fighting each other, and Professor Unis offers something different 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:26.160 in that sense. But it's absolutely crazy that he is 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.200 now completely out of the legal entanglements, at least for 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.840 the time being that he previously faced. The charges against 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:37.120 him have been dropped. He was once a chief threat 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:39.760 to Hassina, at least in the eyes of many people 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:42.640 who are close to her, and he's now in her seat. 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:45.520 So one thing I wanted to touch upon is there 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:47.800 is a bit of jeja vu here, right, this is 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.280 not the first time that Yunis stepped into politics under 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:51.720 turbulent circumstances. 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:56.040 That's right, He briefly entered politics in two thousand and 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:59.680 seven when Hassina was in jail, and she saw that 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:04.040 as betrayal of sorts. He quickly stepped out. He realized 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.319 that it was not for him, and he's insisted, including 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:10.160 the interviews that I've conducted with him earlier this year, 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:12.199 that he has no interest in politics. 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:13.960 I said, look, I'm not a politicians. 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:15.360 This is a lot of thing I will never do. 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:17.640 Yeah, and that was a conversation you had with him 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:20.360 just earlier this year. What did you take away from 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:21.079 that conversation. 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:25.320 I took away that this is someone who's very dedicated 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:29.920 to poverty alleviation. He did not strike me as someone 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:33.480 who had political ambitions. It did not feel like that 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:35.960 was just something he was saying to get Hassina off 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:41.600 his back. My sense now is the student protesters asked 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:44.360 him to be the interim head. That's something we do 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:48.720 know as a fact. Whether he wanted to do it 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:51.200 or whether he felt pressure to do it because the 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:55.320 situation in Bangladesh was so unstable is still an open question. 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:58.560 I think we'll have more clarity in the coming days, 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:02.760 but for now, it's certainly a bit of an about face, 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.960 and we'll see whether this is just a temporary step 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.760 into the political arena or whether he might himself contest 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:12.000 elections when they are held. 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:16.000 And how do you think this turbulent episode has changed 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:17.920 how the world looks at Bangladesh. 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.480 I think that there's been an impression, at least within governments, 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:29.560 that Bangladesh has slid toward a more authoritarian model. But 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:32.120 at the same time, it's still one of the few 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:37.880 Muslim democracies in the world. It's a country of contradictory elements. 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.720 Shee Casina was one of Asia's longest serving leaders. She 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:48.920 presided over a pretty secularized nation, a place where religious 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:53.640 minorities could worship in peace. So there's a sense that 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:57.600 Bangadesh was a special nation is a special nation, that 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:00.920 it's a place that's made enormous strides to improve its 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:04.680 economy and to move up the value chain. But I 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:10.400 think with these latest protests there's much darker impression that 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:16.400 the country could become far less stable, and so there's 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:18.760 a lot less optimism, at least at the moment. 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:24.360 So when will we actually have a sense of what 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:26.000 the future looks like for Bangladesh? 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:31.080 Right now? Unice's interim government has focused most of their 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:35.480 rhetoric on restoring peace to the streets. Once we have 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:41.120 a better sense for their actual agenda, I think we'll 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:45.600 have more clarity on number one, how long the interim 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.920 government could be in place and how long it may 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:54.840 take for elections to be held. And number two, whether 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:59.360 the two traditional parties in Bangladesh, the Iwami League and 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:01.840 the B and P the are likely to be the 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.000 powerbrokers in the future, or whether units could be starting 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:09.800 a new movement for the country in a new political agenda. 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:13.880 Really for Bangladesh, but for now it's a watch and 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:14.840 see situation. 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.840 This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm wanh. 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:30.960 This episode was produced by Young Young Naomi, Jessica Beck 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.920 and Alex Zuguiera, who also mixed it. It was fact 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.400 checked by Thomas Slut and edited by Caitlin Kenny. Special 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.320 thanks to Andy Mukherjee. Our senior producers are Niamishaven and 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:45.680 Kim gettlsen. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Nicole Beemster 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:49.160 Bower is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.400 head of Podcasts. Please follow and review The Big take 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.480 Asia wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps new listeners 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:57.320 find the show. See you next time.