The downfall of the most seemingly adamantine autocrats often unfolds with extraordinary speed. So it has been for Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh. She ruled increasingly tyrannically for the past 15 years — and overall for 20 of the past 28 years. On Monday, however, after weeks of student-led protests — and a crackdown by the security forces that led to hundreds of deaths — she fled her residence in a helicopter. She has for now taken refuge in neighbouring India, a friend of her regime. Back home, protesters were filmed revelling in and pillaging the contents of her home, a salutary reminder to autocrats everywhere of what the future may hold.
Her departure from office is to be celebrated. She has overseen an ever more repressive and corrupt system: opposition figures have been jailed; there have been extrajudicial killings; and her Awami League party has steadily blurred the division between ruling party and state. She initially oversaw an economic success story primarily by expanding the country’s garment industry. Gross domestic product grew for some years at 7 per cent. But cronyism, corruption and a lack of jobs have limited the country’s development.
The final straw for her opponents was the reintroduction of quotas reserving government jobs for special groups. These included supposed veterans — and their descendants — of the 1971 civil war in which Bangladesh split from Pakistan. The main beneficiaries were expected to be those loyal to her party. Protests against this spiralled into revolt, if not revolution.