Bangladesh Unrest Over Job Reservations

The Bangladesh government has passed a bill which reserves at least 30% of the government jobs for the veteran families who fough the Bangaldesh’s war of independence in 1971 against Pakistan. In response the students are massively protesting out on the streets which has led to an internet outage, shoot at sight orders and complete curfew. The protests has killed at least 32 people until now.

The 1971 war

In 1971 Pakistan was divided into 2 regions the west Pakistan and the East Pakistan. Both the regions had a lot of cultural and religious differences with the west region having more economic and political power. While the West region was not ready to accept the religios and cultural philosophies of the majority Bengalis in the East, the East Bengalis refused to bow down in the name of religion. This led to the clash between the 2 regions in March 1971. The death toll was between 3 lakhs to 3 million with lakhs of casualties. Finally Pakistan surrendered and Bangaldesh was formed after separation from Pakistan.

The Trigger

The Sheikh Hasina led government passed an order that reserves 30% of the government jobs in the country for the relatives of the veterans who fough the 1971 war against Pakistan. There is also a separate reservation for womens and differently abled people in place. The youths of Bangaldesh are facing high unemployment rates where nearly 4 lakh candidates contest for 3000 government jobs. Although the number of jobs have increased in the private sector, people prefer the government jobs for security and stability.

What next?

The recent supreme court order has asked the government to take back and revise the bill and suggested 93% merit based jobs, 5% reservations for the veterans and the remaining 2 % for the ethnic tribes.

Developments in Karnataka, India

Recently, the Karnataka government had passed a bill which mandated private sector firms in Karanataka to reserve 75% reservation in non-management jobs, and 50% reservation in management jobs for “local candidates” in the private sector. This led to extreme backlash from the people. Things to learn from Bangladesh riots is that reservations especially in employment will only disturb the economy and not promote any wellbeing for the country or the citizens.

Any type of employment weather it is government or private should be based on merit and applications shouldn’t be discrimination.

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