How autocrats can suppress democratic institutions and blind themselves to reality: A case study from Bangladesh

Autocratic governments have always used “development” to justify their occupation of power. Take Mohammad Ayub Khan’s (president of Pakistan from 1958-1969, which then included present-day Bangladesh) hydroelectric dams and power stations or president Hussain Muhammad Ershad’s (1982-1981) rural communication network. 

When Sheikh Hasina came to power in 2008, she had promised to be different. However, contrary to public expectations, she abolished the caretaker government system in 2011. Like her autocratic predecessors, General Khan and General Ershad, she also focused heavily on infrastructural development. During her 15-year tenure, Bangladesh’s electricity generation capacity jumped from 5 GW to 27 GW. Her government completed the construction of the Padma Bridge, a project in planning since 1971. She started and almost finished building the country’s first nuclear power plant with a production capacity of 2.4 GW. 

Yet on 5 August 2024, she fled the country with millions of protesters marching towards her residence, defying the threats of tear shells, rubber bullets, sound grenades, and live ammunition. Three unfair elections (in 2014, 2018, and 2024), control over the judiciary, and restructuring the police as a tool of repression proved insufficient to retain her grasp on power. 

Seeing through “visible development” and at the core challenges for Bangladesh

On the surface, this may seem perplexing. Despite investing so much in “visible development,” Sheikh Hasina was ousted by mass protests. As Lord Acton pointed out, “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Autocratic rule, with unchecked power, can be akin to driving a car with your eyes blindfolded. No matter how much you put your foot down on the gas pedal, you are bound to crash sooner rather than later. 

Hasina’s massively overpriced “megaprojects” were seen as dens of corruption. Rather than improving the citizens' quality of life, the uninhibited spending on these projects led to jobless growth, sticky inflation, and depletion of foreign reserves.  

The issue of jobless growth is central to the fall of the Hasina government. Their claimed economic success had not translated into more jobs, especially for the educated youth (who led the movement that unseated Hasina from power). Between 2010 and 2017, GDP (at constant 2015 USD) grew by a total of 55%, while employment grew by a mere 12.4%. In 2018, it was projected that Bangladesh needed to generate 2 million jobs every year for its young population – and the economy had produced less than 7 million jobs in the preceding seven years. 

Unemployment is two to three times higher among people with higher secondary and tertiary level degrees compared to those with no or only primary education - indicating a severe lack of decent, formal jobs. The development in transportation or electricity generation had neither increased the pace of job creation nor attracted investment.  

To make matters worse, inflation had spiralled out of control since FY2023. Official statistics indicate that inflation reached its highest point since 2011-12 and still remains at an elevated level. A lending rate cap took away a key strategic option to combat inflation. Even though the cap was withdrawn last year, it did little to contain inflation, indicating that the policy decision was taken too late and there was a genuine dearth of supply in the market. 

Simultaneously, the government had to deal with a sharp fall in foreign exchange reserves. From a historic high of USD 48 billion in August 2021, the reserves almost halved within the next 48 months and now hover close to only three times the country’s monthly import bill. In response, the government took strict import control measures leading to negative growth in capital machinery import - a challenge for the economy in the medium to long term.

Manipulation of statistics to give an illusion of economic growth

Unemployment and inflation are threats to any government. The question is - how did Sheikh Hasina and her allies not see these threats? How did they remain defiant till the very end - convinced that this uprising was nothing but plots conjured by radical Islamists and “Western powers”? 

The answer is that Hasina herself created a system that blinded her from reality. For instance, take inflation. Inflation statistics were distorted by introducing irrelevant products into the consumer price index - a list of products whose prices determine inflation statistics. Most likely because of this tampering, inflation never crossed the 10% mark- it came close at 9.92% and remained around 9.5%. On the ground, though, people struggled to keep pace with prices. 

The same was true for other important statistics. GDP growth was set first and then ‘back-calculated’ to reach impressive figures. Export figures were inflated by almost 20% and thus reached record highs even when retailers in export destinations were reeling from depressed sales. The entire statistical system, including the National Statistical Office, was affected. This is reflected in the World Bank’s statistical capacity index, where Bangladesh’s rank slipped from 33^rd in 2014 to 79^th in 2020. 

Unemployment, the core issue behind the protest movement, also has a tragically comic story. As mentioned previously, the government was criticised for generating only a million jobs between 2010 and 2017 every year while 2 million people were entering the market then. Yet, the next Labour Force Survey in 2022 showed that the pace of job creation has doubled to 2 million jobs a year during a period which included COVID-19-induced economic slowdown. Manipulations like these made government data hardly usable and unreliable, especially during the later phases of Hasina’s tenure. 

Hasina also undermined the checks and balances on her government’s actions by weakening important democratic institutions. Freedom of the judiciary was severely impeded, as exemplified by the exile of the-then sitting chief justice in 2017. Similarly, other institutions, such as the Anti-Corruption Commission became a ‘toothless tiger’- termed so by its own chairman. As a result, there was no power left to challenge any of Hasina’s decisions or inform her about the damaging activities of her cronies. 

The way forward

Challenges facing the post-Hasina Bangladesh are complex and multifaceted. Restructuring the police and civil administration, ensuring security in the industrial belt, salvaging a banking sector suffering severe liquidity crisis are new additions to older issues like job creation, export diversification, investment promotion, and maintenance of forex reserves. 

The people of Bangladesh have shown remarkable character and strength to build again since the uprising. Citizens formed committees to guard minorities and properties and were successful in largely quelling the attacks within 48 hours of Hasina’s ouster. The unprecedented nature of the recent flood in the southeastern part of the country threatened to inflict devastating damages. Still, it was met by a people-led response that mobilised volunteers and resources, effectively substituting for disaster response teams led by local government authorities. Given the scale of the disaster, it is nothing short of a miracle that the relief and rescue efforts were largely successful. 

Despite the challenges facing the country, if citizens persist in their drive for resilience and building a better Bangladesh, it will be very difficult to derail Bangladesh from its growth path.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author based on their experience and prior research and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IGC.