Bangladesh’s protesters take power and find governing isn’t easy

Islam and other student protesters lobbied the army to put Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Prize-winning, 84-year-old microlending pioneer, in charge of the interim government.

They got the leader they wanted, along with two seats in his cabinet.

Islam was a natural choice for a post. While pursuing a master’s degree he had honed his organizing skills in university politics and became one of the most visible faces of the protests over weeks, gaining prominence after he was detained and beaten by the police in July.

His job hasn’t been easy, as the new government faces a flood of pent-up demands.

“It is a very big responsibility on my shoulders," said Islam, who had deep bags under his eyes and said he was working 16-hour days. “People are coming with their problems—so many."

On a recent afternoon, cries of “One-point! One point!" wafted from the streets below up to Islam’s seventh-floor office at the technology ministry. It was a reference to the students’ successful rallying cry—their “one-point demand" for Hasina’s resignation.

Now other groups are repurposing the slogan for their own demands.

Islam sees the protests that just happened as a battle of generations—on one side, those who fought for independence from Pakistan in 1971 and their children, on the other, those born in the 1990s and later.

“Now, a new generation representing the new middle class, rising middle class, people from rural areas, they want to come to power," he said.

In her government’s final days, Hasina, who had ruled since 2009, shut off the internet and blocked the social-media platforms the students were using to organize protests, which began over an unpopular quota system for government jobs. Despite her efforts to repress the often violent protests, they grew into a broader uprising against her increasingly autocratic rule.

More than 500 people died after the demonstrations intensified in mid-July, though the situation has calmed in recent days.

From his new perch overseeing the country’s communications—he is in charge of broadcasting as well as the internet—Islam signaled that the new government would be different. Previously, police often used internet-communications laws to round up journalists and opposition figures on charges of defamation and spreading false information.

“We will give topmost priority to freedom of speech and freedom of the press," said Islam, who said his father is an opposition politician who was often detained before elections.

A fellow student leader, Asif Mahmud, also 26, is in charge of labor and employment, as well as the youth ministry.

Although many in Dhaka are hopeful about the prospects for a new Bangladesh, there are enormous challenges ahead. Neither Yunus nor his student backers have any experience governing.

In the days after Hasina’s Aug. 5 resignation, amid a power vacuum, police left their posts, afraid of retribution for shooting protesters. Looting spread, targeting former regime officials and buildings associated with the Hindu religious minority.

Students poured onto the streets to protect Hindu temples and conduct day-to-day governance responsibilities such as directing traffic. A number of students have become a first point of help for families of those hurt or killed in the protests.

Last week, Asad Bin Rony, a 28-year-old law student who worked closely with Islam and Mahmud coordinating the protests, was up past midnight negotiating on the phone with hospitals to get an intensive care bed for a student who had been injured in protests in early August.

Rony got a call in the early hours of Thursday from a leading Dhaka hospital after he directed the family there. He identified himself as part of the students’ main coordination group. “Please admit the patient," he added.

A few minutes later the hospital called back to confirm the student had been admitted.

In recent days in Dhaka, police have returned to the streets, restoring some level of order. But governance challenges remain, in part because hundreds of mayors and other local officials affiliated with the old regime have vanished, amid fear of reprisals.

In other cases, the students have pushed for officials who held the most powerful posts—including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, the central bank governor and vice chancellors of top universities—to resign.

Yunus has defended some of the steps taken so far and said legal processes were followed.

There is uncertainty about how long the interim government can stay in power, and under what authority.

Major political parties are calling for quick elections, but student leaders say those shouldn’t be rushed. Legal questions hover over the constitutionality of the current government arrangement and some of the steps taken under it.

The students argue that the interim government is a government with power—unlike a caretaker government intended only to oversee elections. They want even more sweeping changes before elections happen.

The interim government must “reform many things, like our constitution, our law enforcement, our High Court, our Supreme Court, our education system, our economic system, our health system," said Nusrat Tabassum, a 23-year-old master’s student of political science at Dhaka University who was a leading protest coordinator.

Few of Bangladesh’s enormous problems—not enough jobs, a legacy of government corruption—can be resolved quickly or through legal changes. Many problems are only now bubbling to the surface, as a new government, tolerant of dissent, takes charge.

In recent days, protesters outside government offices included candidates for state teaching jobs seeking the long-delayed results of their recruitment exams, and a disbanded paramilitary unit whose members were seeking to be reinstated.

Islam, the student leader, has been a member of government for all of two weeks, but his offices are already filled with petitioners asking for help.

Fazle Rabbi, 62, a retired teacher, waited outside his offices, saying he hoped to resolve a long-running salary dispute.

Abdul Munnaf, 27, an app developer, said he wanted to share ideas about getting youth involved in the information technology sector.

A group of student protesters asked Islam if he could fix the quality of rural internet. And could he also find a way to end the endemic corruption and extortion in Bangladesh? The students referred to him as brother, instead of the “sir" conventionally accorded government officials.

Islam, who dresses in a uniform of a button-down shirt with rolled-up sleeves and trousers, hears each request patiently and often responds that he will look into the problem.

R.H.M. Alaol Kabir, Islam’s new private secretary, has served 14 years as a civil servant. He said reporting to a 26-year-old was a breath of fresh air compared with many politicians he has seen enter government.

“In most of the cases we see that people are actually coming for their own personal interests," said Kabir. “But the students are coming for the betterment of the country."

Write to Krishna Pokharel at krishna.pokharel@wsj.com and Jon Emont at jonathan.emont@wsj.com