How a jobs protest toppled Bangladesh’s iron lady

Students had taken to the streets after a court in June reinstated unpopular government job quotas, reserving nearly a third of positions for families of freedom fighters in the country’s independence struggle from Pakistan.

“Who should get benefits if not the families of freedom fighters," Hasina said at a press conference last month. “Should the children of collaborators get them?"

Hasina’s choice of a loaded slur—“razakar," a reference to collaborators who had sided with Pakistan during the war of independence—came as security forces were stepping up a crackdown on protesters demonstrating over the lack of jobs and soaring inflation.

The inflammatory word turned a protest that had been narrowly focused on economic grievances into a movement that channeled broader suppressed rage over Hasina’s governance.

“People had their grievances but people were not united," said Shafi Mostofa, associate professor at the University of Dhaka and a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. “That was the moment, on that night, when thousands of people who are protesting said, ‘We are not the sons of razakars, we are the citizens of this country.’"

After an especially deadly day of clashes on Sunday that prompted expressions of discomfort from former top army officials, Hasina resigned and fled to India on Monday. She remains in a safe house near New Delhi, Indian officials have said.

Analysts said Hasina’s past tragedy—intrinsically linked with the wartime history of the relatively young country—fundamentally shaped who she became as a leader, and could explain her turn toward autocracy over the years.

“The trauma she experienced as a young person really shaped her desire to become a strong, unforgiving leader," said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.

British colonial rule ended in 1947 with the independence of modern-day India located between a bifurcated Pakistan, carved from Muslim-majority regions.

In 1971, Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led the liberation movement of what was then East Pakistan and became the first leader of an independent Bangladesh. Four years later, he was assassinated in 1975 in a military coup that also killed most of her family. Hasina and her younger sister escaped the violence because they were traveling in Germany at the time.

Hasina spent years in exile in India, before eventually returning to Bangladesh and taking over the Awami League party. She spent years periodically under house arrest ordered by the country’s military rulers, until she became prime minister for the first time in 1996 after her party won in the polls.

She returned to power in 2009 and has ruled since then, presiding over a period of economic growth fueled in part by the country’s rise as a low-cost garment exporter. Pursuing war crimes trials linked to the independence struggle, and her father’s killers, has been a recurring theme in her rule.

In January, she won a fourth term in an election that followed months of arrests of opposition figures, and was boycotted by most opposition parties.

Dip Azad, a journalist who was present at the press conference where Hasina used the wartime term, said the remark was characteristic of her confidence that she had become invincible.

“She thought everything is in her control, there is not any kind of threat in the country, she can manage everything, everybody will obey her," Azad said.

But many young people have tired of Hasina and her ruling Awami League’s evocation of the past, and fomenting of divisions to maintain her grip on power. They are focused on the country’s double-digit unemployment rate, with economic concerns exacerbated due to soaring inflation since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that has also led to dwindling foreign reserves.

Many protesters seized on the collaborator term as a badge of honor, turning it into a protest slogan: “Who are you? Who am I? Razakar, razakar! Who says that? Dictator, dictator!"

After Hasina fled on Monday, protesters vandalized a giant statue of her father, long a revered figure, as well as storming the prime minister’s official residence.

More than 300 protesters, police and bystanders have been killed since the protests began, and hundreds more injured. The Hasina government, which deployed the army at one point, said it was responding to violence by protesters, including attacks on government property.

In one incident, a video taken on a mobile phone captured the shooting of a lone protester, later identified as Abu Sayed. He is seen holding a stick and spreading his arms in a gesture of defiance toward a battalion of security forces stationed some distance away. They open fire. Later, other demonstrators take away his slumped body. The video was widely shared on social media and on Bangladesh television channels.

According to Bangladesh’s Daily Star newspaper, Sayed was the youngest of nine children and the only one of his family to go to university. The family had pinned their hopes on him landing a government job—making him emblematic for many in Bangladesh of their concerns.

A minister in the Hasina government said that the shooting was unlawful and that it was investigating the incident. In early August, two police officers involved in the shooting were suspended.

The Supreme Court stepped in last month and ruled that only a small share of government jobs could be reserved for veterans, but the ruling came too late to quell public anger.

The situation remains tense in Bangladesh amid continued anger toward the Awami League. The army and protest coordinators have appealed for calm and warned in particular against attacks on the country’s Hindu minority, seen as supporters of the departed leader. In some cases, students and professors have formed squads to patrol to provide protection near areas home to minorities.

“Last night I patrolled in different places with my students," said Mostofa, the University of Dhaka professor. “We are trying to keep the peace."

India’s foreign minister on Tuesday expressed concern over attacks on minorities, as well as their businesses and temples.

The army, political parties and students remain in talks about the formation of a caretaker government.

Students have said they want Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, a microcredit pioneer who has been the target of numerous legal proceedings during Hasina’s rule, to play a leading role in the temporary government.

Yunus is open to the idea, a spokesperson said.

Write to Krishna Pokharel at krishna.pokharel@wsj.com, Shan Li at shan.li@wsj.com and Tripti Lahiri at tripti.lahiri@wsj.com