Since ousting Bangladesh's prime minister, student protesters are pushing reforms, and rickshaws

DIAA HADID, BYLINE: A boy scout, neckerchief in place, whistles to halt traffic at an unruly intersection. An ambulance is coming.

(SOUNDBITE OF AMBULANCE WAILING)

HADID: About a dozen students race to all four sides of the intersection. They use sticks and whistles to halt motorcyclists, double-decker buses, rickshaws adorned with flowers. The ambulance passes. This is a scene repeated across Dhaka, a city of more than 10 million - young men, madrassa boys, women in head scarves, girl scouts in braids. They keep pedestrians safe and traffic more or less flowing. They’re here because the police melted away after the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country in early August. Police led the crackdown on protesting students that killed more than 300. That deadly violence transformed student protests into a movement to topple Bangladesh’s longest reigning female ruler. Days on, some police are returning to work, but mostly it’s students - like Sejwana Ahmad Sreshta, whistle at the ready. She’s 20 and heading to college.

SEJWANA AHMAD SRESHTA: (Non-English language spoken).

HADID: She says, people do what we say.

You’re just a citizen, just like them. Why are they listening to you?

SRESHTA: (Non-English language spoken).

HADID: Producer Ahmede Hussain translates.

HUSSAIN (translating SRESHTA): They know that because of us, Bangladesh has got independence for the second time. And because of this, they’re listening to us.

HADID: She returns to the road she’s patrolling. Rickshaw cyclists inch onto a zebra crossing. She nudges them back with her stick. Students are treated like superstars for now.

…

HADID: …

But here at this museum, students don’t have final say. Two military officers nearby demand to see our papers again. And that tension plays out right at the top of Bangladeshi politics, where both the military and a new interim government holds sway. It was students who pushed for the fast formation of an interim government, helmed by Nobel Laureate Mohammad Yunus. Two student leaders also joined, and that government has a big job. It has to undertake legal reform, so the next elected prime minister can’t transform into an autocrat. It has to rebuild the police. It has to grapple with high unemployment, high food prices. And it must arrange the next elections. This is uncharted territory. Even supporters of this government worry, they can’t pull this off. Recent history, after all, is replete with revolutions led by young people that went terribly wrong.

Archived at web.archive.org/…/since-ousting-bangladeshs-prime…