Adored by her classmates and still defiant even after her arrest by the police, student Nusrat Tabassum is one of the many women who were at the forefront of the movement that led to the overthrow of the autocratic former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Large protests against Hasina’s 15-year rule were nothing new, but this was the first time young women took to the streets in large numbers against her.

The soldiers refused to shoot at her – a decisive moment in Hasina’s downfall.

“There was no way out for people,” 23-year-old Tabassum told AFP. “Anger grew and demands for equality became louder.”

Tabassum is a campus hero because he led a movement that began as a protest against quotas in the civil service and ended in a revolution.

As she strolled through the grounds of the elite Dhaka University, friends and other students rose from their seats to shake her hand, hug her and give her high fives.

Two weeks ago, she was one of six senior student leaders arrested by plainclothes police and held in custody for several days, officially for their own safety.

When Hasina lost power, her security forces threatened the group at gunpoint and forced them to sign a statement calling off the protests.

“I considered suicide several times,” said Tabassum. “I could not bear the thought that the people of this country would think that we had cheated, that we had sold ourselves out.”

But the Bangladeshis saw through the ruse.

“When we saw that people did not misunderstand us and continued to protest in the streets, I found new strength and power to carry on,” she said.

– “Women were disadvantaged” –

Protests began last month against a court decision to reinstate hated quotas for government jobs, seen as a way for Hasina’s government to stuff the bureaucracy with loyalists.

One aspect was a 10 percent reservation for female applicants, but Tabassum said the politicized nature of the program meant that “women were disadvantaged more than they were benefited.”

Shortly after the protests began, Hasina declared that the quotas had to be maintained because otherwise women would not be able to get these jobs based on their own merits.

The irony of this statement from one of the longest-serving female heads of government in the world was not lost on the audience.

“Women are more concerned about their rights today,” says Nahida Bushra, a humanities doctoral student at Dhaka University.

“That’s why women spontaneously joined the protests.”

Muslim-majority Bangladesh has a long history of extremist attacks, and Hasina has dealt well with previous unrest in part by blaming Islamist troublemakers.

This time she tried again, but the sight of young women leading the protests undermined her argument.

– “We have made progress” –

Bushra, 23, played a key role in mobilizing her classmates to participate in rallies.

It circumvented government efforts to stop it and ignored a concerted online campaign to demonise students.

“There was a storm of rumours and misinformation on social media, but we maintained our unity with courage and bravery,” she told AFP.

Telecommunications companies were ordered to block access to Facebook and other platforms used to organize protests, so Bushra and others circumvented the blocks using virtual private networks (VPNs).

The government then imposed a complete nationwide shutdown of mobile and broadband internet and organized rallies via text messages and phone calls.

When police began shooting at protesters, she rushed to the front of the crowd, assuming officers there would be less inclined to shoot women.

“We have moved forward and pushed the protest forward,” said Bushra.

– “An absolute bloodbath” –

In a last-ditch attempt to stay in power, Hasina’s government ordered soldiers to crush the protests.

They refused.

“It would have been an absolute bloodbath and the army was not prepared to commit a massacre,” Thomas Kean of the International Crisis Group told AFP.

“Siding with Hasina at this moment would have massively damaged her image.”

The Bangladesh Armed Forces make a disproportionate contribution to the UN peacekeeping missions and are therefore a source of great pride to the institution.

Kean said their complicity in the crackdown had exposed the military to Western sanctions and international ostracism, as well as a possible revolt by rank-and-file soldiers.

Although army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman is a distant relative of Hasina, Kean said the general “had no choice but to put institutional interests first.”

The dust has settled from the stormiest weeks in Bangladesh’s history, and Tabassaum said work has only just begun.

“My country has failed to truly practice democracy,” she said.

“The responsibility to rebuild the country remains.”

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