Centre for Policy Dialogue distinguished fellow Debapriya Bhattacharya on Monday said that poor quality of education due to insufficient investment and a dearth of employment amid falling private investment created ticking time bombs that finally brought down the Awami League regime.
鈥楾he pubic jobs were given to party cadres,鈥� he said, referring to the protests at quota in public jobs that turned into the historic mass uprising overthrowing Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League government on August 5.
Debapriya Bhattacharya made the remarks on the concluding day of the 3-day 鈥楤ay of Bengal Conversation鈥櫬爋rganised by local think tank Centre for Governance Studies in the capital.
Debapriya, who is heading an interim government committee tasked with the preparation for 鈥榃hite Paper on the state of Bangladesh economy鈥�, said that the spectacular fall of the 15-year-long Awami regime was comparable to many other authoritarian regimes鈥� fall in different parts of the world.
Lies, fear and discontented development were the basis of the Sheikh Hasina regime, he observed, and added without mentioning any name that lies had started from the leader鈥檚 biography to create a messiah complex.
The lies also continued about the country鈥檚 history, the oppositions of the government and also about the numbers presenting the economy, he said.
Fear was spread through the state apparatus and the fear of Aynaghar (secret detention centre) gripped the whole nation amid dysfunctional institutions, the economist said.
He also added that the development work by the regime created widespread discontent and inequality and transformed crony capitalists to oligarchs who eventually ran the government.
Another outcome of the discontented development was the mountainous debt burden to be paid by generations to come, Debapriya told the audience comprising local and foreign participants.
He also said that the interim government that took charge on August 8, three days after Sheikh Hasina resigned as prime minister and fled to India, was trying to fill-up the democratic deficit with visible progress.
Referring to the past post-revolution outcomes in different countries, Debapriya mentioned that there was no guarantee that the fall of an authoritarian regime had always led to democracy.
