Aragalaya vs. Anarchy – Comparative Lessons from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh Protests

People’s Discontent with Despotism 

The macabre sense of violence filled with gory killings and purging of government officials in broad daylight in every nook and cranny of Bangladesh since the complete collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s government reminds us of the prophetic words of Thomas Hobbes, who summed up human nature as “solitary, poor, nasty and brutish.” The trajectory that augmented the chaos in Bangladesh was, not surprisingly, rooted in a deeper economic crisis as it happened in neighboring Sri Lanka in 2022, where long petrol ques, shortage of foreign reserves, and ten hours of power cuts agitated the embittered folks to launch protest movements across the island, which ended up ousting the President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. 

Unlike the deteriorated economy that encompassed Sri Lanka, Bangladesh’s economy continued to thrive by leveraging the country’s capacity as the second-largest economy in South Asia. Condescending remarks of Henry Kissinger, who called the young nation a basket case in the advent of Bangladesh in 1971 were disproven when the country celebrated its 50th anniversary as a nation-state in 2021 due to unprecedented economic success over the past few decades.   

It is indeed a stark surprise to fathom how Bangladesh fell from grace as the riots that arose from the student movements across Bangladesh initially lacked the enthusiasm to topple the government. The apparent reasons for the protests were mainly related to the Supreme Court’s judgment in June to reinstate a 30% quota for the descendants of the freedom fighters of 1971, which reversed the government decision in 2018 in response to the students’ protests. 

The same modus operandi, adopted by the protesters in Sri Lanka through their famous aragalaya or “Gota go home” movement, became effective in the initial stages of the protests across Bangladesh in July. Yet, the euphoric feelings among the student activists were short-lived, as the state-sponsored violence unleashed upon them resulted in many deaths. From a vantage point, state violence was the paramount factor that differentiates the Bangladesh protests from those of Sri Lanka.

Aragalaya and Ethnic Pluralism 

In several instances, the ubiquitous abhorrence of the masses towards President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the Rajapaksa family turned violent as a spontaneous reaction to government oppression, but all in all, the entirety of the protests were confined to a public demonstration of their antipathy. Above all, Sri Lankan Aragalaya manifested a plurality of society that represented all ethnic communities who sincerely demonstrated their aversion. 

At the peak of protests in July 2022, the aragalaya protestors stormed into the presidential palace in Colombo and occupied it for a few days until order was restored by the incumbent President Ranil Wickremasinghe. What marred the solidarity of the public rising in Bangladesh was its anarchic nature and the cruelty imposed by the government upon its own people. Realist Morgenthau writes “The individual may say to himself….Let justice be done, even if the world perishes, but the state has no right to say so in the name of those who are in its care.” 

The apathy of Hasina’s Government—in tolerating people’s inherent right to protest—and her brutal oppression expedited the end of her regime. The Sri Lankan situation was a milder one—compared to Hasina’s despotism—and might have been rooted in Sri Lanka’s undiluted democracy and the strength of its institutions. Mainly the civil society network across the island and state bureaucracy played a major role in impeding Sri Lanka from a complete disaster. 

Communal Disharmony

It has been conspicuously visible that the cause of events emerging after the fall of Hasina’s Government is akin to racially motivated violence, in which the initial gravitational force, the students of the country are cornered by the sudden influx of Islamic radicals. The reported lootings and arson of Hindu shrines in the aftermath of Hasina’s departure are emblematic of new dynamics of Islamic radicalism, which can drag the entire country to a more uncertain juncture. 

One of the striking features of the protests that occurred in Sri Lanka in 2022 was they never intended to generate communal violence across the island as the protesters only wanted to defeat the common foe—the Rajapaksa regime. This does not mean that Sri Lanka is not susceptible to communal disharmony as the island’s history was often marred by ethnic tensions in the post-independence context. Yet, the public anger that arose during Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s administration jettisoned the communal feelings that pervaded the Sinhalese society as all the communities in Sri Lanka were gutted by the economic hardships.

Thus, the aragalaya in Sri Lanka did not prompt the Bangladeshi-styled communal disharmony, which eventually spared the island from turning into armageddon. On the whole, Sri Lanka’s survival from its complete chaos is attributed to the political acumen of Ranil Wickremesinghe, who faced his finest hour as a mature statesman. After taking complete control of the military and the state apparatus, Wickremesinghe guaranteed protection for all the politicians, which increased his credibility among the Rajapaksa’s stooges whose lives were threatened by the angry mobs. Wickremesinghe’s ability to mitigate the situation increased his credibility. It became further bolstered by his closer rapport with India as he made a shift from his predecessor’s pro-Chinese stances. 

Contrary to the Sri Lankan experience in 2022, Bangladesh lacks a truly organized democratic outlook in the protests and its detrimental outcome is visible from the recent communal violence against the Hindus.  

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