This summer Prapti Taposhi joined thousands of her fellow students in Bangladesh and took to the streets.
She was furious about the unfairness of a quota system that reserved 30% of jobs for the children of freedom fighters from the 1971 war of independence with Pakistan.Government jobs are well paid and secure and, students argued, it was a scheme that made no sense so long after the war.
But then came a police crackdown, and protests that began peacefully led to 400 people being killed.
Furious demonstrators now had a new demand: that the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, step down.The journalist David Bergman explains to Hannah Moore that no one considered that would actually happen.
Sheikh Hasina was the longest-serving female prime minister in the world.
She was a historic figure, first taking over her political party, the Awami League, after her father Bangladeshs founding father was assassinated.Yet suddenly, last week, she did just that, escaping Bangladesh in a helicopter.
How was a once popular leader, lauded as the politician who brought democracy back to the country after military rule, ousted by students? And why? Photograph: Suvra Kanti Das/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock Support The GuardianThe Guardian is editorially independent.
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This article first appeared/also appeared in theguardian.com