Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has stirred the country toward authoritarianism where critics, dissenters, and opposition activists came under severe repression, including imprisonment in phantom cases, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances.

 “These (quota protests) are expressions of democratic resilience that continue to exist in Bangladesh after 15 years of democratic backsliding and autocratic rule. While ruling party activists and leaders go largely scot-free despite evident corruption and street violence against opposition activists, the latter are forced to appear in court, go into hiding, or are imprisoned,” read an article published in the Diplomat, Asia-Pacific's leading current affairs magazine.

The Mubashar Hasan and Arild Engelsen Ruud jointly contributed the article published on Monday.

The article mentioned two developments – the protests against the quotas and revelations of corruption – deny the rulers’ claim to authority and full control.

“The corruption revelations point to mutual back-scratching, embezzlement, and corruption in high places – circles that support authoritarianism and violations of civil and political rights for financial gain and illicit wealth accumulation. They both express a similar sentiment – an objection to the ruling party’s claim to be a legitimate ruler,”

Instead, both underline a continued popular desire to have a say and a space in which to say it, of being able to hold the powerful accountable.

Tens of thousands of university students are out on the streets of Bangladesh to protest a quota system that reserves a substantial proportion of civil service jobs for children of liberation war fighters. At the time of writing, the protests are still ongoing and showing no sign of abating.

The protests continue despite threats and intimidation by the Bangladeshi police and ruling party activists. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has scolded the students and dismissed their demands. Leaders and ministers of the ruling Awami League have accused the students of various misdeeds.

The AL was the party that led Bangladesh’s liberation war. The protesting students insist that the quota system is discriminatory and enables the recruitment in government jobs of people who are already partisan toward the ruling party. They want instead a recruitment system based on merit.

The protests strike deeper than the quota issue. The issue gets to the heart of the AL’s claim that it represents the people and has the moral authority to rule, although it has remained in power thanks to an election that was neither free and fair nor inclusive.

In increasingly authoritarian Bangladesh, the room for protests against the rulers is severely limited. Single-issue topics like the quota system work as a conduit for expression of broader dissatisfaction. The quota protests are one type of “democratic bricolage” in a country where authoritarian leaders try to muffle and silence opposition by denying access to information or political spaces to express dissatisfaction.

In the original sense, bricolage refers to the act of creating something useful – a tool, for instance – from available material. It will not be perfect or beautiful the way things made in factories are, but it will serve the purpose.

The protests and the news stories about corruption have come just a few months into Sheikh Hasina’s fourth continuous term as prime minister after yet another heavily machinated vote exercise. Seemingly solidly in power since 2009 and completely in command of the state machinery, Hasina’s party won elections virtually uncontested against an enfeebled opposition whose members have been heavily persecuted.

According to a New York Times report, many opposition activists have been slapped with over 400 cases each. Police shut down opposition rallies. Critics such as journalists Shahidul Alam and Rozina Islam have been imprisoned. A culture of fear grips society where news outlets apply self-censorship to remain safe.

Despite dominating the state, the government has been unable to establish control over society even after 15 years in power.

The resilience of a democratic spirit and a deep desire to be allowed to speak against power have made Bangladeshis of different walks of life engage in innovative forms of democratic bricolage to register their protest and criticism of the rulers.