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Observer
17 hours ago
- Politics
- Observer
A year after the revolution, hope turns to frustration in Bangladesh
Bangladesh — Just over a year ago, after Sheikh Hasina, the leader of Bangladesh, unleashed a brutal crackdown on protesting students, Abu Sayed stood defiantly in front of armed police officers in the city of Rangpur, his arms outstretched. Moments later, he was hit by bullets and later died from his injuries, his family said. He was one of almost 1,400 to die in a mass uprising that eventually toppled Hasina's 15-year rule. Hasina later fled to India. She left behind a country on the brink of anarchy, but one also suffused with hope. The students wanted to rebuild Bangladesh as a more equitable and less corrupt democracy. They helped install Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist, atop an interim government tasked with leading the nation out of chaos into stability. But many Bangladeshis are frustrated with the slow pace of change, wondering whether protesters like Sayed sacrificed their lives in vain. Under Yunus, Bangladesh has struggled to dislodge systemic problems like corruption, inflation, a paucity of jobs and an entrenched bureaucracy, which partly fed people's anger against Hasina. Students have clamored for democratic reforms to kick in faster. They also want swifter punishment for Hasina and the perpetrators of last year's attacks on protesters — including members of her political party and police officials. 'It pains me,' said Romjan Ali, Sayed's older brother. 'We thought the country would become morally better, inequality would end, there would be fair elections, the killers would be punished, and that punishment would make criminals afraid. But nothing like that has happened.' Ali added that without Yunus, though, it would probably be worse. A New Beginning The burden of reforming one of the world's poorest and most corrupt countries has fallen largely on Yunus' shoulders, in a nation still divided and with nearly five dozen political parties. Yunus' first task was to restore law and order. Looting, rioting, and attacks on minorities had destabilized the country after the revolution. Although Bangladesh is more stable now, the government has been accused by human rights groups of not doing enough to control bouts of violence against minorities and supporters of Hasina, while hard-liners have tried to get a foothold. His next goal was to get an extensive reform agenda going. Yunus appointed 11 commissions to propose reforms, including changes to the electoral system, the judiciary, and the police. The overarching goal was to make the country's democratic institutions, which Hasina had bent to her will, more resilient against authoritarian rule. But few of those changes have happened, and hope has turned to defeatism. 'Everything seems messy now,' said Abdullah Shaleheen Oyon, a student at the University of Dhaka. He was shot in the leg during the protests, which were set off by anger over a quota system for government jobs. 'Our dreams remain unfulfilled,' he added, saying the urgency with which student leaders had launched their plans is petering out. Last week, Yunus announced that Bangladesh would hold elections under a reformed voting system in February, though many details need to be resolved before then amid disagreements among political parties. In an address for the anniversary of the overthrow of Hasina, Yunus said his government had inherited a 'completely broken' country but that it was recovering. He said he was preparing to hand over the running of the country to an elected government. More than half of his tenure has been dominated by discussions with political parties about the timing of those elections. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which became the country's largest political party after Hasina's Awami League was decimated, has insisted that the interim government should implement only reforms necessary to hold free and fair elections, leaving further changes to an elected government. But other political parties, including Bangladesh's largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, have backed Yunus on the need for more extensive reform first. Some 30 political parties have been engaged on constitutional and governance issues for two months, said Ali Riaz, a political scientist and vice chair of the National Unity Council, a government body tasked with overseeing the commissions' reform proposals. He said they had done so without 'any acrimonious exchange,' painting a sanguine picture of progress. The various parties have agreed on issues like the need for an independent judiciary and term limits on the prime ministerial role, he added. Political Fracturing Choosing its leaders through a fully democratic process would be a significant step for Bangladesh, a country of 171 million people. Since Bangladesh became an independent nation in 1971, splitting from Pakistan where the ethnic Bengalis had faced violent suppression, its course has largely been shaped by two political dynasties. Hasina's father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, one of the country's founders, started the Awami League. Ziaur Rahman, who was a military officer central to the independence war and became president, founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which is now led by his son from London. The two dominant parties regularly passed the baton to each other before Hasina gripped power. The BNP boycotted the last election in January 2024, calling it rigged. At the coming election in February, it is the Awami League that may be absent from the ballot because the party's activities are banned in the country. Newer political parties have been trying to widen their reach by targeting populations in rural and semi-urban areas. Nahid Islam, a leader of the student uprising, started the National Citizen Party in February after he left Yunus' government. To drum up support, he embarked on a 'nation-building' walkathon in July. Young voters are crucial for all parties: The median age in Bangladesh is around 26, and many of the country's young people grew up knowing only Hasina's rule. 'We, as a generation, have no good understanding of democracy because we haven't seen it,' said Saeed Khan Shagor, a filmmaker who joined the protests last year. 'So the state should make sure that citizens will live in peace, without any kind of fear.' Thahitun Mariam, a Bangladeshi American who has been working with community groups in Dhaka, the capital, said she worried another common problem would not be addressed: the marginalization of women in the deeply traditional society. Without significant social change, she said, elections and reforms would simply re-create a 'male-centric, male-dominated political reality.' Many female students who were highly visible in the 2024 protests have retreated from their public roles. But Mariam said she was still hopeful Bangladesh's new democracy would prove to be more inclusive. Conflicted Emotions As Bangladeshis took a moment Aug. 5 to note the anniversary of the downfall of the Hasina government, tens of thousands of people gathered in Dhaka, braving an evening drizzle to listen to Yunus' address. The audience cheered as Yunus said that those who died in last year's mass uprising would be deemed national heroes, and Bangladesh would provide 'legal protection to the families of the martyrs, the wounded fighters and the student protesters.' But the celebrations masked growing acrimony from students about an as-yet unfulfilled promise of the revolution: bringing the perpetrators of the July 2024 killings to justice. Ali, the brother of Sayed, said he had filed a case against those accused of shooting his brother in the International Crimes Tribunal, a domestic court set up by Hasina in 2009, but that there had been little movement. 'Abu Sayed is a well-known martyr of this uprising,' Ali said. 'If even his case is not handled properly, then what justice will Bangladesh ever get?' The tribunal is conducting a trial of Hasina in absentia for her role in the killings. She put out a statement from India last week in which she called the student revolution a 'violent disruption of our hard-fought democracy.' Bangladesh's leaders have also elicited harsh criticism from rights activists who say the new Bangladesh lacks direction. 'The interim government appears stuck, juggling an unreformed security sector, sometimes violent religious hard-liners and political groups that seem more focused on extracting vengeance on Hasina's supporters than protecting Bangladeshis' rights,' Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, wrote in a recent report. For most Bangladeshis, there are more everyday concerns, as the economy has sputtered. Economic growth slowed to 4.2% last year, down from 5.8% in 2023, according to the World Bank. Abdul Kader, 37, said income from his air conditioner and refrigerator repair store in Dhaka has dropped 10% since the uprising. Customers are being cautious because of the uncertainty, he said, adding that he hoped an elected government might bring some relief. 'It seems people don't have enough money,' he said, 'or those who have money don't want to spend.' This article originally appeared in
Deccan Herald
2 days ago
- Politics
- Deccan Herald
One year on, hope turns to frustration in Bangladesh
Just over a year ago, after Sheikh Hasina, the autocratic leader of Bangladesh, had unleashed a brutal crackdown on protesting students, Abu Sayed stood defiantly in front of armed police officers in the city of Rangpur, his arms outstretched. Moments later he was hit by bullets and later died from his injuries, his family said. He was one of almost 1,400 to die in a mass uprising that eventually toppled Hasina's 15-year rule. Hasina later fled to India. She left behind a country on the brink of anarchy, but one also suffused with students wanted to rebuild Bangladesh as a more equitable and less corrupt democracy. They helped install Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist, atop an interim government tasked with leading the nation out of chaos into stability. But many Bangladeshis are frustrated with the slow pace of change, wondering whether protesters like Sayed sacrificed their lives in Yunus, Bangladesh has struggled to dislodge systemic problems like corruption, inflation, a paucity of jobs and an entrenched bureaucracy, which partly fed people's anger against have clamoured for democratic reforms to kick in faster. They also want swifter punishment for Hasina and the perpetrators of last year's attacks on protesters..'We thought the country would become morally better, inequality would end, there would be fair elections, the killers would be punished, and that punishment would make criminals afraid. But nothing like that has happened,' said Romjan Ali, Sayed's older brother. He added that without Yunus, though, it would probably be worse..A new burden of reforming one of the world's poorest and most corrupt countries has fallen largely on Yunus's shoulders, in a nation still divided and with nearly five dozen political first task was to restore law and order. Looting, rioting and attacks on minorities had destabilised the country after the revolution. Although Bangladesh is more stable now, the government has been accused by human rights groups of not doing enough to control bouts of violence against Hindu minorities and supporters of Hasina, while Islamic hard-liners have tried to get a foothold. His next goal was to get an extensive reform agenda going. Yunus appointed 11 commissions to propose reforms, including changes to the electoral system, the judiciary and the police. The overarching goal was to make the country's democratic institutions, which Hasina had bent to her will, more resilient against authoritarian rule. But few of those changes have happened, and hope has turned to defeatism..'Everything seems messy now,' said Abdullah Shaleheen Oyon, a student at the University of Dhaka. He was shot in the leg during the protests, which were set off by anger over a quota system for government jobs. 'Our dreams remain unfulfilled,' he added, saying that the urgency with which student leaders had launched their plans is petering week, Yunus announced that Bangladesh would hold elections under a reformed voting system in February, though many details need to be resolved before then amid disagreements between political parties. In an address for the anniversary of the overthrow of Hasina, Yunus said that his government had inherited a 'completely broken' country but that it was recovering. He said he was preparing to hand over the running of the country to an elected than half of his tenure has been dominated by discussions with political parties about the timing of those Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which became the country's largest political party after Hasina's Awami League was decimated, has insisted that the interim government should implement only reforms necessary to hold free and fair elections, leaving further changes to an elected other political parties, including Bangladesh's largest Islamist party, Jamaat e Islami, have backed Yunus on the need for more extensive reform first. Some 30 political parties have been engaged on constitutional and governance issues for two months, said Ali Riaz, a political scientist and vice-chair of the National Unity Council, a government body tasked with overseeing the commissions' reform said they had done so without 'any acrimonious exchange,' painting a sanguine picture of progress. The various parties have agreed on issues like the need for an independent judiciary and term limits on the prime ministerial role, he its leaders through a fully democratic process would be a significant step for Bangladesh, a country of 171 million people. Since Bangladesh became an independent nation in 1971, splitting from Pakistan where the ethnic Bengalis had faced violent suppression, its course has largely been shaped by two political dynasties. Hasina's father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, one of the country's founders, started the Awami League. Ziaur Rahman, who was a military officer central to the independence war and became president, founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which is now led by his son from two dominant parties regularly passed the baton to each other before Hasina gripped power. The BNP refused to contest the last election in January 2024, calling it rigged. At the coming election in February, it is the Awami League that may be absent from the ballot because the party's activities are banned in the political parties have been trying to widen their reach by targeting populations in rural and semi-urban areas. Nahid Islam, a leader of the student uprising, started the National Citizen Party in February after he left Yunus's government. To drum up support, he embarked on a 'nation-building' walk-athon in voters are crucial for all parties: The median age in Bangladesh is around 26, and many of the country's young people grew up knowing only Hasina's rule..'We, as a generation, have no good understanding of democracy because we haven't seen it,' said Saeed Khan Shagor, a filmmaker who joined the protests last year. 'So the state should make sure that citizens will live in peace, without any kind of fear.'.Thahitun Mariam, a Bangladeshi American who has been working with community groups in Dhaka, said she worried another common problem would not be addressed: the marginalisation of women in the deeply traditional society. Without significant social change, she said, elections and reforms would simply recreate a 'male-centric, male-dominated political reality.'.Many female students who were highly visible in the 2024 protests, have retreated from their public roles. But Mariam said she was still hopeful that Bangladesh's new democracy would prove to be more Bangladeshis took a moment on August 5 to note the anniversary of the downfall of the Hasina government, tens of thousands of people gathered in Dhaka, the capital, braving an evening drizzle to listen to Yunus's audience cheered as Yunus said that those who died in last year's mass uprising would be deemed national heroes, and Bangladesh would provide 'legal protection to the families of the martyrs, the wounded fighters and the student protesters.' But the celebrations masked growing acrimony from students about an as-yet unfulfilled promise of the revolution: bringing the perpetrators of the July 2024 killings to most Bangladeshis, there are more everyday concerns, as the economy has sputtered. Economic growth slowed to 4.2% last year, down from 5.8% in 2023, according to the World Bank.
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Hope turns to frustration in Bangladesh
The students wanted to rebuild Bangladesh as a more equitable and less corrupt democracy. They helped install Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist, atop an interim government tasked with leading the nation out of chaos into stability. Advertisement But many Bangladeshis are frustrated with the slow pace of change, wondering whether protesters like Sayed sacrificed their lives in vain. Under Yunus, Bangladesh has struggled to dislodge systemic problems like corruption, inflation, a paucity of jobs, and an entrenched bureaucracy, which partly fed people's anger against Hasina. Students have clamored for democratic reforms to kick in faster. They also want swifter punishment for Hasina and the perpetrators of last year's attacks on protesters — including members of her political party and police officials. 'It pains me,' said Romjan Ali, Sayed's older brother. 'We thought the country would become morally better, inequality would end, there would be fair elections, the killers would be punished, and that punishment would make criminals afraid. But nothing like that has happened.' Advertisement Ali added that without Yunus, though, it would probably be worse. The burden of reforming one of the world's poorest and most corrupt countries has fallen largely on Yunus's shoulders, in a nation still divided and with nearly five dozen political parties. Yunus' first task was to restore law and order. Looting, rioting, and attacks on minorities had destabilized the country after the revolution. Although Bangladesh is more stable now, the government has been accused by human rights groups of not doing enough to control bouts of violence against Hindu minorities and supporters of Hasina, while Islamic hard-liners have tried to get a foothold. His next goal was to get an extensive reform agenda going. Yunus appointed 11 commissions to propose reforms, including changes to the electoral system, the judiciary, and the police. The overarching goal was to make the country's democratic institutions, which Hasina had bent to her will, more resilient against authoritarian rule. But few of those changes have happened, and hope has turned to defeatism. 'Everything seems messy now,' said Abdullah Shaleheen Oyon, a student at the University of Dhaka. He was shot in the leg during the protests, which were set off by anger over a quota system for government jobs. 'Our dreams remain unfulfilled,' he added, saying the urgency with which student leaders had launched their plans is petering out. Last week, Yunus announced that Bangladesh would hold elections under a reformed voting system in February, though many details need to be resolved before then amid disagreements among political parties. In an address for the anniversary of the overthrow of Hasina, Yunus said his government had inherited a 'completely broken' country but that it was recovering. He said he was preparing to hand over the running of the country to an elected government. Advertisement More than half of his tenure has been dominated by discussions with political parties about the timing of those elections. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which became the country's largest political party after Hasina's Awami League was decimated, has insisted that the interim government should implement only reforms necessary to hold free and fair elections, leaving further changes to an elected government. But other political parties, including Bangladesh's largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, have backed Yunus on the need for more extensive reform first. Some 30 political parties have been engaged on constitutional and governance issues for two months, said Ali Riaz, a political scientist and vice chair of the National Unity Council, a government body tasked with overseeing the commissions' reform proposals. He said they had done so without 'any acrimonious exchange,' painting a sanguine picture of progress. The various parties have agreed on issues like the need for an independent judiciary and term limits on the prime ministerial role, he added. Choosing its leaders through a fully democratic process would be a significant step for Bangladesh, a country of 171 million people. Since Bangladesh became an independent nation in 1971, splitting from Pakistan, where the ethnic Bengalis had faced violent suppression, its course has largely been shaped by two political dynasties. Hasina's father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, one of the country's founders, started the Awami League. Ziaur Rahman, who was a military officer central to the independence war and became president, founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which is now led by his son from London. The two dominant parties regularly passed the baton to each other before Hasina gripped power. The BNP boycotted the last election in January 2024, calling it rigged. At the coming election in February, it is the Awami League that may be absent from the ballot because the party's activities are banned in the country. Advertisement Newer political parties have been trying to widen their reach by targeting populations in rural and semi-urban areas. Nahid Islam, a leader of the student uprising, started the National Citizen Party in February after he left Yunus' government. To drum up support, he embarked on a 'nation-building' walkathon in July. Young voters are crucial for all parties: The median age in Bangladesh is around 26, and many of the country's young people grew up knowing only Hasina's rule. 'We, as a generation, have no good understanding of democracy because we haven't seen it,' said Saeed Khan Shagor, a filmmaker who joined the protests last year. 'So the state should make sure that citizens will live in peace, without any kind of fear.' Thahitun Mariam, a Bangladeshi American who has been working with community groups in Dhaka, the capital, said she worried another common problem would not be addressed: the marginalization of women in the deeply traditional society. Without significant social change, she said, elections and reforms would simply re-create a 'male-centric, male-dominated political reality.' Many female students who were highly visible in the 2024 protests have retreated from their public roles. But Mariam said she was still hopeful Bangladesh's new democracy would prove to be more inclusive. This article originally appeared in
Observer
06-05-2025
- Business
- Observer
Tariffs could wreck Bangladesh's garment workers
DHAKA, Bangladesh — It was always going to be a hard year for Bangladesh. Last summer, amid an economic collapse, protesters toppled a tyrant and pushed the country to the brink of chaos. Then a month ago, as a new government was still working to steady Bangladesh's economy, came the devastating news that the United States was placing a new 37% charge on the country's goods. Bangladesh relies on revenue from its exports to buy fuel, food and other essentials. President Donald Trump soon paused those tariffs on Bangladesh and dozens of other countries after the world recoiled. But the possibility of their being reinstated worries the workers who make a living in Bangladesh's garment factories. Murshida Akhtar, 25, a migrant from northern Bangladesh living near Dhaka, has been supporting her family with sewing machines for the past five years. One day recently, she and 200 other workers, 70% of them women, signed on for new jobs at 4A Yarn Dyeing, in the industrial hub of Savar. Akhtar conceded feeling apprehension about the tariffs. But she was excited about the change in jobs. She expected to be paid $156 a month at 4A — slightly more than at her previous job and with a shorter commute and a nicer work environment. 'I worry that orders will be reduced,' she said. 'Then there is less work.' Bangladesh, a country of 170 million people crammed onto a delta the size of Wisconsin, was derided as an economic lost cause after its violent birth in the 1970s. It has grown steadfastly since the 1980s on the back of its garment industry. Bangladeshi workers, and women in particular, made the country a seamstress to the world. In the process, the average Bangladeshi has become better off than the average citizen of even India, the giant country next door. Akhtar is one of about 4 million Bangladeshis directly employed in the making of garments for export. Perhaps five times as many, including her husband and their son, depend on jobs like hers. A tariff like the one Trump has planned, along with side effects like the 145% tariff that he applied to Chinese goods, would break the very engine of Bangladeshi growth. Before Trump paused the tariff, Bangladesh's interim leader, Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus, wrote him a letter asking for a 90-day reprieve. Yunus promised that his country would buy more U.S. cotton and other goods to help reduce its trade surplus, which last year was $6 billion. Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, an economist at the University of Dhaka, was less deferential. He called the tariff threat 'an ugly display of power.' It came just as the country, after decades of enviable growth, was facing a recession and was vulnerable, he said. A currency crisis in 2024 weakened the government of Sheikh Hasina, who had come to rule with an iron grip for 15 years. Her ouster caused an immediate security vacuum. Nine months later, Bangladesh has yet to come up with a plan to restore its democracy. Nearly 85% of Bangladesh's exported goods are garments, and more are shipped to the United States than to any other country. Even if Trump does not bring back the 37% tariff when his self-defined grace period ends in July, Bangladesh will face the 10% tariff that he levied on virtually the entire world. Even 10% is hard to swallow in a low-margin business like the clothing trade. Competition is fierce from China, the only country that exports more, as well as from India, Vietnam, Cambodia and Sri Lanka. Bangladesh's political upheaval was viewed as a sign of hope by Western proponents of liberal democracy. India was annoyed at the demise of an alliance it had built with Hasina. But the administration of former President Joe Biden welcomed Yunus. Bangladesh's central bank scrambled to contain the fallout from a plundering of the financial system by Hasina's regime. It anticipated a year of reduced growth but believed that business would perk up to normal by 2026. Tariffs put an end to that hope. The World Bank has already lowered its expectations for Bangladesh's next two years of growth. The country is feeling the heat from the International Monetary Fund, which cleared a $4.7 billion loan last year. 'We are under tremendous pressure from the IMF to reduce subsidies and hike the prices of fuel, said Fahmida Khatun, the director of the Center for Policy Dialogue, a think tank in Dhaka. The 10% tariff and the prospect of more strikes at the heart of a garment sector that has transformed itself. In 2013, a gigantic sweatshop called Rana Plaza collapsed, killing more than 1,100 workers. The grotesque loss of life made foreign buyers, major Western clothing brands among them, doubt that they could stick with their local partners. But the industry rallied, understanding that it needed to change to survive. There is still a vast space where Rana Plaza once stood, on the main road from Dhaka into Savar. The grim conditions the site represents have guided the future of Bangladeshi manufacturing. The industry has consolidated. While the number of companies making garments has shrunk, the value of their exports and the number of people employed has grown. Bangladesh is home to 230 garment factories certified under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, a U.S.-led protocol of best practices policed by inspectors who make periodic visits. That is more than any other country in the world. Among them is 4A Yarn Dyeing, where Akhtar works. Despite its name, it hasn't dyed yarn for years. It concentrates on higher-value outerwear, mostly jackets with fancy zippers, waterproofing and other hard-to-make bits. It proudly lists buyers from American brands ranging from Carhartt to Calvin Klein, but has even more European customers than Americans. The five working floors of 4A Yarn Dyeing's factory heave with workers cutting, sewing, and stitching the latest for Costco's Jachs New York series. Giant wall-mounted fans hum against the sewing needles and piped-in music. The space is well lit, airy, and pleasant, even in Savar's pre-monsoon seasonal swelter. Signage around the factory floors is in English first, not the local Bangla. Like other Bangladeshi factories, 4A Yarn Dyeing is used to the prying eyes of foreign inspectors. The exterior of the factory is fronted by a cascade of hanging greenery. The rooftops hold solar panels that help power the operations. In August, the factory fell under attack during the uprising that took down Hasina. Khandker Imam, a general manager, recalled with pride how his factory kept operating. Mobs had gathered outside his factory, as they had at nearly every other; many of Bangladesh's businesses fell under suspicion of having collaborated with Hasina. 'One thousand people came to attack our factory,' Imam said. He donned a helmet and joined his workers to hold back the crowd outside the gate. In the end, no one was seriously injured, and not a single day of production was lost, Imam said. The company, like the country, has gotten used to surviving life-threatening disruptions. 'The whole economy of this country depends on this sector,' said Mohammad Monower Hossain, the company's head of sustainability. The people's movement that overthrew Hasina understands this, too. As a country, he said, 'We have only our labor.'
Hindustan Times
02-05-2025
- Science
- Hindustan Times
‘For us physicists, beauty is a new idea that unifies and explains'
When Jainendra Jain was 12, he had a favourite story. It was the one about Satyendra Nath Bose, Einstein and a new theory on photon behaviour. 'It was absolutely amazing to me that someone could, just from pure thought, sitting alone at the University of Dhaka, come up with something as fundamental as the concept of bosons, and send ripples through the world,' Jain says. That story marked the start of his love affair with physics. Jain is now 65 and a condensed-matter physicist at Pennsylvania State University. He recently won the 2025 Wolf Prize (considered second only to the Nobel), for his discovery of a new kind of particle, called the composite fermion. This particle has immense implications for quantum computing; it has already helped Microsoft build its first quantum chip, the Majorana 1, unveiled in February. (Hold on to that name, incidentally; the story behind it used to be the stuff of science-fiction, and we'll get to it in a bit.) But first, let's rewind a little. Back when Jain was first smitten by the story of Bose, he was studying in a Hindi-medium village school in Sambhar, Rajasthan. It was just a few rooms and an open ground, but in the children's magazines he had access to there, he met Bose, and got his heart set on physics. His heart was set on a lot of things. He was young, clever ('everyone said so', he chuckles), ambitious. He remembers looking up at the skies and shouting, 'One day, I will fly in a plane.' As it turned out, a lot would happen before that did. He was still 12, on a family holiday to visit relatives in Kolkata, when a tram collided with their car. His mother took the brunt of the impact and never regained consciousness. Jain was critically injured; one of his feet had to be amputated. 'I returned to school several months later, on crutches,' he says. 'It is only now, five decades later, that I can admit how much the accident affected me. It felt, at the time, like I would have to put a lid on all my ambitions. For a couple of years, it was not clear whether I would be able to leave home and go to college, or ever have a family.' *** The famous Jaipur foot, a low-cost prosthetic developed by Dr PK Sethi and craftsman Ram Chandra Sharma in the 1960s, helped him walk again. Bit by bit, Jain began to return to his former self. His father never lowered his expectations of the boy, and this helped immensely, Jain says. His own love of school kept the momentum going. He left home on schedule, went to college in Rajasthan, then completed a Master's in physics at IIT-Kanpur. He finally took to the air in 1981, aged 21. He was headed to New York's Stony Brook University, for a PhD. *** Physics is about discovering the hidden order to the world, Jain says. This has always felt like something of a sacred mission to him. 'I find it amazing that the entire universe runs as per these mathematical laws, unchangingly. That… to me, that's God,' he says. Even though he doesn't believe in the traditional notions of religion, he adds, his life has been filled with blessings. The first of these was a state-of-the-art prosthetic he was finally able to buy, using his health insurance as a researcher at Stony Brook. It helped him travel the world. Perhaps more importantly, it helped him teach. Standing in front of students used to be nerve-wracking before it, he says. The biggest of his blessings has been Manju Jain, 60, his wife and emotional anchor; and their two children, Sunil Jain, 36, a businessman, and Saloni Jain, 35, a pharmaceutical consultant. *** The final blessing came in the form of his specialisation: condensed-matter theory. Near the end of his first year at Stony Brook, unsure of what his subfield in physics should be, Jain approached an experimental physicist to ask whether he could join his group. 'The professor asked me, 'Do you enjoy fixing your motorbike or your radio',' Jain chuckles. Since he had never owned either, he had no answer. 'I next went to professor Chen Ning Yang, a legendary theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate who is now 102 years old, and asked him my question. He said the future belongs to condensed-matter theory. And he introduced me to my advisor, Philip Allen.' Yang was right. Condensed-matter theory would shape the world of electronics, and is now shaping the worlds of artificial intelligence and quantum computing. From Stony Brook, Jain moved on to Yale University, as a postdoctoral scholar. Now 28, he watched with interest as new theories took shape in his subfield. His interest was piqued in particular by two experiments, one each out of the US and Germany, that bagged two Nobel Prizes. These researchers had discovered that when a thin semiconductor sheet is placed in a large magnet, the electrons behave as if they are performing a complex dance, and produce a host of liquid states with conductivities measurable in precise fractions. There was a piece missing though: no one could figure out how to work out those fractions. 'My wife and I still remember when the idea for the composite fermions struck me,' Jain says. 'We were watching TV and I was doodling on a notepad, trying to figure out what we could all be missing. During a commercial break, suddenly, I thought I could see it. It was like when a camera lens comes into focus and one can see the whole picture with total clarity… I realised that if I postulated a new kind of particle, it all seemed to fit.' Jain's theory on composite fermions was published months later, in the journal Physical Review Letters. It was 1989. He was not yet 30. Jain would quietly continue to study his particles, back at Stony Brook, now as an assistant professor. It would be a long while before any recognition came his way. 'For theoretical physicists, beauty is a single idea that explains and unifies a host of seemingly unrelated phenomena,' he says. 'Initially I was frustrated that others did not see the incredible beauty in composite fermions that I saw. I'm happy that has changed in time.' *** It would be 13 years before the first accolades rolled in. In 2002, Jain won the Oliver E Buckley Prize, the most prestigious award for condensed-matter physicists in the US. Meanwhile, his new state of matter was helping explain and map different kinds of electron behaviour. Others, building on his research, found that his fermions could be used to make a special kind of superconductor, one that spawns even weirder particles, called Majoranas (after which the Microsoft chip is named). The idea of the Majorana was first proposed by the Italian physicist Ettore Majorana, in 1937. So far, its existence has been confined to theory. Companies like Microsoft are now betting big that this is about to change. A Majorana, once realised, could make the most dramatic dreams about quantum computing a reality. 'Think that we are pulling apart a composite fermion into two Majoranas,' Jain says. 'You can move the two as far apart as you like. Take one to where you live and keep one in State College where I live. Still the pair remembers its original state. The advantage of this is that a storm in your place will not affect the state of this quantum bit because half of it is in State College. It can thus resist any localised disturbance. This is the promise of a quantum computer based on Majoranas.' It is generally a long road from theory to rollout, Jain adds. 'But many parts of this road have already been laid, so it is possible we will have quantum computers based on this architecture.' As for Jain, there aren't textbooks being written about him, at least not yet. 'There are fractions that composite fermions explain which are called Jain fractions though,' he says, smiling. That's quite a flight path, for a little boy who looked up at the sky and dreamed he would one day soar.
