‘Motherland that is Dearer than Heaven’ – Bangladesh Uprising I

As a lot of motivated propaganda continues to be dished out about the uprising in Bangladesh, with weird and utterly nonsensical stories of it being ‘engineered’ by ‘the CIA’ at one end, and ‘the Islamists’ at the other, we reproduce here this article that gives a virtually blow by blow account of the developments. Published earlier in Bangla in Ekak Matra on 9 August 2024, Twenty Days that Shook the World in two parts, it has been translated for Kafila by ARUN SINHA. This is the first part. Part II can be read here.

The fifteen yearlong rule of Awami League proved to be an era of misgovernance for the people of Bangladesh. In numerous places in the country people were picked up and then went missing, being murdered, subjected to torture in cells maintained by the goons. Incidents of extrajudicial murders of people opposing their rule, being labeled as terrorists, were regular features of this misrule. People were fed up with the tyranny of the government by using the repressive laws such as the Digital Security Act, Special Powers Act, etc. Whereas the Awami League was the principal political party that took the leading role in the birth of Bangladesh as an independent state, Awami League itself was formed with the aid and support of the general oppressed people of Bangladesh. However, in course of time with the support of the bureaucracy and the oligarchy of businessmen, this political party created a hegemonic rule of the state in the country. From controlling the ownership of the public toilets to bringing the judiciary in their fold, every aspect of public life was dominated by them.

‘Less of democracy, more of development ‘ – this slogan was their motto. Awami League was losing their political acceptance among the people of Bangladesh having destroyed the electoral system and canceling the supervisory system accepted by all in the Constitution. In the name of development theory, through ‘quick rental’ mechanisms, the country’s power sector was handed over to corporates, showing almost ten times the cost of infrastructure development projects. Although the well-known foreign media were reporting about the issues such as foreign debt in the name of unnecessary big projects (a lot of debt being to countries like China), denial of life-nature-people in the developmental structure, money laundering by party-connected business oligarchs, and such other matters, almost the entire media in Bangladesh maintained silence on these matters. These media houses were owned by the oligarch businessmen connected with Awami League. The entire population of Bangladesh has been discriminated against by the Awami League regime except for a few privileged people in the society. Therefore, the quota reform movement united all the deprived people of Bangladesh that was directed against the Awami League government. This movement therefore transformed from a mere quota reform movement to an anti-discrimination student movement in 2018.

The context of this anti-discrimination student movement was striking down of the circular issued by the Bangladesh government on October 4, 2018, on June 5, 2024 by the High Court Division of the Bangladesh Supreme Court. This order of the High Court brought the quota system reform movement   into discussion again. The circular was issued in the wake of and in response to the 2018 quota reform movement.  Through that circular, all existing quotas for recruitment to the posts of Grade IX (formerly Class I) and Grades 10-13 (formerly Class II) were abolished.

In the beginning, the movement was confined to meetings and gatherings, but on July 14, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in her speech called the quota agitators ‘grandchildren of Rajakars’. In response to the Prime Minister’s comments, the protesting students mocked, ‘Who are you? who am I? –Rajakar, Rajakar; Who said? Who said? Dictator, Dictator’. The students chanted, ‘I Wanted Right; I have become a Razakar’. The next day on July 15, various officials and ministers of the Awami League government accused the protesting students of destroying the ‘the spirit of liberation war ‘. The most heinous aspect of Awami League’s politics was to give different political tags to people who were dissenting like ‘being against the spirit of liberation war’, ‘Razakars’, ‘Jamaat-Shibir’, ‘BNP fundamentalist clique’, ‘subversives’, etc. For this reason, apart from political movements of all groups, people were afraid to get involved in various social movements!  Along with such tagging there was the hellish tyranny of the gangs of the ruling party and administration. The quota reform movement of 2018, the movement of July to August 2018 for road safety, which was organized by school-college students, were also suppressed. Awami League. It also saw this anti-discrimination student- movement through the same lens – that of suppression a conspiracy of BNP-Jamaat coalition. This time, Awami League’s student organization Chhatra League attacked the students and agitators with rods, sticks, hockey sticks, ramadas (big sickles) and firearms in various parts of the country.  Simultaneously, the police also attacked the agitators with sticks and rubber bullets. The protestors also reciprocated by throwing bricks at them and clashes were ensued between the two sides. In view of these incidents, the agitation intensified from July 16 onwards. When Abu Saeed was shot dead by the police at Begum Rokeya University on July 16, the movement spread like wildfire and sparked across the country.

. The anti-discrimination student movement started with a three-point charter of demands —

• Abolition of current quota system in effect in government jobs;

• Provision of quota in fair proportion to the backward groups and persons with special needs;

• Passing a new law in parliament lowering the quota ceiling to 5 percent.

From the beginning the character of this movement like other social movements was very innocent. But since the Sheikh Hasina government was afraid of any movement, it tried to suppress the movement on the ground by adopting various tyrannical strategies. From July 24 to the first week of August, the government created a hellish situation with its armed forces that rivalled all brutality in the history of Bangladesh’s movement. University students, school-college students, children, common people – it is beyond calculation how many have been killed and injured by the Hasina government’s state forces and party cadres. Independent Bangladesh saw genocide at the hands of forces formed with the tax payers’ money of its own people. Estimates so far suggest casualties have exceeded a thousand, arrests and confinements are countless. Gunshots have been fired from helicopters, and even weapons banned under UN-sanctions have been seen being used on unarmed people. Mass arrests were conducted by blacking out the internet, block raids were conducted in areas by police-BJB alongwith local Awami League cadres to find the students in their homes recalling the days of Bangladesh of March 1971. Bangladesh has never witnessed such violence unleashed by Awami League’s affiliated organizations like Chhatra League, Sramik League, Jubo League’s cadre forces, who have been known as helmet forces in this country for a long time, who together with the state police forces declared war against the unarmed students of the country. Therefore, the common people of Bangladesh could not bear the tyranny any longer, they jumped into this struggle with the students.

When ordinary students resisted the Chhatra League goons in the university halls, most university administrations took steps against these ordinary students. They facilitated the police to vacate the residential halls, they left the students who are like their children unprotected to the worst attack in history. The number of students and educational institutions joining the movement increased with the oppression of the government forces. The students of the private universities of Bangladesh who otherwise represent an elite society of Bangladesh and are said to be averse to politics and affairs in the society, they also got organized in not accepting this oppression. State forces fired indiscriminately even at those private universities. In between, DB Harun, one of Hasina’s Gestapo officers, arrested some of the coordinators of the protesting students, some of whom were hospitalized. DB could not arrest the student coordinators as the agitation pressure was intense. The representatives of the organization called ‘University Teacher Network’ went to the DB office to inquire about the condition of the leading coordinators, the DB office said that they were not arrested but kept in custody for security reasons. Other coordinators outside the office continued the agitation program, the opposition political parties came out in support of the student movement. Their student organizations have been actively seen in participating in the field movements. Many expatriate human rights activists and international journalists who were affected by Awami League’s torture have worked as the vanguard of the agitators in this movement.

The student coordinators who were outside planned the movement by online consultation based on nine- point charter of demands:

1) Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina must publicly apologize to the nation for the indiscriminate killing of students and citizens;

2) Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader, Education Minister Mahibul Hasan Chowdhury Naufel, Law Minister Anisul Haque must resign from the Council of Ministers taking the responsibility of killing the students and citizens by law enforcement forces, party cadres and terrorists. State Minister for Information Junaid Ahmed Palak has to resign due to digital crackdown in the country by shutting down internet. The Minister of State for Information Mohammad A. Arafat must resign for naming and shaming the martyred students and the protesting students in the international media as ‘drug addicts’, for making ugly and false statements and trying to channelize the movement into  diversionary paths;

3) DIGs, Police Commissioners and Superintendents of Police must be dismissed from their jobs in places where student-citizens have been martyred, including Dhaka;

4) In every university across the country, including Dhaka University, Jagannath University, Jahangirnagar University, Rajshahi University and Chittagong University, the VCs and proctors of every university where the peaceful movements of students has been attacked by the law and order forces on campuses must resign;

5) Charges must be framed against the members of the police-BGB-RAB and army personnel who fired on the students, the terrorists including the Chhatra League-Youth League who carried out brutal attacks on the students and the executive magistrates who ordered the police and army officers to fire on the unarmed student-citizens, They should be detained and a case of murder should be filed and arrested as soon as possible;

6) The families of all the student-citizens who have been martyred and injured across the country should be given appropriate compensation at the earliest;

7) Every university and educational institution across the country such as Dhaka University, Jagannath University, Jahangirnagar University, Rajshahi University and Chittagong University should ban all party-based student politics including the terrorist organization Chhatra League and hold regular elections for student councils as soon as possible;

8) All educational institutions and residential halls should be opened immediately. Curfew should be lifted and police forces, RAB, BGB, SWAT and Army deployed in all campuses across the country should be withdrawn;

9) The authorities in the educational institutions must guarantee the students associated with the anti-discrimination student movement will not be subjected to any form of academic or administrative harassment. In the meantime, coordinators and student-citizens who have been subjected to mass arrest and police harassment should be released immediately and all cases against them should be withdrawn forthwith.

Along with this nine-point charter, the students spelt out more specific agitation programs. The day of the declared program on 15th August coincided with the assassination day of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the nation of Bangladesh. The Awami League used to hold mourning programs throughout the month of August, and many times no general organization or cultural organization, including the opposition, were allowed to hold any kind of other programs that are not sanctioned by the League. The students rejected the National Day of Mourning by wearing red cloth over their faces and eyes, posing for photos, and announced massive online campaigns. At the same time, they called for the acceptance of nine-point demands to stabilize the country. Unprecedented events happened – social media platform Meta turned red for the profiles of Bangladeshis living abroad including people in Bangladesh. The mantra of rebellion put the common people of Bangladesh on one side, pitted against the goons of Awami League on the other side. Later, the anti-discrimination student body called for a protest march across the country on August 3 based on these nine-point demands, and asked for an indefinite non-cooperation movement across the country from August 4.

People from different strata and professions of Bangladesh came out in the streets against the autocratic Awami League. A number of human rights activists filed a writ petition in the High Court seeking the judiciary’s intervention in the indiscriminate firing of the peaceful protests in the name of protecting law and order. Although the High Court did not hear it, it made spontaneous observations about the student leaders’ imprisoned in the DB office. Senior Citizens of Human Rights organisation, Sujan gave a 24-hour ultimatum to release the coordinators from the DB office. The government buckled under pressure from all sections, DB Haroon was transferred and the student leaders were released. Pressure started mounting on the government, strong statements from the United Nations, statements from the United Nations human rights chief, the United States State Department, the European Union put pressure on the government. Awami League government became disoriented, directionless. A criminal case was filed against Hasinashahi and his Gestapo administration at the International Criminal Tribunal for committing the Genocide.

To be continued.

Original article.

Source-  Kafila, 2 September, 2024.