The Spectres Haunting Bangladesh
Echoes of past anti-authoritarian uprisings reverberate within anti-quota protests.
Image: @debashish.chakrabarty
A lifeless body being paraded around on top of an armored police van in daylight; tear gas shells exploding in university campuses; bloodied faces of university students as they desperately seek medical aid or save themselves from the onslaught of sticks and machetes wielded by ruling party cadre; a metro rail station on fire; the national TV station on fire, thousands of people on the streets chanting “Who am I? Who are you? Razakar, Razakar? Who said so? Who said so? The dictator, the dictator” - a dizzying display of defiance, resistance and political violence has filled my screen since July 15, 2024 to the time of writing.
What began as a protest by a relatively small group of students in public universities in Bangladesh, mainly in Dhaka, has now spread throughout the country as protests against the authoritarian rule of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her ruling party, the Bangladesh Awami League (BAL). Six months fresh off the most recent elections (boycotted by the major opposition party), and fifteen years in power, BAL was once heralded as the party which liberated Bangladesh in 1971. Under Hasina’s leadership, it has come dangerously close to being the oppressor of those it once sought to liberate. The alarming death toll of nearly 174 people and thousands injured within 7 days, with an indefinite curfew maintained by the military and “shoot-on-sight” orders, only serve to highlight the shaky foundations of BAL’s grip on power propped up through a violent state apparatus and its notorious student wing, the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL).
The protests began on July 1, 2024, following a preliminary ruling by the High Court of Bangladesh that reinstated the quota system for government jobs. The system will reserve 30% of government jobs for descendants of freedom fighters. The quota system was previously abolished by the Hasina administration in 2018 under pressure from student protestors and a steep unemployment rate. On July 13th, an independent journalistic investigation showed that for more than 12 years, exam questions for the Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) - the main entry point for white collar government jobs - had been regularly leaked and compromised. Combined with the final court verdict of quota reinstatement on July 14th, protests against the quota system restarted.
The quota system for government jobs explained. Image: Aljazeera
PM Hasina’s Repressive Regime
Perhaps the protests would not have reached such a furor if PM Hasina had not called the protestors Razakars (collaborators of the Pakistani Army during Bangladesh’s liberation war in 1971) for opposing the quota for freedom fighters’ descendants. Perhaps it would not have reached such a frenzy if the police had not collaborated with the BCL cadre to beat up the anti-quota protesters. Perhaps it would not have reached the fever pitch if in true Hunger Games (or Game of Thrones - take your pick) fashion, if PM Hasina had not appeared on live TV fully clad in black to declare that anti-freedom elements were agitating in the universities and the true victims were herself, and the memory of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the nation. This performance follows a sustained pattern of deeming any opposition to BAL and Hasina’s rule as “anti-liberation”. But as one anti-quota protester pointed out: Why do we need quotas for freedom fighters if Sheikh Mujib is indeed the father of our nation, ergo, father to all of us?
Student protestors face off with police. The government has taken a heavy-handed approach to student demands. Image: Wikipedia
In an ironic twist of history, the “Razakar” donned the flag of Bangladesh on their temples, while the “freedom fighters” donned helmets in the street clashes that erupted on July 15. BCL’s atrocities were on full display as documented in photos and videos all over Facebook and Instagram (please see slideshow below). They have been honing their skills over the last 15 years against anyone they deem to be contesting their power: school children during Road Safety Protests in 2018, opposition party activists during any election year, a frustrated student airing grievances on social media or even minor celebrities such as Hero Alam who wanted to run as an independent candidate. The police, when not actively beating or shooting rubber bullets,and in some cases, live ammunition on protesters, watched idly or actively aided BCL cadres. The clashes on July 15 resulted in multiple deaths, including that of one Abu Sayed, a university student in Rangpur in Northwest Bangladesh, who was shot multiple times by police with rubber bullets even as he tried to protect himself with a stick, only to surrender.
July 15: BAL’s student wing member seen attacking female students on Dhaka University campus. Image: Facebook
As the fear of abdication truly took hold, PM Hasina unleashed the military to bring “law and order” with her lackey, Obaidul Quader, the General Secretary of BAL, giving a “shoot on sight” order (thankfully, majority of the military personnel have not carried out such orders yet). The army, who had once challenged PM Hasina in 2007 with a coup, has been successfully brought under her control with loyalists filling every official position. The judiciary, a supposedly independent body, has long been filled with loyalists and sycophants - a judge went on live TV to defend the “shoot-on-sight” order. With the administrative bodies under her control, PM Hasina and BAL have also consolidated the intelligentsia of the country - the intellectuals have fallen in line. Once the most popular author in Bangladesh, and hugely influential among the youth, Mohammad Zafar Iqbal published a nonsensical pro-government apologia based on the sentiments of 1971. Kazi Anis Ahmed, the President of PEN Bangladesh and the owner of the popular English newspaper Dhaka Tribune, remains busy manufacturing consent for the government by calling the protesters a violent mob. Hasina’s greatest international ally, Modi’s India, is peddling misinformation blaming Islamists with ties to Pakistani intelligence agencies as instigating these protests.
July 15: Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), a paramilitary force, was seen in the capital confronting protesters. Image: Al Jazeera
Student Power: Echoes of the Past
The killings, the beatings, the willful violence by the state apparatus and BCL and the impunity of it all has resurrected the spectres of student power - an indomitable force that has shaped Bangladesh’s history since 1947. The Language Movement (Bhasha Andolon) of 1952 was led by students; echoes of the martyrs Salam, Barkat, Rafiq, Jabbar and Shafiur invoked with those killed on July 15. The spirits of the 1969 uprising against Ayub Khan, the 1971 liberation war, the 1987 protests against the military dictator HM Ershad, the return to democratic governance in 1990, the Road Safety Protests of 2018 - invocations abounded in physical and ethereal spaces. Even Sheikh Mujib’s legendary calls for liberation and resistance against the Pakistani Army in 1971 - “Ghorey Ghorey Durgo Gore Tulun” (Build a fortress at every home), “Rokto jokhon diyechi tokhon aro debo” (Now that I have bled I will continue to do so), “Ebarer shongram, shadhinotar shongram” (This fight is the fight for liberation) - made their rounds across social media; speeches overlaid with images and videos of defiant student protestors against the government’s violent repression.
Eerie similarities between the repression of pro-Palestine student encampments in the U.S. and the violent crackdown in Bangladesh are on display. Police rappelled down from a helicopter to break into BRAC University, one of the nation’s most prestigious private universities, going a step further than the NYPD using an armored SWAT vehicle to enter Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall. Thanks to the global empire of death that the U.S. defense industry has propped up, tear gas shells manufactured in the U.S. litter Bangladeshi university campuses.
A university student, later identified as Tonni, fell victim to BCL’s vicious attacks against the protestors on July 15. Image: Facebook
Beyond the ugly display of state power lay the beautiful solidarity of protesters and the general public who came to the aid of the students. Social media platforms have a flurry of aid requests, information on ambulances and hospitals providing free services to injured protesters, urgent messages, notifications of police movement and activity, and asks for bodies to fight off BCL goons. People are flooding the streets with whatever they can find - a girl riding her bicycle with a hockey stick in her backpack; a father and daughter holding hands while wielding sticks in others; a bloodied protestor being carried on the shoulders of his comrades, his fist raised in defiance, his face a mask of determination. Bangladeshi students across the world - from Melbourne to Oslo - have staged protests in solidarity with their compatriots back home. It is precisely because of such displays of solidarity that the Bangladesh government has enacted a complete internet shutdown.
Anti-quota protestors donned the Bangladeshi flag on their foreheads in protest against PM Hasina’s description of them as unpatriotic Razakars. Image: Al Jazeera
At the time of writing, the curfew has been extended indefinitely following fresh bouts of violence on July 19 and 20, with thousands still taking to the streets. The protesters have put out a 9-point demand list that includes the resignations of Obaidul Quader and Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, a public apology from the PM, the abolition of the quota system and compensation for the families of victims of the violence. The government has indicated they would like to discuss reforming the quota system, but the protests have largely spun out of such reform demands. Despite the Supreme Court ruling on July 21 that reduced quotas to only 7% of government jobs, the student leaders have vowed to continue protesting against state injustice and atrocities. Nahid Islam, a coordinator of the anti-quota protests, has called on his fellow protestors to pause their shutdown for the next 48 hours. However, Islam showed signs of duress and torture during his press conference. Regardless of his message, the reality remains that this is a full throttled challenge to Hasina and BAL’s violent grip on power. The spectres of student martyrs rise from their graves and spill onto social media. They come back as memories and memes, but it is truly the spectre of liberation that haunts the heavily patrolled streets of Bangladesh, circling above the clashes between protesters and police and BCL goons, breathing life into those on the right side of history. Reflecting on the 1969 mass movement, the famous Bangladeshi poet Shamsur Rahman had once written,
“জীবন মানেই
তালে তালে কাঁধে কাঁধ মিলিয়ে এগিয়ে চলা, নিশান ওড়ানো,
জীবন মানেই
অন্যায়ের প্রতিবাদে শূন্যে মুঠি তোলা”
“What is life but
Marching together, shoulder to shoulder, flying our flag,
What is life but
A fist raised high in righteous resistance”
It is the spectre of this life that now haunts Bangladesh.
All power to the student protesters. Solidarity.
Nafis H (@cannafis_) is a Bangladeshi writer and organizer based in Philadelphia. He also sits on Jamhoor’s editorial committee.
