[🇧🇩] In Bangladesh, A Violent 'Student Revolution' is on بنگلہ دیش میں انقلاب

[Saif]

Quota reform resurgence: Stop violence against students

The government is complicating and antagonising a solvable proposition by ordinary citizens

www.thedailystar.net

Quota reform resurgence: Stop violence against students
As students bleed, the nation does too

VISUAL: SHAIKH SULTANA JAHAN BADHON

The quota reform protest started in 2018 but was abruptly dissolved through harsh and cunning methods. Now, it has resurfaced due to the indecisiveness of the government. The movement has been joined by numerous students across the country both from private and public universities, indicating that the protest is close to people's hearts, and they find the demands logical.

In the past couple of years, no other protest has been able to mobilise so many students. The reason behind such huge participation is that many students go through the bitter experience of not finding the jobs they deserve, after completing their education. In addition, rampant corruption and irregularities in government job recruitment exams and selection processes have created immense frustration and anger among graduates and students.

Actually, this young generation has become victims of jobless growth and plunder in the process of development! The country's economy shows growth, but jobs are not being created. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of thousands of job vacancies in the public sector particularly in the education (schools, colleges, universities) and health sectors such as hospitals. The total uncertainty in getting jobs as well as the absence of a development plan that will create employment opportunities created frustration and anger among students. As a result, many students are trying to leave the country. Those who cannot go abroad, or do not want to leave the country l, are particularly affected by the negative prospects of finding a proper job. They are the primary participants of the movement.

Currently, BCS is the most secure and sought-after job opportunity in the country. However, due to the current quota structure in the BCS exam, a significant portion of students feel deprived. They believe that talent and intelligence are not being properly valued.

Because of issues like quota structure, question leaks, favouritism in appointments, and corruption, many job opportunities are being lost unethically and illegally. To resolve these issues, and prevent them from recurring, students are joining the protests, hoping to create a collective voice to challenge this scenario to some extent.

In response, the government has not shown a sensitive or logical reaction. When the protests were ongoing in 2018, the government completely removed the quotas, which was not what the protesters demanded. The demand was for quota reform, to bring it to a logical and acceptable structure. The fact that over 50 percent of jobs were being allocated based on quotas was not acceptable. The complete removal of quotas harmed those who actually needed them, such as minority groups and differently-abled individuals.

Understandably the government's decision to remove quotas altogether has been deemed illegal by the high court, sparking the current protest. The movement has spread from Dhaka to all divisions in the country, drawing participation from university and college students of various institutions. The students' demand is for the government to take necessary action to reform the quotas.

The government's stance is that the matter is now a legal proceeding in the courts, and therefore, it cannot play a role, as stated by the Prime Minister recently. However, the full ruling of the High Court in this regard stated that if the government wants, it can bring changes to the quota system. Thus, the claim that the government has no role to play is misinformation.

If the government had decided to form a committee to understand what the students want, find the logic behind their demands, ensure that those who need the quotas are protected, and figure out how reform could be brought about, there would not have been any issues. The students had a simple demand: for the government to listen to them based on an educated demand for necessary change. Instead, the government took a hostile route, spreading unnecessary negative remarks about the protesters and provoking them with wordplay. Even the Prime Minister's comments were derogatory and provocative against them.

After that, the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) started attacking the protesters violently day and night. The police charged at protesters with batons and tear gas. The BCL even attacked students seeking medical help at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Six people have already been killed. This demonstrates the government's autocratic and rigid mentality about public demand to solve a national problem. This is a sad and unacceptable situation.

Our experience shows that every time citizens raise their voices to demand their rights or to protest any wrongdoings, whether they are teachers from schools, colleges, universities, labour groups, or students, the government responds with rigidity and violence. It spreads misinformation and makes unnecessary provocation, and if none of this works, it unleashes the police or ruling party hooligans to disperse the movements. This has been happening for years. Even teenage students, who demanded safe roads, were not spared!

The government's mentality and approach send the message that ordinary citizens do not have the right to protest or the right to voice their needs. The government can do whatever it pleases, and it must be accepted by everyone. Anyone who tries to take any different position will face heavy consequences. To sustain this autocratic behaviour, the ruling party's student wing and police forces, funded by taxpayers' money, are used as weapons.

The government is complicating and antagonising a solvable proposition by ordinary citizens. The students are not trying to steal anything, deprive anyone of their rights, engage in corruption, or take away opportunities from others. Their only ask is that meritorious students get their deserved opportunity to succeed. When these students are attacked, bloodily injured, sent to hospitals, or killed for demanding that educational qualifications be valued, it is an attack on the whole country.

So as citizens, we are bleeding too. We therefore demand that the government stop attacks on students, change its stance, listen to the students' demands, and create an operational system to address the issues brought forward by the protesters.

Anu Muhammad is former professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University.​

 

[Saif]

A slogan lost in translation

What made them flood campus streets on Sunday night was a specific comment that touched a nerve for the wider student community.

www.thedailystar.net

A slogan lost in translation

What made students flood the streets on Sunday night was a specific comment that touched a nerve. Photo: Anisur Rahman

The course of the ongoing quota reform protests has taken a drastic turn over the last two days. On Tuesday, at least six individuals, mostly students, died during clashes between protesters and members of Bangladesh Chhatra League and the police—marking a further escalation from the previous day's events. Few would have imagined this scenario when students gathered in Dhaka University and other campuses on Sunday night.

For over two weeks prior to this, they had been boycotting classes and exams, and blockading key intersections in Dhaka and major highways in different places of the country with the demand to reform the quota system in civil service recruitment. But what made them flood campus streets on that night was a specific comment that touched a nerve for the wider student community. On Sunday, in response to a journalist's question during a press conference, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said, "Why do they [anti-quota protesters] have so much resentment towards the freedom fighters? If the grandchildren of the freedom fighters don't get quota benefits, should the grandchildren of Razakars get the benefit?"

This questionable dichotomy is what lit the fuse, leading to students exploding in protest with renewed vigour. And among all the slogans heard across the DU campus that night, the one that seems to have had the most intense impact is the one that goes: "Tui ke? Ami ke? Razakar, Razakar!" (Who are you? Who am I? Razakar, Razakar!) There have been other, more explanatory variations of the slogan, but for whatever reason, those didn't get much coverage. The question is, what made these students—otherwise proud citizens of an independent Bangladesh, and carrying the legacy of our independence struggle—utter such incendiary slogans?

Grievances over the preferential quota system are nothing new; in fact, the way the protests have panned out this time are starkly reminiscent of what happened during the 2018 quota reform movement. Protests began at Shahbagh then as they did now, before spreading across the country. In 2018, like this time around, a senior member of the ruling party remarked in parliament, "Will the children and successors of those who risked their lives to fight for independence not get an opportunity? Will the children of Razakars get the chance? Will the quota for the freedom fighters be shrunk for them?"

Six years ago, students protested this particular line of reasoning—as they did on Sunday night. And the reaction to it on both occasions was nothing short of extraordinary. That said, it is totally unfortunate that in a movement that concerns the wellbeing of general students in modern-day Bangladesh, the word "Razakar" has occupied so much of the conversation. On principle, we must say we are against any identification—however unintended—with this term. Students, having been familiarised with the history of our nation from a young age, should have known better than to use something that only invokes the hateful memories of the atrocities committed by Razakars in 1971.

But students say the slogan was lost in translation. Their use of the term, they say, was sarcastic and heavy with context. Take away that context, and you have a totally different connotation. And this is what is happening at the moment. Unfortunately, despite the clarification from students, there has been little hint of reciprocation from those protesting the use of the word Razakar. Clearly, a mismatch exists between the protesting students and the powers that be. But what was stopping Bangladesh Chhatra League, a student party made up of students, from trying to understand the feelings of pain and anguish that led to such utterances? Why, instead of trying to impress upon them the inappropriateness of their slogan or supporting their just cause for quota reforms, did Chhatra League unleash violence on them?

After Sunday night, we have seen the ministers of road transport and bridges, education, and social welfare, and state ministers for ICT and information all come out with hardened words against the protesters. None of them seemed to have noticed that the protesters themselves offered further explanation of their mood by chanting, "Chaite gelam odhikar, hoye gelam Razakar." (Demanded rights, only to become Razakar.) Instead of trying to engage with the students and bridge any gap in communication, the Awami League general secretary has instead called on BCL to provide a "fitting reply".

We have seen the destructive nature of that reply over the past two days. Such violence and brutal attacks over a naive use of an objectionable slogan are hard to accept. We must remember that these students would never support anti-liberation ideals. Attempts could have been made to clear any confusion through amicable means. That would have been a much wiser way to deal with these realities instead of the violence that has ensued since.

Azmin Azran is digital features coordinator at The Daily Star.​

 

[Old School]

• 32 official dead; exact number unknown
• All internet and communication with outside word shut down
• Bangladesh Central Bank site hacked

As there is no internet in BD now untill further notice , your regular poster is unable to post. Please keep this page updated @Bilal9

 

[Bilal9]

Situation still tense at Shanir Akhra

Protesters, cops hold positions after hours of clashes; one feared dead; six wounded by shotgun pellets; Hanif Flyover toll plaza, police box set on fire

www.thedailystar.net

Situation still tense at Shanir Akhra
Protesters, cops hold positions after hours of clashes; one feared dead; six wounded by shotgun pellets; Hanif Flyover toll plaza, police box set on fire

View attachment 6995
Photo: Collected

Situation remains tense in the Shanir Akhra area after hours of intense clashes between law enforcers and protesters.
Protesters were present at the area even after midnight, reports our correspondent. A large number of law enforcers were also present.

The protesters set fire at multiple spots. Vehicular movement on the Dhaka-Chattogram highway remains suspended.

The clashes left scores injured. Of them, at least seven, including six with pellet wounds, took treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Many others sought treatment at local medical centres, according to our correspondent.

Meanwhile, according to media reports one person was shot dead during the clashes. However, The Daily Star could not confirm it.

View attachment 6996
Photo: Collected

The clashes started around 3:00pm yesterday when protesting students brought out a procession on the Dhaka-Chattogram highway, protesting the police attacks on students in the last two days.

Witnesses said as the police tried to disperse them, protesters threw brickbats at them, prompting law enforcers to fire tear gas shells, sound grenades and shotgun pellets.

This continued for a while.

View attachment 6997
Photo: Star

The police action eventually forced many of the protesters to take shelter in alleys in the nearby residential areas, resulting in a series of chases and counter-chases between the two groups.

Till the filing of this report, the clashes were raging on.

According to witnesses, police fired hundreds of rounds of tear gas shells, sound grenades and shotgun pellets at the protesters to control the situation.

They also said many locals joined the protesters while a large number of people affiliated with the ruling party were seen taking the side of cops during the clashes.

By 7:00pm, the entire area from Jatrabari Police Station to Kajla turned into a battlefield. Several vehicles were vandalised.

Around 8:00pm, a toll plaza of Hanif Flyover and an adjacent police box were set alight.

Protesters also set fire to tyres at several points.

Shahin Alam, senior station officer of Postogola Police Station, told The Daily Star that two fire engines rushed to the spot but could not reach there due to the clashes.

The fire died down only after it burnt the plaza into ashes, he said.

Vehicular movement on the flyover remains halted.

Around midnight, some vehicles, which were seized by police over time, kept in front of the Jatrabari Police Station were set on fire.

7 WOUNDED

With smoke and loud noise engulfing the area, two-year-old Rohit Mia started crying inside his home. To calm him, his father, Babu Mia, took him in his arms and went downstairs.

He stood inside the collapsible gate and tried to understand what was happening.

Suddenly, pellets hit him and Rohit.

They were rushed to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital in the evening.

Rohit's mother, who brought them to the hospital with the help of locals, said, "They were inside the collapsible gate of the house. Suddenly, they were hit by shotgun pellets, fired to disperse the protesters."

As of filing this report around 2:30am, Rohit is out of danger.

They were among the seven people who were brought to DMCH. Six of them had pellet wounds. The rest four are protesting students.

One of the injured, Faisal was brought to DMCH with multiple pellet injuries.

His condition is critical, said doctors at the hospital.

DMCH sources said Pias, a student of class VIII, and Monirul, a cloth trader, have been admitted to the hospital.

When this correspondent was at DMCH, he saw a teenager brought to the hospital in a critical condition from Jatrabari on a CNG-run-auto rickshaw early today.

Identified as Siam, 18, the unconscious teenager had pellet-like injury marks in his neck, said Bacchu Miah, inspector of police outpost at DMCH.

However, seeing police and a crowd at the hospital, those who brought Siam there, carried him back into the auto-rickshaw and drove away, he added.

Several media, however, reported that Siam had died.​

Wow - Shanir akhra turned into its namesake !!

But we should give these brave folks our moral support since they are protesting the policies of a regime led by someone with no moral compass...

 

[Old School]

Wow - Shanir akhra turned into its namesake !!

But we should give these brave folks our moral support since they are protesting the policies of a regime led by someone with no moral compass...

All posts are now merged into a new thread . Title chaged acordingly. Try to post videos like below rather than long articles as many people will be visiting here soon.

 

[Old School]

Try to post videos like above rather than long articles ( no one reads) as many people will be visiting here soon.

 

[Old School]

Today, protesters attacked Narsingdi District Jail and occupied it. At least a few hundred inmates reportedly left the prison after it went out of the control of the prison guards.

 

[Bilal9]

Here is Dhaka University Law Professor Asif Nazrul talking to reporters on two occasions along with other professors declaring how illegal the regime is and their actions are. The statements are in Bengali - sorry. Dhaka as a city is essentially shutdown and no transports are running. Ditto with nineteen other large towns and cities.

In the first video Asif demanded the resignation of the home minister. He also rejected the "Razakar" tag assigned to the protesters by Sheikh Hasina.