Calm has returned to Bangladesh after for 20 days of unprecedented turmoil. On Saturday, media reported that 209 people were killed. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that 3,800 vehicles, 29 trains, and eight river launches were set ablaze, with the agitators using gunpowder in some cases.
The just-inaugurated ultra-modern Japanese-built Dhaka metro railway system and the Headquarters of Bangladesh TV, both in Dhaka, were seriously damaged.
“The people of Bangladesh witnessed terrible scenes like the infernal devastation committed by Pakistani occupation forces in 1971,” Hasina said. “The rampage was carried out to undermine the country’s achievements,” she charged.
But students, civil society, the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the radical Islamist Jamaat-i-Islami squarely blamed Hasina for the mayhem. They accused her of showing insensitivity towards the students’ anxiety about getting jobs under the restrictive quota system.
Hasina is condemned for the unabashed use of the ruling party’s students’ wing the “Chhatra League” to wreak vengeance on agitating students with sticks and machetes.
The student movement against the 30% reservation for freedom fighters’ families in civil service jobs was peaceful from July 5 to 17. But when the government refused to meet the agitating students to discuss an alternative rational system of quotas and insisted on going only by a future Supreme Court verdict, the stage was set for an intensification of the agitation.
It was at this stage that the agitation was hijacked by a congeries of anti-government groups like the opposition BNP, the radical Islamic Jamaat-i-lslami, and a large number of thugs who would jump into the fray with alacrity whenever a riot is triggered.
A peaceful protest became a violent agitation. Violence was answered by violence.
Peace has been restored now with the induction of the army patrols. But Sheikh Hasina has not let her belligerence flag.
Putting the blame squarely on forces which opposed the 1971 war of independence, she declared that searches will be conducted in “every nook and corner” of the country and the perpetrators of violence will be brought to justice.
Over 3000 people have been arrested, some even picked up from hospital beds. Even a disabled boy was taken into custody.
On its part, the opposition BNP has called for a “national movement to topple the government and liberate the country.”
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Alamgir issued a statement on Friday saying that he was calling for the unity of all democratic political parties, social and cultural organisations, and individuals to force the restoration of “looted democracy and voting rights.”
These are references to Sheikh Hasina’s winning elections without the one major opposition party, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) in the field.
Given the chances of the ruling Awami League rigging elections, the BNP has been insisting on there being a neutral Caretaker Government to conduct parliamentary elections. But Sheikh Hasina has been trashing this demand consistently leading to a UNP boycott.
There are indications that a variety of extraneous issues will be raked up by the opposition to fight Sheikh Hasina.
On July 1, BNP Secretary General Alamgir said that the signing of MoUs with India by Sheikh Hasina would make Bangladesh “dependent on India.”
“The most dangerous instrument among them is giving a rail corridor to India which will be of no use to Bangladesh,” he stated.
Alamgir further said that all Left and Right political parties, the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and other religious and Islamic political parties and organisations should unite under the leadership of the BNP.
This is a danger signal for Bangladesh and also neighbouring India as Sheikh Hasina had kept the Islamic radicals under check, albeit by harsh methods.
Alamgir demanded the unconditional release of former Prime Minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia (79), who has been receiving treatment at a hospital.
Alamgir said Khaleda was sentenced in false and fabricated cases to remove her from politics and to eliminate “nationalist” forces.
"Democracy and Khaleda Zia are identical and inseparable. If we can free Khaleda Zia, we'll be able to restore democracy, " Alamgir said.
Bangladeshi commentators have appealed for an end to the bickering that is the order of the day.
They have stressed the need to review of the course taken by the country in the last decade and a half, and come to a consensus on how to rescue the country from the abyss it had fallen into.
To give credit where credit is due, after Sheikh Hasina became Prime Minister in 2009, Bangladesh rose from a “basket case” to being hailed as the “new Asian tiger.”
But come 2024, in her 14 th.,year in office, Bangladesh was in a dire state, facing a foreign exchange crisis, heavy international debt, and mass alienation from the citizens because of her autocratic ways..
Commentators point to systemic flaws in Bangladesh’s polity and economy and urge their removal. The Hasina regime was based on the brutal suppression of political freedoms, a crippling of the main opposition party, the BNP, dragooning of the media and badgering of civil society into submission.
The government diktat was carried out not only by the uniformed law enforcement personnel, but also by goons allied with the ruling Awami League and its Students’ Wing, the Chhatra League.
The economy was allowed to go into the hands of corrupt crony capitalists who made a pile by breaking laws and stacked away their earnings abroad.
Thirty one social and cultural organisations held a rally at the National Press Club, Dhaka, on July 26. Speakers said that it seemed that government only cared for the damage done to installations but not for the injuries and deaths inflicted on people.
They also demanded ensuring the people’s right to expression and right to information. The Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) chief executive Syeda Rizwana Hasan demanded an investigation under UN supervision.
Dhaka University teacher Samin Lutfa said: “If we can’t create a democratic system today, we will never be able to get out of the grip of dictators.” .
Filmmaker Mostofa Sarwar Farooki wrote on Facebook: "Those who imagine that the movement is just about jobs, are delusional. Just listen carefully to the slogans. You will see that this movement is for equal dignity for all citizens. It is to bring a halt to living like third class citizens in one's own country. It is to remind those in state power that they are not the owners of the country, the people are the real owners.”
Bangladesh students’ stir was but the tip of an iceberg. There are signs of its snowballing into a broad-based movement against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
