Bangladesh Has Not Witnessed a Bloodletting of This Magnitude Since the 1971 War

The students’ agitation in Bangladesh has seen the loss of too many young lives in too short a period and is no longer merely a movement for quota reform in government jobs.

It goes much deeper than that, with protesting students raising the core question of the government’s legitimacy and absence of democracy in the country. They’ve shifted their stance from demanding quota reform to the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Under her watch, over 200 people have lost their lives – 32 of them below 18 years of age.  

Things have gone too far, with the general citizens of Bangladesh fearing an impasse – where scores are settled on the streets instead of at a dialogue table.

4 August marked the first day of a non-cooperation movement wherein the students asked the Hasina government to quit. On this very day, street violence involving the agitating students, law enforcing members and the ruling party’s (Awami League) armed cadres, ensured over 50 lives were lost.  

Bangladesh has not witnessed a bloodletting of this magnitude since its Liberation War in 1971. What infuriated the student agitators most was the government’s deception in the name of having a dialogue. Initially, the students put forward a charter of demands seeking justice for the killings of their peers in the preceding crackdown. The three ministers who heard them did not make sincere efforts to meet their demands and never followed up on the initial talks held during the height of mayhem in the third week of July.

Instead, some of the ruling party fronts’ cadres continued attacking protesting students in many places in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country, and under the government’s behest, its law-enforcing apparatus went on a manhunt, arresting over 11,000 people over the past two weeks. This number includes several hundred students, throwing their academic future in jeopardy. On 3 August, a second round of talks was offered, but too late. The students had already lost their faith in this government.

The most unfortunate and unlawful event was the holding of six key protest coordinators by sleuths at Dhaka’s Detective Branch headquarters in the name of providing them “safety.” During the six-day hostage situation, they were forced to make a video message announcing the withdrawal of the movement.

While some were still reeling in pain and undergoing treatments at a city hospital, they were picked up against their will and were forced to stay at the DB headquarters.

After their release three days ago, these quota reform student body coordinators accused the law enforcers of pressuring them to meet high state functionaries and eschew the movement. They attempted to fast unto death to finally secure their freedom. The home minister and now transferred DB chief claimed that the six coordinators delivered the video message wilfully.  

Despite all the commotion, no one has been held accountable for inciting vigilante forces against what was initially a peaceful student demonstration. Additionally, no responsibility has been taken for the forceful detention of the quota protest coordinators or the recording of a video message under duress. After all this bloodletting, excessive use of force and heavy-handedness, the protesting students are feeling deceived and have lost faith in the government.  

The students on the street, now waging this one-point movement against the government, belong to a generation that saw their voting rights denied and job opportunities squeezed. They are in a country with institutions that have long been largely dysfunctional and embroiled in unimaginable corruption. Many 18-25-year-olds could not cast their votes in the 2018 and 2024 general elections – the environment wasn’t conducive and the elections were not free, fair and competitive. Institutions like the election commission, the police and other agencies are all accused of being complicit in the cover-up of sham elections.

The government’s total indifference to the causes of Generation Z—tagging them as razaakar (collaborators of Pakistani forces in 1971), depriving them of internet and social media, and the use of excessive and brutal force on the pretext of rumour-mongering—pushed them to resort to the total non-cooperation movement.

General members of the public are joining the force while the government continues to negate its impact by saying it’s all orchestrated by its political opponents – the BNP and now-banned Jamaat.  

What began as a peaceful student movement for quota reform in government jobs has now become very violent, with the party-in-power using all forces under its disposal to quell the nationwide non-cooperation movement and the agitating students, possibly reaching a point of no return. For the former group, it’s an adamancy to hang on to power at any cost, and for the latter, it’s a manifestation of pent-up anger.      

(Reaz Ahmad is the Executive Editor of the Dhaka Tribune. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)