Bangladesh Continues To Crack Down On Activists

It is not “curtains down” yet on the month-long violent agitation in Bangladesh over quotas in recruitment for white-collar government jobs. Though violence ceased after the Supreme Court reduced the controversial quota for special categories from 56% to 7%, arrests of student leaders and opposition activists continue unabated.

The government cited the possibility of Bangladeshi students replicating the 2022 Sri Lankan mass action called “Aragalaya” in which government offices in Colombo were stormed and occupied, crippling the State machinery and forcing the President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country.

“There was a Sri Lanka-style plot to occupy Ganabhaban, the official residence of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, on July 19,” the ruling Awami League’s General Secretary Obaidul Quader claimed.

“The fugitive in London (Tarique Rahman, son of opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Begum Khaleda Zia) aimed to take over the Prime Minister’s residence through a mass upsurge in the Sri Lanka style. This would have happened if curfew was not clamped,” Quader said.

He condemned the Bangladeshi Nobel Laureate Dr.Muhammad Yunus for seeking foreign intervention to restrain Sheikh Hasina.

Calling Dr. Yunus a “shameless person”, Quader said: “Yunus requested India to stop Sheikh Hasina. Sheikh Hasina is a victim, not an attacker. Why should (they) stop her? Rather, you stop the attackers. We have friends abroad, not masters. Our conscience guides us, not any foreign power.”

The Bangladesh agitation resulted in over 200 deaths. According to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, 3,800 vehicles, 29 trains, and eight river launches were set ablaze, with the agitators using gunpowder in some cases. All educational institutions were shut as was the internet and mobile services.

The student movement against the 30% reservation for freedom fighters’ families in civil service jobs was peaceful from July 5 to 17. But after 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 agitation became violent.

Anti-government groups like the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the radical Islamic Jamaat-i-lslami, and most importantly street thugs jumped into the fray. In retaliation, Sheikh Hasina declared that the police would search “every nook and corner of the country” for the ring leaders and bring them to justice. Injured students were arrested from hospitals.

While the government continues on the offensive, student leaders called “coordinators” have vowed to continue the stir till the government comes to a negotiated solution and not go only by a judicial decision.

The government has accepted the Supreme Court ruling which set aside the controversial 56% quota for special categories and decreed a 7% quota instead, including 5% for descendants of freedom fighters.

But the students fear that if the issue is left only to the courts, litigation could result in orders being reversed. They strongly urge a negotiated settlement.

On its part, the opposition BNP has called for a “national movement to topple the government and liberate the country.”

Party General Secretary Fakhrul Alamgir 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.

There are indications that a variety of issues will be raked up by the opposition to fight Sheikh Hasina, including her MoUs with India as indicated by Alamgir in a speech on July 1.

Bangladeshi commentators point to systemic flaws in Bangladesh’s polity and economy and urge their removal. The Hasina regime has been 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 in which speakers demanded the people’s right to expression and right to information.

Dhaka University teacher Samin Lutfa warned: “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: 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.” Clearly the students’ stir was but the tip of an iceberg.

Sheikh Hasina is under pressure from the international community to restore democracy. The Dhaka daily ‘Prothom Alo’ reported that 14 foreign missions jointly wrote to Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud on Wednesday expressing concern over the excesses of the Hasina government, calling for an impartial inquiry and the restoration of freedom of speech and the internet.

The missions were those of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Canada, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Australia and the European Union (EU).

The Bangladeshi political system has a fundamental flaw: political changes have been brought about not by normal political competition between well-organised political parties playing by democratic principles but by mass protest movements typically accompanied by violence.

Bangladesh was born in the crucible of a blood-drenched liberation movement and mass agitations. The right to have mother tongue Bengali as an official language when Bangladesh was part of Pakistan, was obtained after an eight-year agitation. The lives of 29 university students had to be sacrificed in the process.

The country’s very first President and the nation’s founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, ruled with an iron hand and was killed by military officers in the fourth year of his rule. But Mujib’s elimination did not bring peace or civilian rule. There was a succession of military coups, until Gen.Ziaur Rahman took over at the end of the 1970s.

Gen. Ziaur Rahman was himself killed by fellow military officers, as the army by then had developed a taste for power and pelf. However, Zia had given an impetus to multi-party democracy, and had formed his own party, the BNP.

After the elimination of the killers of Gen. Ziaur Rahman, another military dictator, Gen.H.M.Ershad, took over. Ershad wanted to institutionalise the army’s continuous role in governance. But the people and the political parties did not relish this.

People were thirsting for normal parliamentary democracy, not military dictatorship or even the Presidential form of government that had been in existence since Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. A mass movement led by a united front of parties including Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League and Begum Khaleda Zia’s BNP, forced Gen.Ershad to step down.

Through a consensus, Bangladesh introduced the institution of neutral, non-partisan, “Caretaker Governments” to conduct free and fair elections. But Sheikh Hasina abolished it when she came to power saying that her government can ensure free and fair elections.

The opposition BNP has been insisting on having Caretaker Governments and has boycotted parliamentary polls in their absence. The BNP’s boycotts have enabled Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League to get walkovers in elections and rule arbitrarily.

The July students’ stir is but a by- product of arbitrary exercise of power. More than ever before, Bangladeshis now want governments to be accountable to parliament, the judiciary to be independent and be the bulwark of human rights, and the media to be free.

However, Bangladesh is yet to ensure peaceful political activity as violence in elections has become the norm. To date, all parliamentary elections in Bangladesh, starting from the first held in March 1973, have seen violence in varying degrees.

Given the destruction seen in the quota agitation and the revulsion that one sees for the government’s repressive actions, it is hoped that Bangladesh’s political parties will strive for healthy competition and strive for compromises rather than indulge in ‘zero sum games’ which have only brought sorrow to Bangladeshis.