Photograph Source: Md Joni Hossain – CC BY-SA 4.0
Introduction
As recent as August 2024, a culmination of social, political, and economic challenges has caused turmoil in Bangladesh. In this article, exclusive for Counterpunch, Daniel Falcone shares insights and commentary gathered from scholars, researchers and activists in the country (that wish to remain private). They provided a summary of several important issues currently impacting Bangladeshi society.
Experts cite extreme political tensions concerning the legitimacy of elections and movements that include the BNP or the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its opposition to the Awami League. Further – protests, resistance, direct action, and demonstrations have received harsh forms of political repression.
Additionally, other economic issues and increasing higher costs of living have harmed everyday people in Bangladesh along with increased prices, economic inequalities and the optics of corrupt and autocratic politicians that have intensified mistrust and widespread unhappiness and precarity.
All of this has contributed directly to incredible levels of social unrest, infringements on freedom of speech, severe police violence, and restrictions on education and the media. As a result, students have organized but encountered a harsh government response.
Security and Law and Order
Academics, researchers, lawyers, and journalists have been difficult to reach in Bangladesh; some have had to appear in front of OHCHR teams regarding the crisis to investigate the killings and disappearances of students.
In terms of political economy, Bangladesh was a success story from 2008 to 2020 in terms of growth per capita income but when you went into the details of this growth, you could see big, gaping holes. Most of the money was being siphoned off from national banks by businessmen. They took it as forms of loans, and they became defaulters:
“Default loans in the banking sector of Bangladesh hit an all-time high of Tk 182,295 crore, but no reform programme to reduce it has been announced in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.”
Defaulting was one of the ways in which the growth was foiled and there were many complaints in the civil society, even by banks like the IMF, that the Bangladeshi government should have been taking care of loan defaulting. It wasn’t.
Very recently, just before the movement started, there was a phase where the media suddenly became very involved. It came from the fact that most of the money laundering that took place had entered North America. Some people, have also incidentally, settled down and are doing well for themselves in Canada, becoming police officers. In any event, Bangladesh was given a ban and sanction on money laundering in Canada. Crucially, more visas would be given for administration, police, and army personnel to go to America and Canada.
This policy was in the backdrop of the complaints or accusations of the enforced disappearances of businessmen, army personnel or anyone who knew more than they should, according to the government. Many such disappearance cases spanned 2009-2017. Many people say they were funded by the United States.
Lately, this has been a strategy of the Bangladesh government to silence protests or suppress information from coming out. This was a standard security and political agenda:
“The Working Group was informed that enforced disappearances were often occurring in the framework of the government’s anti-terrorism policy, and that it was suspected to be used as a political tool by the government to silence criticism and dissent.”
Election Ballot Box Hijinks
The other agenda of course, was the gradual absence of free and fair elections and political freedom for more than two consecutive elections. One was totally rigged. People stuffed ballot boxesthroughout the night. Bangladesh used to get about 80 percent-plus turnout during election day because elections were like festivals – but no longer. Everyone used to wear their best new dress to vote, but lately in this election, few turned out – less than 50 percent.
It was also an election where the new generation, Generation Z, didn’t get to vote. They oversaw the front line of the movement, you could say, and this generation was supposed to be voting for the first time, and they didn’t get to vote. There is a lot of anger regarding this.
No Freedom of Speech
At the same time, it wasn’t just elections. There was also a clamp down on the freedom of speech everywhere – draconian laws such as the Cybersecurity Act of 2023 intensified. People were taken to prison just for enjoying a cartoon of the Prime Minister in an e-mail or on Facebook as per the Digital Act of 2018. Currently, this is quite extreme and the clamp downs on the freedom of speech have resulted in the cancelation of talk shows in the past.
Further, when a lot of talk shows were around, they were used by the government as evidence for toleration of speech when in fact they were steered to present the government in a favorable light. If they challenged the government, they’d get a telephone call that their job is gone. Overall, conditions both political and economic, led to the movement.
Price Hikes and Debt Problems as a Breaking Point
In the last few months before the price hikes of 2022, which was world over, Bangladesh fell into a really large debt, having serious debt problems. At the same time, a lot of development was happening — infrastructure development, like the Metro rail, and the tunnel underneath the Brahmaputra River. These kinds of infrastructure development were the flagships of the government, but behind a lot of debt incurred and this impacted the government’s ability to repay the debt. Suddenly, the foreign reserve in the Bangladesh Bank was low. As a result, austerity policies hurt the urban middle class, as well as the middle class in general.
This all created the breaking point as students were already arguing for more public services (the largest employer for students) – job cuts created more clashes and protests. Privatization only provides jobs for a particular class of people and since students rely heavily on public service jobs – these losses invited chaos. Fifty years ago, Bangladesh had Freedom Fighters, which led in the independence movement of Bangladesh and their sons, daughters and grandchildren have carried out their legacies. The leadership weaponized (students then later reappropriated it) the term Razakar, a term which was meant for the enemy in 1971, to undermine dissent:
“It is a true tragedy when a weapon, sharpened diligently to eliminate opponents, returns as a fatal boomerang. The fluctuating significance of the terms “Razakar” and “Muktijoddha” in Bangladeshi politics over the past five decades mirrors such a tragedy. This saga has culminated in a definitive closure through the recent student movement, which has left hundreds of dead, and thousands wounded, arrested, or missing – often bearing the marks of pathological violence.”
Police
Police brutality has been a serious issue in Bangladesh, but recent unrest has produced brutal action against the police. One does not know if right-wing extremists are behind it or not, or whether they came from outside the movement, taking advantage of the strife. In all, the OHCHR brought out a report which says 600-plus have been killed during the movement; students, general citizens, ordinary citizens, and police alike. As of August 29th, the number has increased to 1,000. Since there was an absence of police there were more subsequent attacks on minorities in the far-flung areas as well as in Dhaka. Students joined hands together in taking turns to protect installations and Hindu temples.
Disappearances then increased and many police stations were burned down (perhaps 47 of 50 according to some reports) as well as several infrastructure facilities, metro rails, a Bangladesh television station, and several houses of iconic value (including the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman). Bangladesh was torched.
Student Movement and Quotas
There were two phases to the movement. One was the student’s movement, or the quota. Again, this started because of the vast disenchantment with the pre-existing system for placing students in government positions. The quota system is supposed to allocate and maintain a specific percentage of jobs in different agencies and categories but instead culminated into arbitrary and capricious practices. This fueled student anger and protest who called for a merit-based process. The official government reaction to these demonstrations formed the basis of the 2024 quota movement.
Life after the movement (after resolved in court) clearly did not go back to normal. Some students, parents, and private citizens, however, did not go on with their lives or studies because their fellow country persons were dead — and there was a cry for justice. It was fought in person and equally fought on an electronic basis in the form of social media. In other words, while other matters had been resolved in court, the #stepdownhasina movement came about and the demand for justice became even stronger.
Six Point Demands
In essence, after students re-issued and commemorated the historic six-point demands, it snowballed into a huge movement. After the army moved in, students at both public and private universities joined in unison. The impact of the newer students slowly proliferated outside into the countryside as well, (countryside meaning small towns and district towns all throughout Bangladesh).
July 4, 2024, and August 5, 2024, saw the marches through Dhaka, where the extraordinary numbers mattered. These huge numbers, past and present from the quota movement combined with an infiltration of the right wing, which is the center of the opposition (the Bangladesh National Party since linked with the Jamaat-e-Islami). Street art has been a key visual theme during the movement just like in the Arab Spring – Bangladesh calls theirs the Bangla Spring. The mass demonstrator’s calls for liberation is referred to as the Second Independence (the first was in 1971).
Achievements
Since previous occupation movements, like Shahbag in 2013 which lasted for weeks, one main achievement of students was driving away an autocratic rule in quick time. People felt like they could go out and take the street, talk, write, and create their own graffiti and street art. Additionally, several successive movements came after. At first, the Chief of the Military was in power. Then came Dr. Yunus of the interim government. Professor Yunus was initially abroad in Paris but finally came back and on August 8th the Nobel Laureate and his other members of the smaller cabinet and advisory council presided. The army, ideally, has taken power without exerting power, so policy decisions are now under Professor Yunus who placed youth in the decision making process.
The schools and universities have since reopened although classes have not started yet. Money laundering is now being investigated but at the same time, people that need security in their day-to-day lives are not getting it.
Press Coverage and Labor Organizations/Indigenous Peoples
Coverage in the press varies as some are focused and concentrated on the interim government: who forms it, how it’s done, who gets into it, what policy is being evolved. Some others are covering this as a big movement that includes ethnic minorities. Hindus, which are basically the largest minority, 8% – 10% of the population, are the vote bank of the Awami League.
Civic groups and labor organizations have been instrumental in the movement. Activists told me in their meeting with the OHCHR how a factory worker in the ready-made garments industrieshelped gather data on the missing women and numbers killed. People haven’t been found yet, both students and laborers.
Further, involved in the resistance, was the indigenous people’s movement in the Chittagong Hill Tracts – a people constantly under the threat of increased militarization. These were very peaceful and non-violent portions of the movement. Some were in support of graffiti.
The indigenous people shouted strong slogans of demands of their agenda, not against the interim government, not against anyone, but they said, “these are our demands.” They started painting graffiti, which was not possible in the Hill Tracts before. And they also started painting graffiti that was critical of the Army. At one point the Army tried to stop them. But then, they sat back, and they allowed them to paint things. Students who could not paint on the walls in the Hill Tracts went down into Chittagong and started painting the same graffiti in the plainlands. These were very creative types of young students and young minds. Groups also evolved and teachers were helping students directly. One is called the University Teachers Network, and subsequently other groups and individuals surfaced. Civil society groups were not made since they could not participate in the political process, but individuals from civil society groups were very much behind support for the students, teachers, and NGO workers.
What’s Next for the Country Politically?
From a left realism perspective, politically, it is possible but improbable that Yunus is equipped to be a nation-builder in the rough-and-tumble world of Bangladeshi politics. Citizens of the world need some breathing space before replacing him – likely elevating him as the next president since the color revolution was so hastily staged.
The world continues to watch. Peace be to the land.
“One point one demand, Quota not come back.”
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Publish date : 2024-08-29 18:54:00
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