The second entry in the column The Subaltern Speaks, written by Abhinav Cheruttamadathil Gangadharan.
With soaring inflation, Abu Sayed’s parents had limited means to educate their son, yet he knew that education was the only ladder they had for social mobility. Optimistic that employment would alleviate the misery and hardship he and his family lived through, Abu joined the English department at Begum Rokeya University, one of the finest universities in Bangladesh, for his higher education on a scholarship. From an economically marginal society, Sayed chose the less-trodden path that his siblings and peers were reluctant to walk, and his family had high hopes of living a life they never lived.
Their hope lamentably had a very short lifespan. Abu Sayed was shot dead by the Bangladeshi police on 16 July 2024, while participating in a protest against the quota system in job sectors reinstated by the government. Sayed’s institutional murder along with that of 1500 Bangladeshi’s caused a massive outcry among the citizens. With no path left but resistance, people rose against the government's brutal injustices and killings.
The quota system in Bangladesh reserved one-third of the seats in civil services jobs for relatives of veterans from the 1971 Liberation War. Even before the protests began, Bangladesh's government led by Sheikh Hasina was accused of launching a massive crackdown on free speech and democratic rights. Abu’s extrajudicial killing was the latest display of the general stance of the authoritarian regime on anti-incumbency protest.
The Supreme Court eventually scraped down the quota system but the political unrest that the government dealt with a brutal crackdown on protesters eventually toppled the Sheikh Hasina regime. The student-led movement brought an end to one of South Asia’s most enduring political dynasties. In the first half of this decade which proved to be less kind to protests against authoritarian government worldwide, the Bangladeshi movement laid out a blueprint for challenging iron-fisted regimes.
2024 saw a huge spike in student-led protests, from the encampment protests at Columbia University to anti-corruption protests in Serbia, students are now taking the central role in challenging a system that is no longer favourable to them. Nowhere was this more evident than in Bangladesh, where students turned classrooms into battlegrounds and defiance into their curriculum. More than 1500 protesters spilt their blood on the streets and their unrest against an autocratic rule in what is labelled as the ‘July Revolution’ is one that stands as both a warning and a lesson for a world too often complicit in silence.
Silence was no longer an option for many like Abu Sayed. To be silent was to starve and to starve was to suffer. They had no choice but to protest in the streets with arms raised in the air in defiance. As Gandhi famously called it during the anti-colonialism protests in India, a “Do or Die” for many Bangladeshis. The protest began as discontent grew amongst the working-class citizens due to ‘unfair’ allocations in civil service positions and slowly turned into a full-fledged fight against fascism. The movement galvanised support from all nukes of the society. An intersectional approach that addressed issues of gender, religion, Indigenous rights along economic grievances proved to be effective in fighting the Awami League Party’s authoritarian government. Even before the protest began, many were dissatisfied with the economy in the country even though they were forced to give up their democratic rights for economic development. The protest that started with 9 demands came down to just one: the resignation of Hasina. Most people in the country, including the army that the government relied on to stay in power were no longer favourable to them.
Many who believe that Bangladesh is peripheral to global politics would be incurious about the underlying cause that led to the ousting of Sheikh Hasina. The student protests weren’t merely about the quota system and rising unemployment, it was an attempt to challenge the global capitalist system and the liming opportunities of proletariats in the country. Under the Hasina regime, income inequality between the rich and poor widened. As Karl Marx famously quoted in Volume 1 of Capital, “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, the agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole”. The same agony spilt onto the streets, binding Bangladeshis in a shared cry for justice. With the collective resistance of the masses, Hasina had no other option other than to flee for her life.
In a land where obedience was rewarded, defiance became the only path to justice. While the Hasina regime fell in front of their defiance, the world will have to wait to conclude the full effectiveness of the movement. The interim government, led by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, faces immense challenges but must not follow the path of its predecessor. Bangladesh is still waiting for a brighter future but its successful fight against fascism would be highly influential for movements worldwide. As Frantz Fanon famously wrote, “Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it”—a call that resonates deeply with the Bangladeshi student protests and their fight for justice.
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