What We Can Learn From Bangladeshi Students
Photo by Munem Wasif
At the end of June of this year, students in Bangladesh took to the streets in peaceful protest, only to be met with deadly government-sanctioned violence. These protests arose in response to a quota system instituted at the end of June that allocated 30% of government jobs to those in Bangladesh’s ruling party. This favoritism comes at a time when inflation and the unemployment rate are high, particularly among young people. The quota system was originally set to be instituted in 2018, but was canceled as a result of student protests. This summer, peaceful protestors were attacked by members of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, a militant student group that has been previously accused of extreme violence. In addition, the police and military shot, arrested, tear gassed, and tortured protestors and civilian bystanders alike, including children. A “shoot on sight” curfew was imposed, and the internet was completely shut down for 5 days, cutting off 170 million people from the rest of the world. At the time of this post, the confirmed death toll was at least 240, though some estimates put the actual number much higher, not to mention the thousands injured and arrested.
To understand why these protests are happening, we must first step back into the history of Bangladesh. We will go back to 1947, when British India was partitioned into India and Pakistan (including “West Pakistan” and “East Bengal”). West Pakistan was the political center and home to most elites, and East Bengal (later called East Pakistan) was deprived of investments and resources. In 1970 Pakistan had its first elections, and most East Bengali/Pakistani votes went to the Awami League, which campaigned for autonomy from West Pakistan. Following the elections, tens of thousands of West Pakistani soldiers infiltrated East Pakistan and massacred between 500,000 and 3 million Bengali civilians. As a result, East Pakistan gained independence and is now known as Bangladesh.
The quota system is supposed to reserve jobs for relatives of those who fought in this war, but these jobs are highly coveted, and relatives of freedom fighters make up a small, unreliably documented part of the population. Since independence, the Awami League has maintained government control through widespread corruption, rigged elections, censorship, and nepotism. In recent years, increasingly difficult economic conditions for working class youth and suppression of democratic rights under a dictatorship have caused growing unrest. As a result of both the government’s pervasive human rights violations and authoritarian attitude, people from all walks of life called for the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League. As of August 4th, the curfew was reinstated, but on August 5th hundreds of thousands of people flooded Dhaka in protest of those killed and arrested by government forces. On August 5th, Hasina fled the country (along with other government officials). Since then Bangladesh has established an interim administration, which includes two coordinators for the student movement. While only time will tell the long term impact of this revolution on Bangladesh’s government, the current moment is one of hope for the future.
This year’s protests in Bangladesh serve as an indispensable learning opportunity for those of us involved in resistance movements elsewhere. Our first takeaway should be that protests are effective- they stopped the quota in 2018 and reduced it to 5% this year. Bangladeshi protestors have managed to oust their fascist Prime Minister after a 15 year long dictatorship and hold a full scale revolution. Protest has historically been, and will continue to be, a successful means of creating change. Beyond this, Bangladesh provides an excellent example of how students often act as a moral compass, seeming to understand the way forward before everyone else. Under the capitalist system, students are also one of the primary groups that tends to have the time, flexibility, and drive to plan and participate in protest actions. Student movements serve as guideposts to effectual change, should the world look to them. The movement in Bangladesh has even gone beyond the quota system, as it now aims to dismantle the system of government and provides a model for how to shift a movement out of student groups alone. More than that, the bravery and commitment of Bangladeshi students has shown us that we can aim higher and achieve more than we think. We do not have to stop at small scale shifts, but we have the potential to dismantle the oppressive systems that we have been told are indestructible.
As I write this post, I feel that it’s imperative to recognize my privileged position in the United States. For those of us in the West, it is our responsibility to take the time to learn about things happening in other countries, even if we feel they don’t affect us or if the information is difficult to access. Seek out information from people in those places, and speak out when they ask you to. If you are American, take the time to learn how American imperialism has contributed to the struggles of the Global South. In the case of Bangladesh, the United States downplayed the genocide of Bengalis while providing weapons and military support to Pakistan. It is also critical that we do the work to reframe the way that we think about resistance in the Global South and how different it looks from protest here. Violence is often an inherent part of achieving liberation, and this is even more essential in other parts of the world that are dealing with very different levels of opposition.
In 1981 Audre Lorde said “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of color remains chained. Nor is anyone of you.” As a student in the West, freedom is not veritable while students in Bangladesh are shot and killed by their government. And as a Palestinian in America, I can never achieve full liberation here while children are blown apart in Gaza. While imperialist governments might have you believe that they act as independent forces, the system attacking Bengali students with machetes is the very same bombing Palestinian hospitals, murdering Black Americans, and assaulting women in the Congo. When Bangladeshi students expel their leaders, they target not only their own government but the same system oppressing others all over the world. In short, all of our struggles are interconnected and interdependent. Liberation cannot be achieved independently, but will come from being in community with others across the world. Students in Bangladesh are part of the same Student Intifada as us here in the United States, and it is our responsibility to stand with them.
I would like to thank Atish Saha for assistance in the research and revision of this post. This post was reviewed and edited by those with intimate knowledge of the protests and contact with students on the ground.
