Shehzad Arshad
The Bangladesh student protests against the reintroduction of a despised quota system reserving jobs for supporters of the ruling Awami League have escalated into a revolutionary confrontation with the government. The embattled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has fled the country.
Despite brutal repression and a nationwide curfew, demonstrations have continued across the country, with 500,000 turning out on 3 August. At a mass demonstration in the capital, Nahid Islam, one of the student coordinators, rejected the prime minister’s call for dialogue and the resignation of the government, the bringing to justice of Sheikh Hasina, and urged the population to refuse all cooperation with the government.
In response the government appealed to its supporters to take to the streets on 4 August. Violent clashes left at least 100 student protesters and 14 police officers dead. More than 266 students have been killed, and 10,000 activists jailed since the beginning of the protests.
The government’s decision to reduce the quota from 30 per cent to 5 per cent has proved too little, too late. The protests, fueled by anger among the 800,000 unemployed graduates, have developed deep roots in society. The arrest of student leaders in July who were who coerced into announcing the ‘end’ of the movement had the opposite effect. Demonstrations multiplied.
Despite the curfew, the shutdown of internet and mobile phone networks, and violent repression, the students have defied the government. This resistance was only possible because the movement has become a rallying point for the accumulated discontent with the authoritarian regime and the deterioration of living standards and exploitation of workers in the sweatshops producing for the world market.
As confrontations between the people and the security forces multiply, there have been reports of increasing disquiet among conscript soldiers and junior officers. In response to this, the army Chief of Staff General Waker-Uz-Zaman declared on 3 August that the army will remain ‘on the side of people’ for the sake of the nation.
After meeting with the leading security chiefs, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina denounced protesters as terrorists and imposed an indefinite curfew across all the major urban centres. The Bangladeshi Army gave its backing to the curfew.
Students escalate
Student movement leaders have declared the curfew illegitimate: ‘After the one-point demand, none of their orders are valid. Therefore, the curfew announced from 6.00pm has been declared ineffective,’ Hasnat Abdullah, one of the coordinators of Student Movement Against Discrimination, said in a press release.
The students have brought forward a planned ‘Long March to Dhaka’ to 5 August. The student coordination has called for the formation of committees of struggle in all regions, and villages.
On Sunday, Nahid Islam urged protesters to continue their sit-in at the Shahbag junction in the capital, Dhaka, until the government falls:
‘Students are prepared for any eventuality. We picked up sticks today. If sticks don’t work, we are ready to take up arms.’
He denounced the Awami League as terrorists, saying, ‘the Awami League wants to create a situation of civil war in the country … Our objectives, goals, and destination are clear. Victory alone is our goal. We are still giving time. If the government continues to resort to violence, we want to let them know that we are looking at the Ganabhaban’, referring to the Prime Minister’s official residence.
Addressing Sheikh Hasina directly, he said: ‘You have to decide whether you will still resort to violence and bloodshed or resign as per the students’ demand.’
‘Our one-point demand has been announced. Now the outline of our future Bangladesh is yet to be announced. If we are kidnapped, murdered, or arrested; if there is no one to declare it, you will continue the movement.’
‘If my brothers are shot in the chest, if any of my sisters are injured, we will not sit idle. Form Protirodh Sangram Committees [resistance struggle committees] in every neighbourhood, village, mohalla, and alley. Form resistance wherever we are attacked.’
‘We do not accept this government. From now on, the students will lead the country. The announcement of the students is final.’
Where now?
What started as a student protest has developed into an all-out confrontation between the government and the people. The coming days will show whether the students are able to rally millions on a national level and whether they are able to persuade the working class to throw its social weight onto the scales and break the rank and file soldiers from the army high command.
As Bangladesh stands on the verge of revolution, the movement must develop the slogans and demands necessary to rally decisive forces based on what comes next. The downfall of the regime—yes, but who will replace it?
The history and character of the army high command shows they cannot be trusted. Although they claim to defend the people, in fact they stand behind the government that is murdering the people. The demonstrations of support by rank and file soldiers on the roads where the long march is assembling shows the moment is right to make a definitive appeal for soldiers to break with the government, support the protests, and organize themselves by forming soldiers’ committees to elect responsible officers and exercise a veto over orders from the high command.
As the government stands on the brink of collapse, it is vital that the movement maintains a strict independence from the parties of the bourgeois opposition, like the Nationalist Party. They are as brutal and corrupt as the Awami League, and stand for the same neoliberal programme that ensures the exploitation of the Bangladeshi working class in the service of local and international capital.
To develop permanent roots and resist an attempt by the Army or opposition to replace Hasina’s government with a ‘national unity’ government composed of military or bourgeois robbers with different faces, the Sangram Committees must establish themselves in the larger workplaces as well as the districts. The committees need to elect local and national leaderships consisting of recallable delegates, and appeal to rank and file soldiers to help them arm self-defense militias.
The student protests sparked the fire but for the inferno to engulf the entire state apparatus which executed Sheikh Hasina’s orders to drown the movement in blood, it must draw the working class into action through the formation of committees of action in the large workplaces and neighbourhoods.
Ultimately, for the movement to continue going forwards and not be fractured by uneven levels of determination, class antagonisms, and different political objectives, the working class must come to the head of the movement by fighting for its own programme, the only programme that can address the most burning needs of the workring class, the peasantry, the lower strata of the petit-bourgeoisie and the students.
To fight for this perspective it is necessary to build a revolutionary working class party, composed of the revolutionary workers, students and youth, which is armed with a programme of action to complete the revolution by overthrowing capitalism and creating a workers’ and peasants’ government based on workers’, soldiers’ and peasants’ councils defend by an armed militia. Such a government would address the immediate needs of the people by introducing an emergency programme against inflation and poverty, financed by expropriation of the rich, the finance sector and large scale capital in order to establish a democratically planned economy.
Solidarity
Today, the immediate task of all left wing and working class forces around the world is solidarity with the movement. We condemn the brutal killing of students by the government and call on the international working class and student organisations to support the Bangladesh student movement. We call on trade unions, left parties and peasants’ organisations in Bangladesh to defend democratic rights and support the student movement.
The killing of hundreds of students illustrates the reality of the institutions of bourgeois democracy as the students and working class try to fight for their demands. What they fear actually shows us the way forward—the united struggle of all the oppressed, the working class leading a movement, linking up the struggle for democratic rights, against capitalist exploitation and for a socialist society.