Listen to the voice of youth against quota system

My father had been a renowned student leader when this country had been Pakistan. He

directly worked with Maulana Bhashani. His room was seized by the Pakistan government at the time. In 1971 he was a doctor at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. He could have escaped, but he chose not to flee. He never claimed a freedom fighter certificate! And he wanted me to compete with merit, not with such a piece of paper, as the daughter of a freedom fighter. Freedom fighters struggled for independence, not for personal benefit. A true fighter always teaches his children to fight with their own abilities. The authenticity of the freedom fighters’ certificates has been questioned before. Whether the actual freedom fighters received certificates or not, nobody knows! What about the freedom fighters who were not under any political umbrella? We do not know!

A group has already been actively raised to declare that the quota reform movement is an

anti-liberation one! They are everywhere! They are on the streets, online, on social media, and within the civil society. It is high time to discuss the rationality, or irrationality, of the quota reform movement. Those who term this as an anti-liberation movement are revealing their political hues! The liberation war has now emerged in the market! Just as Hefazat and Islam are not one and the same, the freedom

fighters’ quota and the liberation war are also two different issues. It’s just a representation of political meta-narrative, nothing else.

After four decades of independence, it's unjust and irrational to allocate a huge quota for the descendants of freedom fighters. The freedom fighter quota was introduced because their condition was bad during the post-war period, but what we offer in the name of freedom fighter quota now is absolutely

unrealistic. Indeed, meritorious personnel are the core of any institution. Once the brightest students were prone to join BCS (Bangladesh Civil Service) sectors, but now they are scared to join due to the quota, unethical procedures and doubts about politicisation in recruitment.  And so they have raised their voice against these discrepancies. What did they get in return?

More than 50 people were injured in violent clashes between the police and students of various universities and job seekers who have been demanding reformation of the existing quota system in government

recruitment tests, at Shahbagh and Dhaka University (DU) areas.

Is it the bureaucratic system to prevent the demands of these youth? Will the police beat them up in such a manner? Shout gunfire and tear gas shake Dhaka University? Who is the commander of this attack? What do they want to do? Who are the youth who want to face the government? Isn’t this entire matter inhuman? It is being said that the Vice Chancellor’s house has been vandalised by outsiders. Is that really credible? Could it be that this was staged to divert the movement?

The meritocratic recruitment process is losing ground to non-merit based recruitment. The efficiency of a policy and its effective execution depend on the skills, competence and the capability of public servants. Does the quota always work on merit? No! Students without any political affiliation in our country are now on the streets! Beaten, tortured!! But they still struggle for a hundred percent logical demand!! Stand beside them. Hear the voice of youth voice against the quota system!!!

* Eshita Binte Shirin Nazrul is an anthropologist, researcher and online writer living in Germany