Unrest not likely to clear anytime soon

Much has taken place in the country over the past few weeks. This includes the student movement for quota reforms, 187 deaths according to Prothom Alo reports, as well as various important government offices and buildings being set on fire, damaged and looted. In the meantime, the Appellate Division has passed a ruling. An inquiry commission has also been formed headed by Justice Khandakar Diliruzzaman.

The protesting students have not announced an end to their movement as yet. They have not said that they hail the Appellate Division’s verdict. The government is trying to bring the situation under control by imposing curfew and deploying the armed forces. And in the meantime sound grenades, rubber bullets, sprayed bullets, arrests, etc, continue.

A characteristic of an authoritarian government is that they attempt to suppress any anti-government movement by means of force. Even in a democratic system there are anti-government movements. But a democratic government opts for talks and negotiations rather than the use of force. We are inarguably under an authoritarian government now. And so this government will chose to use force rather than discussions to resolve the problems. Admittedly, a few ministers did talks about discussions over the past few days, but I’ll take that to be an exception to the rule.

All of us certainly hope that initiative is taken to resolve the ongoing situation by means of talks and understanding. But given the character of our state at present, I see no scope for such talks. This is extremely worrisome. If the government wants to come to a understanding, then they must first take immediate initiative to investigate Rangpur’s Abu Sayeed being shot dead by the police and the detention and torture of a coordinator of the movement Md Nahid Islam. But the futility of seeking such investigations and justice lies in the fact that over the past few days, according to news reports, cases have been filed against 61 persons on different parts of the country.

There was something I have been wanting to day for quite some time, but somehow have never got around to doing so. There is no such thing a judicial inquiry in our law. Whenever there is  serious national issue in front of us or there is some grave injustice, various quarters call for a judicial inquiry. But in the eyes of the law there is no such thing as judicial inquiry according to the law. Our judiciary judges. In other where, if there is a conflict between two sides, the judiciary provides a legal resolution of the differences.

Even though after a long time, I saw in the media that Justice Khandakar Diliruzzaman   has been authorised under the Commission of Inquiry Act 1952. In other words, the law has provision for a commission of inquiry. The context of forming an inquiry commission is that when the government and the administration face a problem and the similar problem repeatedly crops up, they form a commission and tell the commission to find the cause of the problems and then to come up with recommendations to resolve the problem.

For example, we have long been seeing in the case of constructing a bridge, a plan is taken up and it is said that 30 million taka will be required to construct the bridge in three years. But is it seen that the bridge isn’t complete even in seven years and costs spiral to over 100 million taka. In such a case an inquiry committee is formed to see where the glitch in the bridge planning is, why such discrepancies arise, and to recommend to the government what steps are to be taken for the planning of future bridges and what skills will be required.

The inquiry commission under Justice Khandakar Diliruzzaman has not be formed to find those responsible for the killings during the quota movement and to ensure that they are tried. This commission will basically look into whether this unrest was created due to any administrative failures and then will provide the government with recommendations so that such untoward situations do not arise in the future. So the incidents pertaining to Rangpur’s Abu Sayeed and Dhaka’s Nahid Islam must be investigated according to the normal criminal code so that those responsible will be accordingly tried and punished.

The demonstrating students have put forward an eight-point demand – open the educational institutions, allocate seats in the halls through the administration, withdraw all case against the students in the quota movement, to ensure that the students in the quota movement are not subject to any political, legal or administrative harassment and so on. If these demands are not met, the prevailing unrest will not clear.

What has come to everyone’s notice is that there is no quota for women. There are 50 seats reserved for women in parliament. How can there be quota for women in parliament but not in the work sphere? The quota percentage for the ethnic minority is also a matter of discussion. The fact remains, if the gazette is published exactly as the ruling suggested, the crisis will not abate.

The government must sit with the students and work out a solution. That might be hoping too much from the government. The economy has come to a standstill. The problem will certainly not be solved by deploying the army, halting the internet and filing cases against thousands of people. On the contrary, it will only exacerbate the situation. Our lives have become difficult as it is. The prices of commodities are sky high. Taking all of this into consideration, the government needs to sit will all quarters and reach a solution.

Even as I write these words, the apprehensions, doubt and concern in this regard simply will not go away. Given the character of our state, it probably is not realistic to have such hopes.

At the end of the day, however, we all have expectations for the country. No one  wants the state to hurtle into further crisis. So we will go on hoping, we will continue to hope.

*Dr Shahdin Malik is a lawyer of the Supreme Court and teaches law at the University of Asian Pacific

*This column appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir