Fall of the Hasina government, aspirations of freedom

Perhaps many did not apprehend or expect what took place on 5 August this year. But other than a few beneficiaries, everyone had hope that somehow or the other an end could come to the repressive fascist regime.

Unrest and anger were both on the rise and the government was steadily becoming isolated from the people. The way the spokespersons of the government were roaring out threateningly, indicated they were becoming hollow within. No matter how loud they yelled that they were not scared, that they were not cowards who would flee the country, it was evident that they were quaking inside.

It was the students who did the deed. It was the youth in the past two who carried out mammoth tasks. They organised the language movement. They were even the forerunners in the movement to establish Pakistan. Had the students not been in the frontline, the 1969 mass uprising wouldn't have taken place. Even in the liberation war, the youth were the mainstay. They were the ones to start the anti-Ershad movement. Even the fall of Sheikh Hasina was sparked off by the students' movement.

Some say we have become independent for the second time. Some feel that this has been a revolution. In reality, neither of the two happened. What has happened is the fall of a cruel government. The people of this country have seen all types of government. The British government was different, they were foreigners. Even the Pakistani rulers were foreign. But no one saw a home-grown government like the one that has been toppled.

It is our misfortune that none of the governments were on the side of the people. They were all against the people. The rulers exploited the people in all sorts of ways, as if in a competition.

But never before was there a government as cruel and uncaring as the government that has just been driven out by the people. The government paid no heed to the law, it imposed new laws to step up its repression, it carried out enforced disappearances and its brutality was more than evident in the days before its fall.

It is estimated that the number of people killed will be around a thousand. And there is no accounting for the numbers who were injured. There is a list of 65 infants and children who were killed. Who knows how many more children were actually killed. Most of the killed and injured were youth. The Zionists in Israel have left Gaza bereft of childhood.

The Hasina government too seemed hell-bent on cleansing Bangladesh of youth. In an unprecedented manner, they even showered bullets from helicopters. They left no stone unturned to find ways to kill the people. And the consequence was the fall of the fascist government.

The change of government could have taken place in a peaceful manner had elections taken place in a normal manner. But the government was not agreeable to that. They held one farcical election after the other in order to remain in power. As a result, they did ultimately fall, but in a violent manner. Many people were killed, property and installations were damaged. The police was isolated from the people before, but the manner in which they were used this time made them into public enemies.

The fell has certainly led to change. The old have exited, new faces have come to the fore. The politics and competition of the bourgeoisie often takes on a vengeful shape. In Bangladesh politics had reached the nadir. One power fell and another rose. Those in power had arrogantly claimed they would not be toppled. That arrogance turned to ashes. They fell and they fled. Those who couldn't flee, hid. They were like fish out of water.

But was the change simply the fall of one government and the emergence of another? It would seem like something much greater than that. The reason was because of the people's all-out resistance and the government's mayhem of destruction. Outside of that, the perception that we have become independent for the second time or that a revolution has taken place, may be an aspiration, but perhaps not that much of a reality.

We had become independent before too, not once but twice. The moment we became 'independent' we realised that we had stepped into yet another trap. We have to launch a movement again and face one of the worst genocides in history. We had to fight unarmed against a well-equipped and trained force. That is how we became independent in 1971. But what we had wanted was freedom.

No, neither Pakistan nor Bangladesh gave us that freedom. The 53 years of Bangladesh's history is the history of gradually backing off from the dream of freedom. But why did that happen? The British rulers exploited us for about 200 years. They looted our resources. When they came, there was a terrible famine, a famine of their creation. One third of the people of Bengal were wiped out by that famine. Even as they exited, they created a famine in which 350,000 people died.

The Pakistani rulers also ruled to exploit and squeezed us for our resources. When we stood up against the exploitation, they unleashed genocide and three million people were killed, 300,000 women were raped. We drove way those evil foreigners.

We have no account of how many were killed by the Rakkhi Bahini after the 1971 independence. Then the brutal manner in which Bangabandhu and his family were killed by a section of the army is beyond words. Then came military rule, first Zia's and then Ershad's. The killings continued. The targets basically were the leftists as they are the ones who fight for freedom.

Nowhere in our history will we find precedence of the way in which enforced disappearances were carried out by the police and RAB during the rule of Sheikh Hasina. Mayer Dak, the organisation of the families of enforced disappearance victims, has drawn up a list of 158 missing persons. Some feel that the number is much higher, around 700. New and different means of torture were created. Those who returned dared not open their mouths. A BNP leader who had been picked up found himself on the other side of the border, with no memory of how he got there.

In the few days before the fall and fleeing of the Hasina government, the manner in which people were killed and injured indiscriminately and speedily, was unprecedented. The people broke curfew and surged forward in hordes. If the army had agreed to resist them, there would have been genocide, with bloodshed beyond imagination.

* Serajul Islam Choudhury is Emeritus Professor, Dhaka University
* This column appeared in the print an online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir