Quota reform movement: How to heal the wounds within?

The internet has been shut down for the past few days. With the social media blackout, flow of information has been obstructed and the government is able to churn out its one-sided narrative. From the government version it sounds as if all the demands of the quota reform protestors have been fulfilled, the students are pacified, and the violence and sabotage being carried out now is all being unleashed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami camps.

Most of this is not true. It can be said that the Supreme Court's reasonable ruling on the student's quota reforms demand has been met. But to reach this point, the blood of students and protestors has been shed, over 150 persons including students have lost their lives, many more have been shot and injured, many of the injured in hospital have been attacked again.

There is all evidence and proof that the indiscriminate attacks on the students of the quota reform movement and their supporters were carried out by ruling party's organisation and the government's forces, and that these attacks were carried out at the orders or instigation of the ruling party leaders. The government seems least bothered. It is concealing these cruel acts and instead giving inflated images of sabotage against government installations, putting the entire blame on the opposition.

This cannot be a full-fledged answer. People can be temporarily suppressed by coercion and repression, but the wounds within will not heal. Throbbing within people's hearts are images of Rangpur's Abu Sayeed being shot dead by the police, of girls being beaten up in various universities, being assaulted, dripping in blood, and of orders being openly issued to unleash Bangladesh Chhatra League against the students in the various universities.

The government must immediately arrest these people and take the liability. It must ensure all sorts of security for the students when they return to university.

The government must halt its oppression and coercion particularly against the coordinators of the quota reform movement. After so much bloodshed and repression, one of the major leaders of the movement Md. Nahid Islam was picked up in the deep of night and tortured. The reports of this in the newspapers are alarming. When such incidents occur, how will the general activists of the quota reform movement have trust in the government?

A couple of leaders of the quota reforms movement announced that the movement is over. Students may think they have said this out of fear, after seeing what had happened to Nahid, in fear of being tortured. How can they believe that other are not being tortured or will be tortured in the future? How can their anxiety be assuaged?

The government must remove their feelings of hatred towards the protestors. The ministers of the government, the heads of the forces and subservient commentators have been distressed and distraught by the deaths and injuries of members of the forces. The police chief has visited the wounded police at the police hospital. Why cannot anyone of the government go to see the injured students?

Instead, when the government's hoodlums go there and attempt to assault them, no move is taken to prevent or arrest them. The police's lives, safety and medical treatment are certainly important, but why does the government not have that concern for the students?

The government's people have appeared to be so concerned about the attacks on the government installments. These installments belong to the people of Bangladesh and the government must certainly look into this. But the government must also give an explanation as to why such important installations (particularly the data centre which has been attacked at various times in the past) were not provided with due security at such a time of unrest.

Before any investigation into the sabotage of the government installations, BNP and Jamaat leaders are being blamed and arrested en masse. But we saw BNP first holding political programmes (gathering in front of Press Club) after most of these acts of sabotage.

And despite the one-sided control on the broadcast media and telecommunication, the government has not been able to come up with a single proof that the sabotages were carried out upon orders of anyone in BNP. Now after the arrests if anyone is made to make such statements, will this have any credibility whatsoever?

After BNP fled in face of the police's sound grenades at their rally of thousands of people on 28 October last year, what magic could have brought back BNP with such full force that they suddenly are powerful enough to carry out such sabotage? The government needs to ponder.

The government must also ponder whether these acts of sabotage are the manifestation of people's pent-up anger. In the past the government had contemptuously trivialised any mass movement (the safe road movement, private university students against VAT, the 2018 quota movement) as being instigated by BNP and Jamaat. But the extent of the movement this time is much wider.

The government needs to look into whether this blood-stained movement of hundreds and hundreds of students is an outpouring of the people's anger, the anger of the people fed up with the high prices of commodities, the corruption and the repression. It must bring an end to unnecessary political harassment.

The government is blaming the opposition's sabotage for the internet blackout too. But actually the sabotage has damaged only 30 per cent of the data centre, it has been heard. The fact remains, millions of people around the country are facing unprecedented and endless sufferings because of this, public life and the economy has been hit hard. The failure to tackle the situation lies with the government. The government must restore internet immediately.

Infuriated people and parents took to the streets during this movement. Some political parties demanded the resignation of this government. If they are to face this demand, the government must move forward with introspection, empathy and astuteness.

The first step to this end is ensuring justice in the incidents of killings and assault, bringing an end to the mass room (gono room) torture to ensure peace and security in the universities, halting the meaningless harassment and smear campaign against opposition leaders, and ensuring a free flow of information. It is not as if people do not understand this.

The people's memories are filled with bullet wounds, wounds of deprivation, wounds of losing their fellow students. One-sided propaganda and suppression will not heal these wounds. Trust, belief and a sense of ease must be restored in people's minds. Some of us have spoken about how that can be brought about. The government needs to think even deeper and more extensively about what is to be done, about the way ahead.

* Asif Nazrul is professor of the law department law at Dhaka University.

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