Intellectuals, academics and students in West Bengal are rising in solidarity with students in Bangladesh, whose protests against their government’s reservation policy has resulted in the death of dozens of young people. Protests broke out in Bangladesh after reservation was announced in government jobs for family members of those who had fought the Liberation War in 1971.
Leftist organisations and students of the Visva-Bharati University held a march in support of Bangladeshi students at Santiniketan on Saturday evening, and in Kolkata and other places in the State. Strong voices are emerging on social media against the deaths of protesters in the neighbouring country.
These voices mainly have one thing to say: the Bangladesh government must listen to the students.
“Bangladesh has its own laws regarding admission, but whatever the condition and controversy may be, the government must listen to students and discuss with the students. This kind of violence unleashed on the students and state-sponsored killing of students needs to be condemned from all quarters. Under no circumstances can students be killed. One has to recognise that students will be future makers of the country,” Ishita Mukhopadhyay, Professor of Economics at the University of Calcutta said.
Writer Amar Mitra, a septuagenarian, who has witnessed and participated in numerous protest meetings in West Bengal throughout his life, said it was the duty of sensible young people to protest against what they thought was unfair, and it was the government’s duty to talk to them with a “cool head”. The old, according to him, should understand that the young are national assets.
“I grew up with mass rallies, beginning with the food movement 60 long years ago, when I walked with thousands of people wanting rice and wheat. My youth was spent in rallies against the government. We held protests against criminals who took shelter under the umbrella of ruling party. I have seen rallies against Emergency, I walked long distances after the demolition of Babri Masjid and Gujarat riots. We saw mass uprisings from 2006 to 2011 over the Singur and Nandigram issues. Students always played a vital part in such protests and many got murdered by the police. The same thing is now happening in Bangladesh,” Mr. Mitra, who has a large readership across the border too, told The Hindu.
“Oh, the strength of youth! It has shaken the whole country. They are standing tall in front of the gun. I salute such courage,” he wrote a Facebook post in Bengali.
“The recent events in Dhaka and the responses they have generated among a certain section of Indians calling for similar crackdowns on protesting students here is deeply disturbing. How we have fallen! If we cannot remember Tiananmen, we should at least remember our own history,” Chitra Agarwal, a Ph.D. student at Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University, said.
Maitrayee Paul, a West Bengal government employee currently posted in Berhampore, is also among those following the news in Bangladesh closely. According to this Visva-Bharati alumni, the situation could have been handled better if the government there restrained the trigger-happy police and called for early talks with the students.
“Civil services jobs are highly sought after as they bring higher prestige, bigger pay, job security, and pension. As a result, the quota system, reserving over half of the seats for various groups, has been questioned by students. In fact, an assurance from the government could have calmed the protesters, but the government tagged them as razakar, a derogatory term used for those who went against the Liberation War,” Ms. Paul said.
“In any case, the old ways of reservation, be it there or here in India, are somehow leading to a biased or unjust scenario. There should be an amendment or reform, so that the actual motive of reservation can be served without making other deserving people feel left out,” she said.
