StudentsPledge – Dated – 16th July 2024 –
The student community of Bangladesh has stood up and are agitatingover the claim of “merit, not quotas”. The longstanding policy of ‘freedom fighters quota’, which has been generating widespread corruption, practice of facilitating benefits to kins and discrimination within the student-youth community, has sparked numerous protests in the past. Bangladesh’s Liberation War was a people’s war. It was a unified struggle of the country’s peasants, labourers, intellectuals, students, youth, and women, hailing from all strata of the society. The ruling party is misusing this history for its opportunistic interests, by exploiting the ‘Freedom Fighters’ quota’.
Currently, this courageous movement has assumed a national character. Students across Bangladesh have been on the streets for the past few days. They have been joined by many eminent figures, educationists and intellectuals, demanding an end to the discrimination. The incumbent Awami League government, not engaging in dialogue with the leaders of the anti-discrimination movement, has tagged them as national enemies of national independence (Razakars), creating intense hostility among the general public. Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s police brutality and the hooliganism of the ruling party’s student wing, Bangladesh Chhatra League, continue unabated. Many protesters have sustained severe injuries and are in critical condition. Today, in Rangpur, Bangladesh, a student has been martyred in police firing. The role of the Bangladesh government in this repression is highly condemnable, and we express strong condemnation from the democratic student society of our country against this fascist attack. We can see that globally, the autocratic governments in every country are gradually sacrificing the interests of the masses to protect the interests of the capitalist and imperialist classes, bringing down fascist attacks upon civilian lives. As the most trusted party of the ruling class in Bangladesh in present days, the Awami League is playing this fascist role. Without democratic movement against capitalism and imperialism, there is no way to solve this crisis. It now rests upon the shoulder of Bangladesh’s student community to steer this historic movement in the right direction, or else, it will not reach its desired goal. We express full solidarity with the courageous student fraternity of Bangladesh in this dauntless movement and urge all democratic-minded students and the common people worldwide to stand against the uthoritarian and fascist onslaught of the Bangladesh government.
