When former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India on 5 August in a military helicopter, 50 lakh young women and men, leaders and cadre of the students’ wing of her party Awami League, became outsiders in their own land. Such was the public ire against Hasina’s party and its students’ wing Chhatra League that some like Ishak Ali Khan Panna, the former general secretary of the League, died while trying to escape, while others like Shamim Ahmed, a former organising secretary of League’s Jahangirnagar University unit, was beaten to death.
As recently as 11 November, two separate courts sent 55 Chhatra League leaders and activists to jail. “But the worst injustice was done to us when the Yunus regime branded us a terrorist organisation and banned us,” Saddam Hussain, president of Chhatra League, told ThePrint in a video interview from an undisclosed location. “There are more than 50 lakh leaders and workers associated with Chhatra League. From being youth icons for 15 long years as League’s cadre, we have been branded terrorists overnight,” Hussain said.
Branding the Chhatra League a “terrorist organisation”, a government notification on 25 October said, “there was sufficient evidence indicating the student body continued to engage in conspiratorial, destructive, and provocative activities against the State even after the fall of the Awami League government”.
‘No country for students’
Hussain said it is not just those who are directly associated with the Chhatra League but even its supporters are being targeted by the Yunus administration. “Supporting Awami League or Chhatra League is a democratic right as a citizen of Bangladesh as opposing them is.” Saddam claims more than 500 medical students who supported the Awami League or the Chhatra League have had their certificates cancelled after 5 August. Many had their internships cancelled, others were not allowed to sit for their exams. “Students who support us in any form have been prosecuted, unlawfully imprisoned, and the university authorities and the interim government are taking no responsibility to ensure their safety and security,” Saddam alleged.
Political journalist Shahidul Hasan Khokon told ThePrint such a “manhunt” against a students’ organisation has never happened before in Bangladesh’s tumultuous political history. “The country has seen a bloody freedom struggle, political assassination of its founding father, military takeover, not so free and fair elections, but never before has a student organisation been targeted this way,” he said.
Khokon said it’s ironic that the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and its students’ wing, the Chhatra Shibir, are roaming free and yielding power in Yunus’ Bangladesh while the League has become a banned outfit. “Hasina had banned the Jamaat, which was against the very birth of Bangladesh, and had sided with the West Pakistan army to torture and kill the East Pakistani population that had risen in revolt. They openly advocate for Sharia law and today, in Bangladesh, they have become all powerful. This is a travesty of democracy,” said Khokon.
Hussain claims Bangladesh is slowly realising that the student movement against quota in government jobs that eventually became a mass movement to oust Hasina was infiltrated by the Jamaat and its students’ wing. “Tell me, have you heard students killing policemen, stripping them and hanging their bodies from bridges in any student-led movement? And that too in such large numbers! The quota protest movement was highjacked from the very beginning. Gradually the country is realising that,” he said.
An organising secretary of the Chhatra League, on condition of anonymity told ThePrint over phone he has gone in hiding and that his father was beaten up in the streets by Shibir members. “They threatened him with dire consequences if he did not disclose my hiding place. My younger sister has not been able to go to college ever since Hasina left. And she is not even part of the League. Is this the country a students’ revolution brought about?” Khan said.
According to Khan, student groups have been clashing with each other with unfailing regularity since October. On 25 November, students from over a dozen colleges attacked Government Shaheed Suhrawardy College in Old Dhaka. At least 30 were injured as two groups of students hurled bricks at each other, the Daily Star reported.
On 26 August, at least 50 people were injured in Dhaka when students clashed with hundreds of paramilitary personnel during a protest for job regularisation.
“Yunus’ interim government supported by the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement had promised a new beginning for Bangladesh. Instead, we have anarchy on the streets,” said Hussain.
League’s contested legacy
Chhatra League, which was previously known as the East Pakistan Student League, was founded by Sheikh Hasina’s father, Mujibur Rahman, on 4 January 1948 in Dhaka University’s Fazlul Huq Muslim Hall. Khaleque Nawaz Khan was the founder general secretary and Naeemuddin Ahmed was the first convener. While the League played an important role in the Bengali Language Movement of 1952 as well as the 1971 War of Independence, it has faced a fair share of controversies during Hasina’s time in office.
Abrar Fahad, a 22-year-old student was allegedly beaten to death in October 2019 by members of the League in Dhaka after he criticised the government in a Facebook post. This incident snowballed into a huge controversy in Bangladesh.
“Not just violence against its detractors, League leaders have been involved in sex rackets, extortion and rape allegations,” a Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology student told ThePrint. “Plus, it is somewhat ironical to see them express solidarity with Hindus in Bangladesh today. During Hasina’s time as the prime minister, many League leaders had harassed students inside campuses for belonging to the minority community,” Pal said.
Hussain said a student organisation this big is bound to be mired in some controversies, as unfortunate as they are. “Before 2008, universities would be closed for months due to violent clashes between student organizations. In the past 15 years, educational institutions were never shut for such reasons. The Awami League government and the Chhatra League ensured normalcy in educational institutions,” Hussain said.
According to Nadeem Khan, the only thing that matters to the lakhs of League members is to get Sheikh Hasina back in the country as the prime minister. “The Sheikh Hasina-led government has consecutively won national elections, and stayed in power by the vote of people. Opposition parties participated in the national polls when Hasina was in power. Yunus’ is an unelected government and does not have the mandate of the people. How can it continue to remain in power?” Khan said.
Hussain said leaders of the League in hiding are planning to organise mass protests in the country to bring Hasina back. “The moment we come out of hiding, we are being arrested or killed. But the wheels have started to turn. Yunus has emboldened radical elements within Bangladesh who are taking it back to its East Pakistan days when minorities were targeted and an Islamist idea of the country was enforced. Common people are fed up in four months with the Yunus government that is even denying us our independence history of 1971,” he said.
According to Hussain, the Bangladesh civil society is not taking kindly to the Yunus administration cosying up to Pakistan, a country Bangladesh had snatched its freedom from.
On 5 September, Nahid Islam, broadcasting and IT minister of the interim government, said during a meeting with the Pakistani envoy to Dhaka that Bangladesh wants to resolve the issue of the 1971 liberation war with Pakistan and “strengthen relations between the two countries to ensure a democratic South Asia”.
“Unspeakable horrors were unleashed upon the erstwhile East Pakistani population by the West Pakistani army in 1971. Cosying up to Pakistan is literally the last straw. The Chhatra League will start a massive online campaign soon to bring Hasina back to Bangladesh as the prime minister. And, Inshallah, it shall have the entire country’s support,” said Hussain.
Hussain said both the top leadership as well as the grassroots activists are recuperating, and reestablishing connections nationwide among members. “We are gearing up to fight for the idea of Bangladesh Yunus is trying to change,” he said.
Hussain said it won’t be an easy fight. “My interview was not published by a media outlet because of pressure from the government. Media has been instructed to not report any activity of the Awami League and the Chhatra League. Shafikul Islam, Yunus’ press secretary, has said Awami League and Chhatra League won’t be allowed any political activity. Law enforcement agencies are instructed to arrest and imprison our activists if we take out a procession or assemble. But we aren’t giving up,” he said.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)