by Eugene Walker

With untold bravery and sacrifice—hundreds upon hundreds shot down by Bangladesh’s police forces, thousands upon thousands thrown into jails—a massive movement of students and their supporters, have, in a matter of weeks, overthrown the dictatorial, murderous rule of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. After she fled the country, an interim government, headed by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, rejected the attempt of the old dominant political parties—Hasina’s Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party—to usurp and stifle the ongoing revolutionary process, and are seeking a new beginning for Bangladesh. Can this new revolutionary moment continue and flourish, and how will it?

To explore this, we must listen to the voices, actions and ideas of the students, who, from below in the universities and the streets, dared to seize this moment. We need to examine the grave, life-stifling contradictions that have characterized Bangladesh ever since its fight for independence from Pakistan in 1971—a bloody war in which Pakistan’s army killed hundreds of thousands.

HEARING THE VOICES OF REVOLUTION

As we wrote earlier in August: “What started as a student protest at universities against exclusionary quotas for coveted civil service jobs in the government . . . [became] a mass movement threatening the government of prime minister Sheikh Hasina. Her initial reaction was bootheel violence against the students . . . That resulted in the killing of more than 200 and the injuring of thousands and now the jailing of more than 10,000!”

Facing protests, Prime Minister Hasina called a press conference on July 14 and attacked the students as “razakars,” a pejorative that describes people who collaborated with Pakistan during the 1971 war of independence. The response was outrage and mass protests. At Dhaka University, the heart of the protest movement, male demonstrators were joined by female students who had to break out of their five halls of residences, whose gates are locked in the evenings.

As the demonstrations grew and further government-ordered violence occurred, the public university protesters were joined by students from private universities. “We had a responsibility to come out to the street for our brothers,” said Nayeem Abedin, a 22-year-old coordinator at the private East-West University. And he added “So did many parents.” On July 21, Bangladesh’s Supreme Court, whose judges were effectively appointed by Hasina, ruled that 93% of state jobs should be open to competition, meeting a key demand of the students.

But far from ending the protests, the demonstrations continued to grow, outraged at the continual police violence ordered by the government. On Aug. 4, a day after at least 91 people were killed by the government forces, Hasina responded by declaring an indefinite curfew. However, the army, witnessing the massive and still growing movement of people from all walks of life, told the prime minister that it would not enforce the lockdown. The next day, as crowds marched to her official residence, Hasina fled to India.

WORKING OUT THE WAY FORWARD

The student protesters are now seeking to set a new course for a country birthed in a violent break from Pakistan and characterized by political violence in the decades since. A few of the student voices:

* “The spirit of the movement [is] to create a new Bangladesh, one where no fascist or autocrat can return.”
—Nahid Islam, 26, a key protest organizer.

* “We will keep hitting the streets if we have to. This is a time for real change.”
—Shima Akhtar, a protester who had several of her friends killed by police during the demonstrations.

* “We are here to guard our revolution so that it doesn’t slip out of our hands.”
—Imraul Hasan Kayes, 26, at a vigil to prevent a former government party’s demonstration.

* “If we, the students, ever catch a bribe, we will take action against you and the bribe collector.”
—Sajjad Hossain, 23, wearing a ribbon around his head with the Bangladeshi flag. He was shouting into a megaphone. His voice carried down the small alley lined with bags of stacked rice. “We will liberate Bangladesh again if it comes to that,” he yelled amid a chorus of cheers. Sajjad was part of a team of students, armed with notebooks, who entered one of Dhaka’s largest wholesale markets. They checked the prices being charged by every seller to make sure no one was inflating them to take advantage of the turmoil.

* “Our protests might have ended, but our duty to the nation persists.”
—19-year-old Faiza.

* “I have no faith in an army-backed interim government. I do not trust the military. The revolution should lead to a new interim government that is supported—but not controlled—by the military.”
—Tamanna Islam, 25, an engineering student at a Dhaka university.

The country’s police officers are reported to have gone into hiding, afraid of reprisals for the force’s role in the deaths of hundreds of young protesters. Students are on the streets directing traffic. Salman Khan, 17, and two other students staffed a roundabout, occasionally pulling aside the fanciest of cars. What exactly were they looking for? “Black money, black money,” Mr. Khan said, explaining that many of Ms. Hasina’s senior officials were on the run.

WHERE TO NOW? A QUESTION THAT NEEDS TIME

The revolutionary movement has forced out the chief justice, the central bank governor and the police chief who oversaw the deadly crackdown on the students, among other officials. But the central question is where to now? The old corrupt parties—the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party—are calling for quick new elections. The students are resisting, and thinking about starting a new party.

The way toward the social transformation that so many desire needs to have a wide lens encompassing various social forces. Thus, the youth consist not only of university students, but millions who are neither in school nor able to find meaningful employment in this country of 170 million. They surely are searching for something other than a dead-end future.

At the same time, the key social force in Bangladesh is the proletariat—particularly the millions of workers in the garment industry. They suffer poverty wages, and abominable working conditions.

GARMENT INDUSTRY WORKERS—A DECISIVE POWER

Ready-made garments are a mainstay of Bangladesh’s economy, which is the third-largest exporter of clothing in the world. The garment industry accounts for more than 80% of Bangladesh’s annual exports of about $55 billion, and it is seen as the key driver of economic growth in recent decades.

There are some four million Bangladeshi garment workers, the majority of whom are women. Historically, the industry has been one of high-intensity, sweatshop conditions, in which living labor has enriched the factory owners, labor contractors, and international fancy name-brand garment companies, and garment-selling stores in the U.S. and Europe, as well as government officials, though certainly not the workers. Low wages helped the country build the industry, but soaring living costs have sparked massive strikes, with garment workers calling for higher salaries and better conditions of labor.

Only last October-November there were massive garment worker strikes in Dhaka. The workers were only earning 8,300 taka ($75) a month and demanded a salary of 23,000 taka ($209). The industry offered 12,500 taka ($113), which the union rejected.

Workers of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation began the strike on Oct. 23, 2023, involving some 600 factories. On Nov. 4, workers clashed with the police west of Dhaka. Over 10,000 were picketing, attempting to prevent other workers from scabbing. They were hurling stones and bricks at officers and factories, and trying to block roads. About 1,500 armed police deployed and attacked the workers with tear gas.

Then Prime Minster Hasina gave her response: “Garment workers should remember that if they damage factories, they may have to return to their villages and live without employment.” Kalpona Akter, president of the garment workers’ union, summed up the moment in terms of the international companies and retailers “using” Bangladeshi living labor: “Brands and retailers only care about smooth shipments and profit. They don’t care about the well-being of workers at the bottom of the supply chain or that many are half-starving.”

There is no doubt that class struggle characterizes the reality of Bangladesh and is a crucial strand of emancipatory transformation. Can the needed solidarity between students and workers chart a way forward?

BANGLADESH IN THE VISE OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM

The vibrant human forces that have begun to take matters into their own hands in Bangladesh, like many other countries in the Global South, face the challenge of living in the reality of capital and capitalism.

Bourgeois economists, the World Bank and others have hailed the annual growth rate of the country’s average Gross Domestic Product, which over the last decade reached 6.6%, led by the garment industry. But Marxist economist Michael Roberts recently looked at the reality behind the economic glitter:

“But beneath the surface, the rise of the economy was based on faltering profitability for Bangladesh capital. The relative recovery in profitability after the global Great Recession of 2008-9 began to reverse from 2013, leading up to the pandemic slump in 2020.

“The crisis came quickly this year. Within weeks of the World Bank’s optimistic April [2024] report, the reality emerged: the economy was deteriorating fast. Huge infrastructure projects were failing and eating into resources, riddled as they were by corruption. Rising interest costs on borrowing, higher inflation and falling export demand drove many companies into default with over $20bn in ‘non-performing loans.’ The government handed out huge subsidies (billions) to private companies to ensure electricity coverage in the country. The rich shareholders prospered and took the opportunity to siphon their wealth out of the country; while remittances from Bangladeshis working abroad fell back.

“In contrast to the rich, the majority of the country’s 170 million people suffered. Most Bangladeshi garment workers are women (50-80%), while the better-paid factory supervisors tend to be men. Most of the women earn just a minimum wage—8,000 taka, or about $80 per month. With rising food prices, that’s nowhere near enough. ‘All daily goods like rice, eggs, vegetables — everything is getting more expensive,’ said Taslima Akhter, president of Bangladesh Garment Workers Solidarity, a labour group. ‘Also the price of gas for cooking [at home] and electricity [in factories]. So this is a big problem for workers and the industry.’”

AT A TURNING POINT

The Bangladeshi masses, inspired and catalyzed by the student youth, have reached a wonderful but challenging moment. They have begun to take back their country from those who usurped it for private benefit and dictatorial ruling power. Can this revolutionary process continue to deepen? Only the masses—students, workers, and others—have the power, ingenuity, and creativity, to make that happen. To do so, they need to make the revolutionary process be one of revolution in permanence, a revolution that elicits the talents, ideas, and actions from every woman, man and child. It is a most difficult challenge, but the only one that will not dead-end the Bangladesh revolution-in-the-making.