I am using the age-old proverb with a slight change to express my sentiments and observations on the ongoing political and perhaps social upheaval in Bangladesh.
Events of historic proportions of the last several weeks have not only shaken Bangladesh, but also a much wider audience spread globally.
These events began with a seemingly innocuous demand from college students for reform of the quota system in government jobs that was canceled by the government six years ago but was restored by the High Court. The students wanted restoration of the no-quota system, and it was that simple a demand. All the government had to do was to stop a looming crisis by telling the students that it would look at the demand favourably.
Instead of calming the students, then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina added fuel to the fire by her explosive remarks which I do not want to repeat. The movement spiraled then until it took a violent turn with rogue activists of the ruling party joining the police force and menacingly opposing the students. The mayhem of a few days morphed into a mass movement that was joined by hundreds of thousands from all across society, engulfing the whole country.
When police reinforced by forces from the border guard failed to tame the movement, the government called in the armed forces and imposed curfews in all major cities. This was the pinnacle of the events that would finally bring the curtain on the leadership and government of a political leader who had ruled the country with an iron hand for the last 15 years.
Sheikh Hasina’s throwing in the towel after weeks of tough talk in line with her apparent image was so dramatic and swift that it not only surprised people of her country, but most importantly the party stalwarts closest to her, people who had supported her to the hilt. Her departure was so swift that she could not manage to give a last farewell address to the people for whom she claimed she had “dedicated” her life.
Her departure was soon followed by a massive raid into her official residence -- Ganabhaban -- by an angry mob, resulting in unsurpassed looting and vandalism of government property including her personal belongings. The mob behaved as though they had entered enemy territory after a war and were entitled to all property belonging to the official residence as war booties.
But the rage and violent emotions against Sheikh Hasina and her government did not stop in plundering of Ganabhaban, it went beyond that to torching the house of her father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman which was converted into a national museum. The most mind-boggling expression of this outrage was the felling of a bronze statue of Sheikh Mujib by a concerted attack of a group of axe-wielding protesters aided by a huge crane while others watched and applauded.
While all these acts of rage and fury were happening, the city was gripped by collective mass actions against people and property of people who either were part of the Sheikh Hasina coterie or high-ranking officials of her party. In a matter of 24 hours their homes were plundered or otherwise destroyed while the owners fled their homes for their lives.
Who is to blame for this month-long mayhem that led to hundreds of deaths and the complete breakdown of law and order following this mayhem?
A government that had turned rogue under the leadership of a power-hungry person, or the mass movement that led to a mindless mob following the ouster of the rogue government? Who can explain why a people would turn so revengeful not only to the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina, but also against a leader who is widely regarded as the founder of the country? Is it because Sheikh Mujib is her father?
The culprit to my mind is the collective irresponsibility of the nation that has been ruled by a series of partisan governments over the last 53 years. The governments in these years, including the one that was at the helm immediately after liberation, the two military rules (albeit in pseudo democracies), followed by two bitterly opposed political parties, never settled on the question of who we should crown as the “founder” of the country. This “debate” does not diminish Sheikh Mujib and his untiring effort toward fighting for Bengali rights and the autonomy of then East Pakistan.
We never agreed on our identity: Are we Bengalis first, or Muslims first? Are we a separate Bengali nation within a defined territory or are we a diaspora of Muslims spread globally? We never truly followed our vaunted principles of nationhood that we enshrined in our constitution: Nationalism, democracy, socialism, and secularism.
One by one, our leaders allowed corrosion of these principles. We tried to follow a dubious nationalism, not knowing who we actually are (Bengalis or Muslims). We tried socialism without seriously practicing it. We gave up secularism when we adopted in our constitution Islam as our state religion (Awami league did not change it when it got the chance). Then we finally sacrificed democracy for the sake of keeping one party and its leader in power.
In the happenings since the departure of Sheikh Hasina and what happened to Sheikh Mujib’s house and his statue and murals, I found a strange parallel between these events and what happened on Auguust 15, 1975 following the killing of Sheikh Mujib and family in the same house that was torched by vandals on August 5, 2024.
In the afternoon of August 15, I passed by the forlorn house on Road 32. There was not a single soul guarding the house except a tank that was on the adjacent Mirpur Road. There was no visible army presence in the area although technically a curfew was in force. A mile away in New Market people were going about their daily chores doing their shopping. They seemed to be unfazed by the killing.
Some people, including me, were shocked but not enough to bring out a procession either in support of those who were blatantly announcing the end of a dictatorship or protesting the killing of Sheikh Mujib. In fact, a day later a good number of his people would join hands with the purported leader of the coup. There was no plundering of Sheikh Mujib’s house or those of his supporters. It seemed a sense of paralysis had taken over.
But this time the spectacle changed. People came out in massive numbers to celebrate the end of Sheikh Hasina’s rule. They did not avenge themselves on Sheikh Mujib’s daughter by physically assaulting her (perhaps they would have given the opportunity), but they avenged themselves on her father by proxy. Bringing down her father’s statue, murals, and the museum that was once his house.
Psychologists say that in a mob attack on public property, people lose their individual identity and act in unison with others. They become insane and be a part of the mob. But should mob psychology guide our past and what the founders of this country fought for?
Sheikh Mujib was a leader of a political party, but he also was the leader who envisioned Bangladesh and played the most major role in liberating this country. Unfortunately, his daughter could not keep his legacy because she conflated our liberation achieved by Bengalis across party affiliation as the singular achievement of her party. That enraged all. You cannot misappropriate the achievement of a whole nation as your own. That is the message people wanted to give in 1975 and in 2024.
Every nation honours the person responsible for its independence. Some call them the father of the nation. George Washington is the father of the United States of America. Kemal Ataturk is the father of modern Turkey. Gandhi is respected as the father of India. In all these years of history of these nations, governments have changed. But what has remained immutable is the name of their founder.
So, in this time of justifiable rage and fury against the past government, let us not misdirect our fury against the founder of our country. Let us not throw the baby along with the dirty water of politics that vitiate our country.
Ziauddin Choudhury has worked in the higher civil service of Bangladesh early in his career, and later for the World Bank in the US.
