Late President Ziaur Rahman is often credited with chanting “we revolt!” to galvanize the Liberation War of Bangladesh. Thus (formally) started our historic Liberation War against Pakistan that gave us the independent Bangladesh that we all love with our souls. However, the soul of Bangladesh has always been liberatory and rebellious. A quick walk through the history of this country will reveal the rich tradition of dissent, protest, movement, rebellion and revolutions that has built the character of Bangladesh today. In this article, I would like to briefly pay homage to all the struggles of our ancestors and find parallels with more recent bouts of revolts in our country.
It is often said in Western academia, including the class I just finished taking on social movements, that social movements in the world started after the Industrial Revolution in the 1760s. Especially the Wilkes and Liberty movement has often been credited as the first social movement. However, little does the western academia take note of the early resistance of Sufi fakirs and Hindu Sannyasis (a union that is rooted in the very soul of the Bangladeshi spirit of religious harmony) against East India Company’s tyrannical rule which outlawed religious practices and disrupted the alms economy of the saints, which they could not fathom from their mercantile pre-capitalist mindset. Under leaders like Majnu Shah and Bhabani Pathak, the saints took up arms and led fierce guerilla warfare against the colonizers, which paved the way for their descendants to take up arms against the Pakistani colonizers and declare independence 54 years ago today. The fakir-sannyasis also resisted British tax policy, “which parallels the No VAT” on education movement in 2015.
But even before that, even though it was not a formal social movement or rebellion, it must be remembered that the Baro Bhuiyans of Bengal never ceded to the imperial ambitions of the Mughals and much of the Bengals was liberated from the Mughal empire under their reign. The Baro Bhuiyans were regional chieftains who were both Hindu and Muslim, again underlining Hindus and Muslims working together to ensure regional autonomy. This idea of regional autonomy was the bedrock of the Bangladesh independence movement starting from the Six Points program which culminated in the Liberation War when the Pakistani colonizers refused to accommodate the liberatory spirit of Bangladesh.
There also have been several peasant rebellions in East Bengal, countering Marx’s “sack of potatoes” narrative, including the Indigo revolt, the Pabna Peasant Uprising, and the more modern Tebhaga movement. After industrialization, workers also started movements for labour rights and fair wages. Most notable among these are tea plantation workers strikes which started in the 1920s and are still (sadly) going on as the zamindari system based on company ownership of workers’ land is yet to be abolished and the wages of tea workers are far from fair. In the Pakistan era, the Adamjee Jute Mill Strikes was a major labour movement and later, these disgruntled workers along with other workers, participated in droves in the 1969 mass uprising against the Ayub regime, something that has parallels with worker participation in the 2024 July Uprising where a significant number of people who lost their life belong to the working class. Garment workers today continue their struggle for fair and regular wages from their employers.
In the Pakistan era and independent Bangladesh, students have taken up the lead in social movements. This goes back to the 1952 language movement and 1969 uprising and continued to the 1990 uprising which gave birth to the incredible 2024 uprising we’ve just witnessed. Even before the uprising, students participated in back-to-back movements starting from the Shahbag movement, the Hefazat countermovement, the No VAT on education movement, the first quota reform movement, and the road safety movement.
But we must realize why our country has given birth to so many protests, movements, uprisings, rebellions and revolutions. It is because the spirit of the country is one that is revolutionary. There is a culture of dissent in Bangladesh that cannot be snubbed out no matter how tyrannical the ruling regime may be. That is why Ayub Khan, Ershad, and Hasina were not able to fully extinguish the revolution that resides in the hearts and minds of Bangladesh. This is tied to the geography and environment of the country. Bangladeshis are so at ease with natural disasters like floods, cyclones and famines that they are not afraid of anything. No matter who tries to pin them into submission, they always fight back, just like they fight back against disasters, political and environmental.
Additionally, the culture of Bangladesh is highly political as the people of the country are massively politically literate and engaged, contrasted with the Western countries where the people don’t seem to care much about politics. From the rural tea stalls to the elite living room, the political discussion reigns supreme. Also, because of the long legacy of resisting tyrants, Bangladeshis are not afraid of any tyrant, no matter how strong they may seem. Resistance is also seen as a religious duty under the religious culture of the people of Bangladesh. The social cohesion, much of which is now eroding, contributes to a sense of samaj (society) and promotes collectivism. This leads to people participating in resistance when even a part of their samaj is violated. This can more clearly be seen in the student movements where students came down to the streets in droves when a student was injured or worse: Shot dead.
For these reasons, the Bangladeshi revolutionary character will never falter and all future rulers must beware of the collective power of the Bangladeshi people. The people were able to oust Ayub, bring about independence, out Ershad and oust Hasina and they will again oust anyone who tries to oppress the Bangladeshi people, that is for certain. This independence day, I remember the heroes of all of the rebellions, movements, revolutions and revolts in our land, starting from the Fakir-Sannyasi Rebellion to the recent July Uprising, and pay gratitude to all our ancestors who risked their lives to give us this independent land. We should never forget them and our people and our leaders must draw inspiration and, more importantly, warnings from them so that tyranny can never show its ugly face in this country anymore.
Anupam Debashis Roy is the editor-in-chief of Muktipotro and PhD student in sociology at the University of Oxford. He can be reached at [email protected].
