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Terms of inclusion: Exclusion and authoritarianism in Bangladesh

Steven
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A student upsurge in Bangladesh opened up old wounds, created fresh ones and eventually culminated in the toppling of the regime. Anarchy on the street, storming of offices and palaces, violent clashes between cadres of opposite camps, and indiscriminate police violence—in sundry odd ways, the script echoes neighbouring Sri Lanka, Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen in recent years.

Furthermore, it has enhanced minority vulnerability, caught as the minorities are, in the crossfire of political violence. Any event as cataclysmic as this warrants a short-term as much as a durée analysis, the interconnections between the two notwithstanding.

The search for immediate causes points us to the horrors of incarcerations, disappearances and torture, suppression of political dissent on the one hand, and an impending economic crisis following the pandemic, income inequalities, developmental deficits and contending ideologies on the other.

Evidently, the current turmoil in Bangladesh is also a manifestation of the crisis of its national identity—an unresolved paradox regarding its self-definition—Bengali or Bangladeshi? What would be the place of religion in the national imagination? And what relationship would the Bangla nation establish with its religious, and ethnic minorities?

Almost two weeks have passed since landslides struck Chooralmala, Mundakkai, and Punchiri Mattam villages in Kerala’s Wayanad. The aftermath has left at least 400 people dead (including those missing) and countless families displaced, underscoring the need for rehabilitation.

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Steven

Steven@webpressglobal.com
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