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THE word ‘Razakar’ originates from Arabic and translates to ‘volunteer’ in English. On August 2, 1971, during the height of Bangladesh’s liberation war, the then-governor of East Pakistan, Lieutenant General Tikka Khan, issued the East Pakistan Razakars Ordinance. This ordinance called for the creation of a voluntary force to be trained and equipped by the provincial government. This ‘Razakar’ force is widely documented as having actively supported the Pakistani army in committing atrocities against the Bangladeshi population, including genocide. Numerous reports detail massacres, concentration camps and genocidal rape perpetrated by members of the Razakar forces. A particularly well-documented instance of such genocidal intent is the Dakra massacre, where Razakars brutally killed 646 unarmed Bengali Hindus. Until July 2024, the term ‘Razakar’ was considered a social taboo in Bangladesh, synonymous with ‘traitor.’ Therefore, it may have been quite a shock for the dogmatic defenders of the liberation war when, on the night of July 14, the halls of the country’s most prestigious public university echoed with the angry chant of hundreds of students shouting, ‘Who are you? Who am I? Razakar! Razakar!’

Naturally, one might wonder why they would do such a thing. Why would the educated and enlightened youth of society openly associate themselves with a term synonymous with traitor, rapist and war criminal? The reality is that this chant was an ironic appropriation of a highly derogatory term, used in response to the deliberate and unjust labelling of all student protesters who had been demonstrating for weeks for a simple civil service job quota reform as war criminals!

For context, under the previous system, 56 per cent of all civil service jobs were reserved for specific protected groups such as women and people with disabilities, with the direct descendants of the 1971 freedom fighters receiving the largest share of reservation at 30 per cent. The student protesters argued that this job quota, now extending to the third and fourth generations of freedom fighter descendants, was unfair, as most of the beneficiaries had no direct connection to a war that ended more than 52 years ago. The government had also previously abolished the quota once in 2018 due to similar protests. However, a high court writ petition called into question this executive action as unconstitutional. The high court would rule that the 2018 abolishing of job quotas was indeed unconstitutional, and the previous 56 per cent reservation would be reinstated once again.

The government went through the legal motions, and the case was moved up to the Supreme Court appellate division, the nation’s highest court. However, the students would not have any of this legal manoeuvring. They asked for a special parliament committee that would immediately engage with them as stakeholders and consider the voices and feedback of the protesting students when deciding on the new quota policy. Professor of law Asif Nazrul, who is the current law affairs adviser of the current interim government, also argued at the time that the question of quota reform was actually a political question, not a legal one. Thus, this issue should not even be handled by the courts in the first place due to the constitutional law doctrine of political question. In short, the students asked for a recruitment system prioritising merit over hiring quotas, and they asked for a seat at a table when deciding on what the new quota system would look like.

However, in a strikingly dogmatic interpretation of this public sentiment, staunch supporters of the ruling Awami League — whose political foundation rested on mythologising the ‘spirit of the liberation war’ — took it upon themselves to craft a narrative framing the protest as a battle between the children of freedom fighters and the children of Razakars, as though these were the only two classes of people in society. The actual debate of merit versus quota was twisted to fit a narrative that anti-liberation forces were trying to rob descendants of freedom fighters of their social benefits. On July 14, the now-deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina held a press conference where party-favoured journalists asked her the usual softball questions regarding the quota protests. She made two specific remarks that particularly triggered the outburst among the students.

Firstly, during the conference, journalist Provash Amin stated that because there was a binary between merit and quota in government jobs, many are buying into the implication that children of freedom fighters don’t have actual merit and only get jobs due to the quota. The PM, in response, stated with palpable condescension, ‘Does that mean that the freedom fighter’s children and grandchildren don’t have merit? The grandchildren of Razakar’s are the truly meritous, are they? It should not be forgotten that they were defeated by those they call meritless. The freedom fighters won the war, not the Razakars.’

Secondly, journalist Farzana Rupa stated that those protesting the quota have refused to abide by court rulings and instead turned to the PM as the head executive to give a solution. She then asked whether the PM would keep the quota or not as the head executive. In response, the PM stated, ‘Those who are protesting don’t abide by the law, they don’t abide by the court, they don’t know what the constitution is, and they don’t have any idea about the rules and regulations or how a government works. If the grandchildren of the freedom fighters will not get it (the quota), will the grandchildren of razakars get it? That is my question to the people of the nation.’

Translating her statements into English does injustice to the vitriol in her tone against the students who simply asked to be included in a dialogue between them and their government. Through the deliberate othering and usage of the term ‘they’, the PM most deliberately implied that the student protesters were the children of razakars. Even if we are to grant that the protesters’ approach to the situation was misguided, does it beget the head of the state looking down on them, belittling them, and then indirectly labelling them all as children of traitors and war criminals?

The infuriated students did answer the question that the PM posed. They decided to appropriate the term ‘Razakar’ as their slogan and call to action. The full version of the chant that the students made their battle cry reads, ‘Who are you? Who am I? Razakar! Razakar! Who said so? Who said so? A Dictator! A Dictator!’

There have been several claims that the PM has stated that her words were taken out of context, and she did not call students razakars. Her words are clearly up for display on all social media, but the comment section most definitely does not agree with her one bit.

Regardless, one important question might still linger regarding all of this. Why did it take so many hundreds of deaths before the actual demand for dialogue was finally recognised? The PM did at last state that the doors to her palace were open, and she was open to finally discussing the issue with protesters. But this statement came on August 3, after weeks of brutal police crackdown, internet shutdown, military curfew and a shoot-on-sight order.

The only logical answer to this absurdity is pride. The prime minister was simply too proud to listen to her people. The prime minister was too proud to apologise for calling them the most heinous thing possible. Even as body after body piled on, the prime minister continued to proudly proclaim that the protesters were all radicals, fundamentalists, terrorists, razakars! This pride mutated her political party into a suffocating cult of personality. It reduced the glorious history of our liberation war into a mere political tool to be used and abused. Ultimately, it was this pride that blinded her, deafened her, and brought her political legacy to ruin.

Zillur Rahman is the executive director of the Centre for Governance Studies and a television talk show host.

This article was originally published on Newage.
Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.