By: Rifat Rashid
I would like to remind the leaders of BNP and its affiliated organizations about October 28, 2023. On that day, Dhaka’s streets trembled with the massive presence of democracy-seeking citizens alongside BNP, its affiliates, and all anti-fascist groups demanding free and fair elections. At that very moment, the police launched sound grenades and tear gas shells directly at the procession. In some places, they used rubber bullets. This caused the wave of millions, summoned by BNP leadership, to scatter like a flood.
Many of those present at Paltan that day had already been martyred in July. BNP and its student wing themselves released a list of party martyrs (a list blatantly filled with errors and lies). Now the question to BNP leaders is, “Why did your party members flee your summoned rally after being hit with tear gas, but were willing to stand firm, ready to take live bullets to the chest for Asif Mahmud’s call for a complete shutdown or Nahid Islam’s implementation of a one-point demand?”
The reason is leadership. Your party members know you are compromising. You have liaised with the Awami League to secure your business interests, strengthened familial ties through marriages with Awami League leaders’ families to ensure protection. Meanwhile, grassroots workers have rotted in jail for years, unable to see their mothers. A student leader couldn’t enter his own village for years, and had to attend his mother’s funeral with handcuffs and shackles—some didn’t even get that opportunity.
Yet, you lived comfortably in the luxurious buildings of Gulshan, Banani, and Baridhara. That is why the grassroots members of BNP or its student wing cannot relate to your struggle. On the day tear gas shells were fired at Paltan, you fled first. You didn’t have the courage to give a command for resistance from the microphone. My friends in the student wing regretfully say, “If only they had given us the command to resist that day, we could have sparked something akin to a mass uprising.” After your party members faced attacks, you were clueless about what program to announce the next day, stammering in front of the microphone.
Yet, you surely saw Nahid Islam declare the one-point demand with wounds on his body. You witnessed Asif Mahmud, even after being abducted, injected to keep him unconscious for days, ultimately save the country from military rule in the last moments. You surely saw Awami League threatening to rape MD Mahin Sarker’s sister and leave her in front of their house. You must have seen Md. Abu Baker Mojumder return to Dhaka and continue his campaign after burying his beloved nephew, whom he raised like a son. Surely, you saw Abdul Hannan Masud, who supported his family through tuition, boldly lead one program after another without faltering, even though missing a single day’s income meant his family might go hungry.
Did you not witness Abdul Kader’s nine-point campaign shaking Sheikh Hasina’s throne? Did you not see Hasnat Abdullah Md Sarjis Alam and Nusrat Tabassum being illegally abducted and tortured at the DB office? Have you not seen me, Rifat Rashid? Did you not witness my father and brother searching for my body in the morgue? When I was fleeing with an injured body, a corpse resembling me made my mother so ill that she was put on life support. If I had been able to call and tell her I was alive, she might not have needed to go to the hospital. Yet, for the sake of the country, I could not even speak to her once. You saw all of this. Every one of our families was living like refugees during that time, but none of us bowed an inch before fascism.
The more severe the oppression became, the heavier the procession of martyrs’ corpses grew, and the longer the list of the injured stretched, the harder we fought against fascism. The fall of fascism became more important to us than our own lives or the lives of our families. This is why your party members found their reflection in us. They spiritually connected their struggle with ours. These people became part of our community—brothers, friends, neighbors. And that is why they chose not you but the leadership of the students as the ultimate navigators of the final fight.
Uprisings are led by leadership that rises from the grassroots. Today, while you issue hollow threats, dismiss interim advisors at every turn, and boast about the legacy of your 17-year struggle, I must respectfully say this: even with a procession of workers ready to shed their fresh blood for a better Bangladesh, you failed to overthrow the fascists because you lacked the strong leadership willing to stand in the line of fire. After Begum Zia was imprisoned, none of the leaders responsible demonstrated the courage to take bold action against fascism. That is what the people of Bangladesh have witnessed.
- Adapted from Rifat’s Facebook post.
