In our part of the world, protests are predated by an incident that touches a nerve with the public. The calls for justice are then followed by the usual administrative apathy or a coarse and insensitive statement from some elected official which then leads to people taking to the streets.
After a speeding bus killed two students towards the end of July, Dhaka has been under siege from students who have taken to the streets in large numbers demanding improvements in road safety. The bus driver is alleged to have lost control of the vehicle after being involved in a ‘race’ against another bus in order to pick up more passengers. It sounds scarily familiar to what the drivers on our roads do in order to cram a few more people into their vehicles.
As I write this, the protests have now entered their ninth day and students have at various points even resorted to checking licenses and documentation of motorists out of a sense of frustration at the government’s inaction on road safety issues. There have already been clashes between student groups and the police but, by and large, the weight of public opinion and support is in favor of the agitators.
The thing with all these protests and mass movements is that there is a lot more than what meets the eye. The death of the two students simply acted as a flashpoint for the pent-up anger simmering just under the surface waiting for an incident like this for it to boil over. Even the Arab Spring can be traced back to the self-immolation of one harassed Tunisian street vendor, which set off a wave of protests not only in his own country but across the broader Arab world.
Health institutes shutdown services in Baitadi
In our part of the world, protests are predated by an incident that touches a nerve with the public. The calls for justice are then followed by the usual administrative apathy or a coarse and insensitive statement from some elected official which then leads to people taking to the streets. Most movements in South Asia like the current one in Bangladesh tend to coalesce frustrations on a wide variety of issues into a collective call for action.
It is usually anger and resentment over issues of good governance – recurring themes of corruption, a sense of entitlement amongst the ruling elite, impunity of officials and the like. In the case of the infamous Delhi gang rape in 2012, the subsequent protests while largely focused on women’s safety and punishment for perpetrators also touched upon myriad gender issues in an Indian context.
Quite often for many of the protestors with this all permeating government indifference, they feel that this is the only way their voices will be heard. This is more so for younger folks in South Asia, who make up the bulk of the protestors, whether in India, Bangladesh or recently in Nepal and whose interests and voices are usually hijacked by one student union or another for their own political purposes.
It doesn’t help that in the third world most of the governed feel alienated from their governments not only due to a wide generation gap but also in terms of seeing a reflection of themselves – their aspirations, attitudes, beliefs and values – in their leadership. It is the same self-serving political cycle in every country that helps to kill – in Modi’s words ‘the throbbing optimism of youth in our region’ and leads young people to vent their frustrations in the only way they can.
Mercifully, the weight of public opinion (Mohammad Yunus apparently was one of those to congratulate them) seems to be with the students in Dhaka who have gone to great lengths to make sure that their grievances don’t take on a political color. Many carried placards stating that this was not a political protest. In this part of the world, an opposition party hijacking any issue or seemingly taking ‘ownership’ of it does very little for the credibility of any protests because it inevitably leads to accusations of ‘whataboutism’. As all of our politicians are cut from the same cloth and probably would react similarly if they were in power, these accusations tend to give way to political bickering that often overshadows the main reason for the protests.
It just reminded me of the bi-partisan nature of Dr KC’s protests which the government sought to attribute as opposition inspired disturbances similar to what the Sheikh Hasina government is now doing. All those harping before the election and after, on a stable government being the panacea for all our ills, need only take a look at Bangladesh where the current government has been in power for close to a decade.
After protests flare up, what our governments do is come up with short-term concessions, knee jerk changes to the law, rather than think of or even explore long term solutions in the aftermath. The solution for the Dhaka motorists and for the gang rape in Delhi was the death penalty – the ultimate solution to placate the raging masses. Until long term solutions are found protests will continue to be feature of our democracies. It’s not a bad thing because, in the long run, it is extremely necessary to serve periodic reminders to our governments – as we recently did in Nepal – that they are here because of and for the governed, lest they forget that.
