Bangladesh Protests Explained
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✦ Disclaimer ✦
These videos are for educational purposes. All images and video footage used is credited within the video but copyright remains with the original owners. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Bangladesh's police and army are after the students.
00:04Some where police vans were seen passing over the students, some where helicopters were
00:08seen landing on the roofs of the university.
00:11Thousands of students were seen protesting on the streets.
00:15Some where rallies were taken out, some where protest marches were held.
00:20Soon the students' agitation spread so much that they were forced to block the roads,
00:24highways and railway system.
00:27The situation reached a point where the Bangladesh government pitted the police as well as the
00:31army against the students.
00:34The local media was not reporting anything anyway.
00:37On top of that, the internet, social media and, above all, WhatsApp, more than 200 unarmed
00:43students were killed, thousands were injured and countless students were arrested.
00:48Along with all this, Bangladesh has suffered a loss of more than 2 billion dollars due
00:53to the country being shut down for so many days.
00:57After all this, the only thing on everyone's mind is that the country has lost more than
01:012 billion dollars.
01:03The question that is being raised is why is all this happening in Bangladesh?
01:08Once again welcome to World Stories Videos.
01:11All this started after a decision of the High Court on June 5th, 2024 when they reinstated
01:17the quota system in Bangladesh civil services.
01:20Initially some peaceful protests were seen but after that Eid holidays were to come,
01:25due to which protests were postponed across the country.
01:29After Eid, students started protesting again and this time it was a bit more serious.
01:34They blocked roads and demanded an end to the quota system.
01:38Although the purpose of the protest was to end the quota system, soon many more people
01:42joined it.
01:43A Whammy League party is in power in Bangladesh and this party has a student wing called Chhatra
01:49League.
01:50Members of Chhatra League started protesting.
01:53On this issue, a wave of anger ran among the students who were earlier protesting only
01:58against the quota system.
02:00At the same time, the army used IN vehicles against the protesters at many places which
02:05led to the understanding that perhaps the United Nations was also involved in all this.
02:11When this news ran on the international media, the United Nations got a bad impression all
02:15over the world and the UN sought the reason for doing so from Bangladesh.
02:21It was found that some vehicles were rented to the UN mission but the logo was not removed
02:25from them.
02:26The anger of the protesters had not yet subsided when on July 14th, 2024, Bangladesh Prime
02:32Minister Sheikh Hasina made some remarks which made the matter more serious.
02:38She said that if freedom fighters are not given quota in jobs, then will razzakers be
02:42given quota?
02:44This statement of the Prime Minister, so it was like you started a fire, but you will
02:47understand the real value of this statement when you will know about freedom fighters
02:51and razzakers.
02:53As you know, before 1971 Bangladesh was a part of Pakistan.
02:58At that time it was called East Pakistan while today's Pakistan was called West Pakistan.
03:04Both East and West Pakistan were divided by India.
03:08The distance between these two was also very big and apart from religion there were many
03:12differences between the two in which the difference of language was the biggest.
03:17Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League had a lot of hold in East Pakistan.
03:22Therefore Bangladesh while in West Pakistan there were different political parties.
03:27Martial law was imposed in Pakistan at that time and General Yaya Khan who was the Chief
03:31Martial Law Administrator at that time was responsible for conducting general elections
03:36in Pakistan.
03:38In these elections East Pakistan's Awami League got a lot of success.
03:43Who swept 167 out of 169 seats of East Pakistan.
03:49Now the total seats of National Assembly of Pakistan were 300 out of which 167 therefore
03:54more than half of the seats were taken by Awami League of East Pakistan.
03:59Which meant that Awami League could easily form its government in the National Assembly
04:03of Pakistan but the military leadership of that time did not want this due to which a
04:08movement of civil disobedience started in East Pakistan.
04:12On March 7th, 1971 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman gave a hint of separation from Pakistan in
04:18his speech and on March 23rd the first Bangladeshi flag was hoisted on many houses of East Pakistan.
04:25The result of this was that a military operation was launched in East Pakistan whose aim was
04:30to stop East Pakistan from separating from West Pakistan.
04:34This war for independence of Bangladesh continued for the next nine months.
04:39The war continued till 1928 in which some units of the military in East Pakistan broke
04:44away from Pakistan and formed their own force to gain independence which is also called
04:49Bangladesh forces Muktibani or Freedom Fighters.
04:53On the other hand the group present in Bangladesh itself which supported West Pakistan was called
04:58Razakars.
05:00In the last two weeks of this war Bangladesh also got India's support and thus East Pakistan
05:05separated from West Pakistan and became Bangladesh.
05:10Now since Bangladesh became independent with the help of Freedom Fighters Sheikh Mujibur
05:14Rahman who had become the President of Bangladesh kept a separate quota of 30 for Freedom Fighters
05:20and Bangladesh Civil Services.
05:23In 1997 i.e. after 26 years of liberation war the recruitment of Freedom Fighters and
05:29Bangladesh Civil Services decreased significantly due to which the government increased this
05:34quota.
05:35The quota was increased not only for Freedom Fighters but also for their children and then
05:40in 2010 the quota of Freedom Fighters was made eligible for their grandchildren as well.
05:46But even then only 10 generations of Freedom Fighters were taking this quota and the rest
05:50of the quota was wasted in the whole country.
05:53The quota of those who wanted to get a job in Civil Services by working hard on merit
05:57was 44 and that too started falling short now.
06:01So the students felt very bad that even after working so hard we cannot even come in the
06:0644th quota of merit whereas the family of Freedom Fighters can easily get a government
06:10job without doing anything.
06:13On March 8th, 2018 a petition was filed in Bangladesh High Court against the quota system
06:18which was rejected by the court.
06:21At that time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that she personally wants to keep a quota
06:25for the families of Freedom Fighters on which the students raised a voice against the quota
06:30system.
06:31They said that the remaining quota of Freedom Fighters should be merged with the merit quota
06:35or the quota of Freedom Fighters should be reduced.
06:39On this, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued an executive order and abolished the quota
06:43system from Bangladesh Civil Services.
06:47There was silence for the next few years but then suddenly on June 5th, 2024, Bangladesh
06:52High Court cancelled that executive order of Sheikh Hasina and reinstated the quota
06:57system and from here the protests started again.
07:00When the situation went out of control, on July 21st, 2024, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh
07:06passed an order for a major change in the quota system.
07:10In that order, a 93% quota was given for merit which was earlier 44% and the quota of Freedom
07:16Fighters which was earlier 30% was reduced to 5%.
07:21After this order was fixed for the workers on 1, the students decided to end the protest
07:26only on the condition that their arrested friends be released and the government officials
07:30of the areas where students were beaten resign.
07:33At present, at the time this video is being made, the demands of the students have not
07:38been met but the government believes that the situation is under control to a large
07:42extent.
07:44Mobile services, internet and social media are being opened again.
07:48What do you think about this whole scenario?
07:51Do tell me in the comment section.
07:54I hope you people will like and share this video a lot.
07:58See you in the next amazing video.
08:00Peace.