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32 sats \ 4 replies \ @south_korea_ln 19 Aug \ on: The Return of Razakars: Will Bangladesh become next Afghanistan or Pakistan? conspiracy
Thanks for this interesting read. It's interesting to learn about India's perspective on all of this. For sure, there are biases at play, but that's what helps outsiders form a better nuanced picture.
I had several discussions with my colleague from Bangladesh who has a partially different view than you. He's biased too of course as he empathises more with the student side of the protests. With remittances, he was indirectly also funding the protests.
His views probably summarize as follows: completely legitimate and necessary student protests against a deeply corrupt government that, in a second phase, got taken advantage of my religious extremists. The student protests also probably got more successful due to the manpower provided by the extremists.
He's happy of course that the current government fell as otherwise he'd probably not have been able to ever travel again home due to being blacklisted along all other Bangladeshi abroad who could circumvent the government mandated censorship.
Unrelated, but this also kinda feels like the protests in Algeria 10 years back. While legitimate and well intentioned, they ultimately led to a strong powergrab of fundamentalists turning women's rights back to well into the past. The opposite effect of what the protests intended.
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Thanks! You actually understood my intention of writing all of this. I'm not in favour of Sheikh Hasina's corrupt practices, in fact I used to condemn them. But, how a student protest that just started from a university became so big and took lives of hundreds of people from both sides has a fishy smell. The influence of 'Jamat' (I hope you understand what Jamat is) after Hasina's ouster can be seen everywhere now.
Alright! When I say that a few Hindus have been killed and a few temples have been vandalised, anyone may refute these on the basis of me being biased because I'm Indian Hindu. But, when I say that hundreds of people, including muslims, who supported Hasina's party are either missing or jailed or killed by the protestors and that too after August 5, the day when Hasina's rule was over.
I ask those who in any way say the protests were for good reasons. Fine! When your reason was to uproot the government is over, why these killings of her supporters going on? Why can't they live as a normal Bangladeshi who supported Hasina but without Hasina, he doesn't have a choice!
And tell me - can the be so powerful that they start killing very powerful leaders till a few days ago? Who's giving fuel to all of this. It's the work of Jamat and I'm sorry to say your colleague seems like a Jamati and extremist.
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He's also sad about the turn the protests have taken and the extremists' hijacking of said protests. He's a very reasonable person. Things are rarely black and white, that's why I'm happy to read your and hear his perspective. Overall both you and him agree on most, i would say.
Anyhow, best would be to have you and him discuss directly, I'm a full and uninformed outsider to all of this.
My Indian colleague has had many level-headed discussions with him. He does not consider him an extremist at all either.
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Ahh! Thanks for clarifying. He now seems an open minded person. I take back my words about him and apologise.
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