With the quota movement peaking to its pinnacle of 'complete shutdown' programme, students could more than draw the required attention of the government to their cause. By the time this happened, it was too late for either the government or the protesters to avert the following chaos, anarchy and violence that accounted for more than a hundred lives, damage and destruction of valuable and sensitive public property and facilities including two stations of the iconic metro rail.
The nation would like to forget this episode but for the tragic death of so many lives. If there is an impartial investigation carried out by a judicial commission, those who are responsible may be identified. It is too early to comment on the events that unfolded over the past weeks to turn so explosive. But amid the chaotic development, a section of silent and marginal people staying at the bottom rung of society has suffered the worst for no fault of their own. They are the regular day labourers, footpath vendors and others offering their service for hire on a daily basis if their skills suit the jobs to be performed.
These working people engaged in the informal sector are not only disorganised but also face uncertainty of regular employment and income. Yet they do some of the most valuable tasks others cannot do. During the pandemic, they discovered themselves in the worst possible situation where their survival was at stake. But fortunately, the government, various organisations were compassionate enough to feel their travail and trauma and came forward with generous support for them. The well-off in society also felt it a duty to help the less fortunate in society. People, to keep the record straight, were more humane than they were before and afterwards.
These are the people who cannot raise their voice in their favour --- individual or collective. Many of them even do not earn enough to claim their share of the subsidised essentials sold from trucks of the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) because their income is not regular. Any disruption to the city's normal life due to political turmoil or movements by other organised groups, only erodes their incomes, leaving nothing to save for the rainy days.
The reversals suffered during the pandemic marginalised them further and before they could recover from the shock, market volatility only continued to sap their negligible economic power. Now pushed to the fringe, they have none to turn to for help. What the pandemic could not do, man-made hostile environment has done to them. The middle class people who were sympathetic to the trials and travails of this down-trodden segment of society find themselves in a tight corner and have become tight-fisted.
This is because social discrimination and disparity are on the rise courtesy of avarice of people well-placed to make money right and left. The intriguing, educated, corrupt and avaricious have been amassing wealth illegally depriving the majority of their equitable share. In fact, the case of the marginalised has been consigned to the back burner from the time the Soviet Union and other socialist countries disintegrated. Capitalism in its crudest and cruellest forms has returned almost everywhere and Bangladesh is no exception to this rule.
There is none to take up the cause of the meek, the silent, the marginalised and the deprived. It is a hostile world where the voiceless is bypassed with the result that they fall into a vicious cycle of poverty trap. Those who feel they are discriminated against can raise their voice against the unjust treatment meted out to them but those who are not organised and are largely uneducated do not know how to bring their deprivation to the notice of the nation and the authorities concerned let alone make it a serious issue for addressing.
nilratanhalder2000@yahoo.com