Students who engineered the change feel defeated

Out of 158 coordinators 40 have quit; others looking way around

Kolkata: The platform, which led the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement in Bangladesh, culminating to a regime change and end of the 15-year-old powerful Sheikh Hasina government is on its way out. At least so it appears, given the propensity among student leaders to resign from the post of coordinators.

Out of 158 student coordinators about 40 have already put in their papers. The number is increasing every day, which in a way vindicates that students no longer feel in tune with what is happening in Bangladesh.

Though the coordinators have not officially cited the reason for exit, they made no bones to say that their job has gone redundant, post the formation of the interim government. Asked to explain as to why the feeling of redundancy has crept in, a student leader of Jagannath Vishwavidyalaya (Jagannath University) said “coordinators are no longer needed because the job of coordination is over.”

Prodded further on this, he admitted that a majoritarian voice is calling the shots in the current dispensation. “Those who are numerically strong, be it politically or in terms of community, are playing a decisive role in the current state of affairs. We are closely watching the situation. Nobody should forget that students brought down a powerful autocratic government and therefore weeding out radical fundamentalists from the system wouldn’t be a difficult job,” said the same leader on condition of anonymity

The caretaker Cabinet of Bangladesh under Muhammad Yunus has 20 advisers and six special positions under the Chief Adviser. The team is a motley group but indirect presence or influence of right wing party like Hefazat-e-Islam and radicals like Jamaat-e-Islam cannot be ruled out. Two frontrunners of the student’s movement, Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud have found their place in the cabinet. “The faces we see in the Cabinet apparently may be harmless but no one knows who they represent or hold allegiance to,” said a source. And above everything else, what is worrisome is the sudden emergence of the banned outfit—Hizb ut-Tahrir, a pan Islamist rganization, outlawed by the Bangladesh government in under Anti-Terrorism Act.