The leaders of the Students Against Discrimination Movement (SADM) recently started a campaign for a proclamation (July proclamation). It was a recent demand/discussion as previously there was no discussion on this. All of a sudden, the leaders of the SADM started to make the demand for the proclamation at the end of December 2024.

I was surprised at their demand. The recent activities of the leaders of the SADM is not inspiring and rather disappointing and it has already started to feel like they are acting like autocrats themselves.  

Now, on the proclamation, in the world, there are a number of proclamations or declarations that have huge implications for world or the people for whom the proclamations was declared. Usually there proclamations marked the start of an era, changes which have put is mark on the history of the world.

In Bangladesh, we had one such proclamation for our independence. Now the leaders of the SADM had made a demand for declaration which would embody the July uprising. And they have provided some guidance what should be included in such proclamations :

1. State recognition of the martyrs of the July uprising and a promise to speedily provide free state medical treatment to the wounded must be clarified.
2. The proclamation should clearly mention the leadership of the SADM.
3. Trial of Awami League to ensure the justice of the murderers and accomplices in the coup.
4. The continuity of the Pakistan Movement of 1947, the Great Liberation War of 1971 and the July 2024 Uprising must be clarified.
5. The basic foundation of the fascist state system must be declared to abolish the constitution and form an elected Constituent Assembly to enact a completely new democratic constitution.
6. In the new political settlement, there must be a commitment to build a state structure based on civic identity by eliminating all forms of discrimination.
7. The overthrow of the Awami fascist government was not the only main goal of the July uprising; Rather, this uprising has taken place with the aim of abolishing the discrimination, exploitation and fascist political system of the last 53 years. So all kinds of reforms must be promised to abolish the existing fascist state structure.

Note: this is an unofficial translation of the points made by the leaders of the SADM.

We can divide the issues into three groups – i) July uprising recognition; ii) past history of the country; and iii) demand for a new constitution abolishing discrimination. I am not mentioning the demand for justice against the BAL government here.

For the July uprising, they have two demands – first, the July uprising given state recognition and second, leadership of the July uprising be mentioned in the proclamation. I guess they want the movement to be remembered well by the people. Well, do you really need state recognition for any movement? What people will accept and remember cannot be forced. State recognition may give it some short-term boost, but at the end of the day it is time that will decide where to put the uprising.

On the second demand of mentioning the leadership in the proclamation, again, what purpose it will serve other than boosting the image of the leadership for short period of time.

These two demands raise the question whether the leadership of the SADM learn anything from the failure of the BAL government. BAL government tried to impose lots of things on the people, but at the end of the day people did not accept those things. Ironically the leaders of SADM want the imposition by state of their status instead of people making the decisions.

The demand for clarification of the continuation of Pakistan Movement of 1947, to the July 2024 is interesting to me, specially for mentioning the Pakistan Movement of 1947 (instead of mentioning the end of British colonial rule). From an ideological perspective (not from literal historical perspective), is the current Bangladesh a continuation of the Pakistan movement? If we accept that it is okay to divide land and people based on religion, do we have the moral right to tell the non-Muslim to become citizen of Bangladesh? Is the official status of Bangladesh being that – it is a country for the Bengali Muslims only? It is my personal view that most of the answers to these types of question is negative. In Bangladesh, many people do not feel any emotional attachment to the Pakistan movement for various reasons.

By demanding Pakistan movement in the proclamation, the leaders of the SADM are taking a narrow view of the history and showing where they stand in certain ideological matters. This shows that they do not believe that on a certain level, people cannot go beyond their religion. The question is if a person hold such belief, then can such person make a claim that every person is equal and people of various belief should share a common land forgiving their religions.

Lastly, they demand a new constitution abolishing the existing constitution of 1972. Almost 5 months have passed since the uprising, and we are hearing from them that the exiting constitution is a problematic one. The missing part in the whole discussion is what is the problem with the existing constitution and what they want to change. They want change, but for some reason, they cannot explicitly say what they want to change.

Most notable thing in the whole discussion is the absence of any demand for freedom of speech, equality. Instead of making such demand which would fit a proclamation, they are discussing old issues and demanding vague changes.

In most cases, people started a movement based on the declaration/proclamation that rallied the people. But here leaders are trying to do the opposite. They rallied the people and toppled a autocratic government and now thinking about a proclamation. And they are not declaring any proclamation themselves, rather they want the government to do so. If they want some proclamation, then why rely on government to do so. They can declare their proclamation and then start a campaign to sell it to the people. But now, they are campaigning to force the government to declare a proclamation. With the above points, that will be a hard sell.