When Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina referred to the students protesting against the job quotas as ‘Razakars’, the enraged student protesters allegedly escalated the unrest and created violence.
The demonstrations — called mainly by student groups— started weeks ago to protest a quota system that reserves up to 30% of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971. Violence erupted Tuesday, with the Daily Prothom Alo newspaper reporting the death of at least 103 people.
Police imposed a strict curfew with a “shoot-on-sight” order across Bangladesh as military forces patrolled parts of the capital Saturday after scores were killed and hundreds injured in clashes over the allocation of civil service jobs.
The term ‘Razakar’ angered student protesters because the word is considered derogatory in Bangladesh.
The word has been long used to describe Bangladeshis who sided with the Pakistani government which was ousted by Muktijoddhas led by Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, Sheikh Hasina’s father, following the 1971 Liberation War which led to the birth of the nation.
When someone is called Razakar in Bangladesh, the person is often considered equivalent to being a traitor.
A report by BBC Bangla says the term came into existence in 1971 and was used to refer to individuals who led the Pakistani army officials to the houses of the Muktijoddha rebels who were fighting against the imposition of Urdu in Bangladesh and fighting to keep Bengali as the official language of the country.
The report says that the Razakar camp was first established in Khulna district of Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in Ansar Ali Road, consisting of 100 pro-Pakistani Bangladeshis. Jamaat-e-Islami leader AKM Yusuf played a major role in the establishment of the Razakars.
The former chief of staff of the Pakistan Army also introduced a Razakar law where a monthly stipend was paid to the Razakars. BBC Bangla in its report citing experts said that the Razakars had swelled to 50,000 in number.
These Razakars are one of the three militia groups the Pakistani government formed to suppress civil liberties of Bengalis living in Bangladesh but who were opposed to Pakistani rule.
The Razakars, the al-Badr and the al-Shams were backed by radical Islamists who then committed heinous war crimes like rape, torture, mass deportation of Bengali Hindus and Muslims in Bangladesh.
They also targeted intellectuals, freedom fighters and in some cases even innocent civilians.
Members of the Razakars were identified after Bangladesh’s liberation and in the last couple of decades they have been presented before war crimes tribunals and committees and sentenced to jail, life imprisonment and in some cases were given the death penalty.
Amjad Hossain Howladar, Sahar Ali Sardar, Atiyar Rahman, Motachim Billah, Kamal Uddin Goldar, and Nazrul Islam were sentenced to death in Bangladesh in 2022. All of them, members of the Razakar Army, were responsible for crimes against humanity.
Dr Muntasir Mamoon, Bangabandhu Chair at Bangladesh’s Chittagong University, speaking to the Indian Express, said the word Razakar originates from the word ‘Rezakar’ and and it can be traced to Telangana capital Hyderabad which was a princely state before Indian Independence.
These Rezakars were home guards and paramilitary volunteer forces of the Hyderabadi kingdom that resisted integration with India but were defeated in the hands of the Indian Army in Operation Polo.
Mamoon also said that these Razakars of Bangladesh ‘comprised Biharis and poor people’ and were against the ‘liberation of Bangladesh’, while speaking to the newspaper.
The newspaper in its report also cited passages from Yelena Biberman’s book Gambling with Violence: State Outsourcing of War in Pakistan and India, where the author citing a former Razakar said that the Razakars were ‘poor and illiterate soldiers that fought for the West Pakistan army believing the religious motive and believed they were fighting for Islam’.
What Did Hasina Say And How Protesters Reacted
Sheikh Hasina’s ‘Razakar’ statement came last Sunday (July 14) where she said: “If the grandchildren of freedom fighters do not receive (quota) benefits, who would get it? The grandchildren of Razakars?”
This had led to protest songs like “Tui ke? Ami ke? Razakar, Razakar! (Who are you? Who am I? Razakar, Razakar!)” – a spinoff of the original Tumi Ke Ami Ke, Bangali, Bangali (Who are you? Who am I? Bengali, Bengali!) which protesters used in 2013 as well to call for the hanging of Abdul Quader Mollah, a Bangladeshi Islamist leader convicted of committing war crimes.
Protesters claim that Hasina is labelling them as Razakars to curb dissent.
The term has caused several other issues in the past as well. In 2019, the Hasina government released a list of over 10,780 names of Razakars who conspired with the Pakistani government during the Liberation War.
The list, which the Bangladesh government later rescinded, happened to contain the name of then International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) Chief Prosecutor Golam Arif Tipu who hails from a family of freedom fighters.
In 2024, the Bangladesh government said that the Razakar will list will have two categories – one, who voluntarily joined the group and two, who forcibly joined.
Hasina Denounces Appropriation
Sheikh Hasina also lashed out at protesters singing songs like “Chaite gelam odhikar, hoye gelam Razakar (“I went to ask for rights; instead became a Razakar)” saying that the students do not know the pain people experienced in 1971.
She also pointed out that the female student protestors singing this song should know what Razakars did to women during the Liberation War.
“I felt sorry when I heard yesterday the students of Ruqayyah Hall calling themselves Razakars. Do they know what had taken place there on 25 March, 1971? Some 300 girls were killed and 40 girls were raped and taken to the Pakistani camps,” Hasina told Prothom Alo.
“They don’t feel ashamed to call themselves Razakars…They do not know how the Pakistani occupation forces and Razakar Bahini had resorted to torture in the country—they did not see the inhuman torture and bodies lying on the roads. So, they don’t feel ashamed to call themselves Razakar,” she further added.
An Awami League supporter told the Indian Express that Hasina during the press conference used the word Razakar ‘sarcastically’ and that the protesting students misunderstood the message.
“Even now, if you are the son of a Razakar, people will say ‘you are a Razakar’s son’,” Mamoon told the Indian Express, and added that the term is not a ‘badge of honour’.
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