Sunayan Chakma, former president, Hill Students’ Council
The
July-August 2024 uprising that led to the fall of the fascist Hasina regime —
with students playing a leading role — had a powerful impact on the hill
student community in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). It stirred and energized
them immensely. In response to military obstruction of graffiti art, along with
student harassment and abuse, large groups of students took to the streets. At
one stage of the movement, they organized themselves under the banner of a
platform called the "Hill Students’ Movement Against Conflict and
Discrimination."
On the
morning of September 18, this group organized a “March for Identity” in
Khagrachari town, presenting an 8-point demand. Approximately 40,000 hill
students participated — an unprecedented event.
This
monumental student uprising terrified the military ruling establishment. They
began plotting to crush the emerging student movement in its infancy,
mobilizing all the "assets" and resources at their disposal —
including extremist communal settler organizations, vigilantes, and the Santu
Larma faction of the Jana Samhati Samiti (JSS).
As part of
this conspiracy, military intelligence, on September 18, orchestrated the
abduction of Md. Mamun and one of his employees by vigilantes in Khagrachari
town. Mamun was later murdered — an act seemingly intended to incite ethnic
riots between hill people and Bengalis. However, due to public resistance, that
attempt failed.
The very
next day, September 19, the Bengali Student Council blamed the hill people for
Mamun’s murder and organized a protest in Dighinala, which eventually escalated
into violent attacks on hill residents. Businesses and shops were looted and
set on fire. Members of the Bangladesh Army were directly involved in these
pre-planned attacks, aiming for specific goals. During these attacks,
Dhanarajan Chakma was seriously injured by army beatings and later died in
Khagrachari Hospital.
In protest
of the Dighinala attack, hundreds of people took to the Khagrachhari-Panchhari
road from the evening onward. Fearing a similar attack in Khagrachari town,
locals began night watches. That night, army patrols opened unprovoked fire on
hill people gathered in the Swanirbhar area, killing Junan Chakma and Rubel
Tripura, and injuring many others.
In
response to these two attacks, on September 20, the Hill Students’ Movement
Against Conflict and Discrimination organized a march and rally in Rangamati
town. However, when the march reached Banarupa, extremist Muslim settlers
launched a surprise attack. From nearby mosques, slogans inciting hatred
against hill people were broadcast to provoke people to join the assault. In
just a few moments, several thousand pre-organized settlers pounced on the
marching hill students. In this brutal attack, a student named Anik Chakma was
killed, many were injured, and hill people's properties worth crores of taka
were destroyed.
But what
was the root cause behind these attacks? The answer is simple: these attacks
were orchestrated by the military rulers to suppress the growing movement of
the Hill Students Against Conflict and Discrimination. In the 1990s as well,
the military had used the same tactics to quell the mass uprising led by the
Hill Students' Council — but failed due to strong leadership at the time. The
more they tried to suppress it, the stronger the movement became.
While the
contexts of the 1990s and the 2024 student movements are similar — both emerged
after the fall of dictatorships (Ershad in the '90s and Hasina in '24) — they
also have key differences, which are not discussed here. However, one thing
must be stated emphatically: in 2024, the most despicable and visceral role was
not played by the military or settlers, but by the Santu Larma faction of the
JSS.
Initially,
they tried to subtly discourage students from participating in the movement.
When that failed, Santu Larma's leaders began threatening the student
organizers directly, declaring that protests would not be tolerated — not even
under the pretext of demanding implementation of the CHT Accord.
Ironically,
during the Rangamati attack, even the office of Santu Larma’s Regional Council
was targeted, with 9 cars burned in its garage. Yet, our so-called “great
revolutionary leader” Santu Babu and his party didn’t utter a single word of
condemnation. Worse still, instead of blaming the extremist settlers, the Santu
group blamed the student leaders and the UPDF for the violence.
Because of
this betrayal, the military rulers found an opening — and filed cases against
key student leaders of the movement. As a result, the rising student movement
was abruptly halted.
A brief
look at the CHT’s political history reveals that Santu Larma has never
successfully built a movement himself (and arguably, never intended to). But he
has been highly skilled at destroying others' movements. This fact has been
proven repeatedly. After his release from jail in the 1980s, he destroyed his
own party’s anti-settler armed movement and later, in the 1990s, crushed the
student-led mass movement spearheaded by Prasit Khisha in 1995–96. In reality,
he has caused destruction in the name of movement — and continues to do so.
A key
lesson from the political history of the Hills is this: Among the many
conditions needed to build a student movement, leadership is a key one. If
opportunistic, compromising, or vacillating tendencies dominate the student
community, no movement can emerge or thrive. Of course, this applies to other
types of movements as well.
Therefore,
those in the student community who believe that there is no alternative to
struggle for achieving rights — that rights cannot be gained through begging —
must take a firm stand against the opportunistic and compromising elements
embedded within. These groups must be ideologically defeated.
Although
the student movement in the hills slowed down due to the betrayal of the Santu
Larma faction in 2024, that is not the end of the story. Movements never
proceed in a straight, simple, or easy path. The brave Jumma students of the
CHT has never accepted defeat. Time and again, they have risen — and in the
future, they will rise again like a volcano, with even greater force.
And when they do, Santu Larma and his faction, along with the military rulers, will be swept away like straw in a flood.
(The End)
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