We, the Women

The number of casualties in Bangladesh would have been much higher had women not taken to the streets in such large numbers. A first-person account

- Shahinur Sumi

WHEN the July 1 high court order reinstating 30 per cent job quotas for freedom fighters' family members triggered the movement, students initially demanded the abolition of all reservations. However, on July 5, students decided to ask for quota reforms instead of abolition. We agreed that socioeconomically disadvantaged communities like tribal groups required reservation but the third generation of freedom fighters do not deserve any reservation.

Thereafter, attacks on student agitators, first on July 15 by the Chhatra League, the student wing of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League party, and then by the police, July 16 onwards, transformed the movement. It became a movement to fight an authoritarian force trying to silence dissent once again. I, too, was injured in the July 15 attacks and was admitted to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital after falling unconscious.

It was at this point that the movement spread among the masses. It was an outburst of people's agitation against 15 years of fascist rule. It turned into a mass movement, with all sections of society joining in.