The day Shaikh Haseena fled from Dhaka I was in Bangladesh. I saw sloganeering, jeering, rowdy crowds cheering the opposition and overall chaos that ensued. It all started on 17th July 2024. I went to teach on a sabbatical to the students of the

Asian University for Women

, Chittagong,

Bangladesh

on 30th May 2024. Initially, it was great and I explored the country and the city as a newcomer would.

My family accompanied me and we travelled to Cox Bazar beach, then to Dhaka on the road.

Chittagong

port is huge and the city is bustling. Dhaka looked like the Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai, India. The area we lived in in Bangladesh was Banani, a tony upscale part of the city. Traffic was chaotic, and the heat was oppressive but it felt nice. We did Jamdani saree shopping and ate Hilsa, the queen of the Padma River. My family left for Kolkata and I settled back in Chittagong, as my teaching began. Since it is a university for women my students were all girls and oh, boy they came from societies which are oppressive and some from warzones like Afghanistan or Sri Lanka. They had a difficult past and teaching them gave me a sense of purpose in life. By my lectures, I did not only teach but offered them hope which stokes their fire in the belly. It was a fulfilling humanitarian experience I had. I have been a teacher since 2004 but this time it was different. I had always taught students who mostly came from advantaged backgrounds, few students I had dealt with were from disadvantageous sections of the society. But these girls, some of them were rescued from warzones, some of them were fatherless, and some of them came from countries unheard of like East Timor. So it was a challenge as well as a fulfilment to teach them and buoy their optimism.

The trouble began on the 17th of July when the Haseena government increased the quota of jobs for freedom fighters’ progeny. Students were up in arms, and almost 250 students were killed in a police attack. There was an internet outage for six days, and ISD calls between my family and me were patchy. There was a curfew. I completely stopped going out from the campus on the 18th of July; it was unsafe for everybody to venture out, particularly the foreigners. The Asian University has 750 Afghan refugees, 400 Rohingya refugees and more than 50 foreign teachers, some from USA and UK. So the campus in Chittagong was sealed, however, food was available in the canteen and groceries and veggies could be bought from an internal shop and push carts. From the evening of the 24th of July, the internet was restored and mobile data was usable. The government rolled back the quota reforms and I thought things would be normal. Curfew was relaxed from 10 am to 4 pm in the beginning, then from the 27th of July, the relaxation was from 8 am to 6 pm. However, things heated up again on the 30th of July. Student-leaders were detained by detectives and the protesting students now wanted their leaders to be released and families who lost their children to be compensated for the loss of lives. The opposition parties jumped in, they all proposed civil disobedience from the 1st of August. From the 2nd of August, I heard huge crowds were fighting in GEC More, New Market, Tigerpass area of Chittagong. Despite heavy rains on Friday, just after namaaz, there were heavy crowds and rallies on the streets of Bangladesh. I went out to eat lunch with a friend on Saturday 9the 3rd of August) in Copper Chimney, GEC More but got stuck due to a rally. Then we went shopping in Sanmar Ocean City but the shutters were down for half an hour due to rallies. We were scared. I returned home in the evening. On Sunday, the 4th of August, the situation worsened with crowds going out of hand. There was sloganeering, jeering, lathi-charge and firing in the New Market area of Chittagong. My passport went for visa renewal in the last week of July and I now wanted my passport back. Riyaz, the university logistics manager, helped us in obtaining our passports. On his way, he was stopped due to firing. He could not come home that night, he stayed at a friend’s place. I admired the dutifulness of Riyaz and gifted him cash because a passport was essential for leaving the country which I had decided after a call to the Indian Embassy in Chittagong on Sunday afternoon. When I called the attaché’ on 30th July he suggested me to stay back since he thought things would be better. However, on Sunday (4th August) when I called him he seemed panicked and told me to leave ASAP. He was also worried since I told him my passport is not in my hand. The place was tense Sunday night because the students planned a long march to Dhaka on Sunday night.
Then came the day of 5th August which I shall never forget. We had breakfast in the faculty lounge and Sanaul Karim handed me over the ticket for my early exit to Kolkata that morning, Shama apu helped me with ticketing. Sanaul Karim is an FBI-trained personnel and he seemed panicked. He told me to leave ASAP. The situation was worsening every hour. I packed my bags by Monday morning, the ticket was in and I was about to leave on Tuesday (6th August) early morning. By 1.30 pm I went to the nearest ATM to withdraw cash, in the worst-case scenario cash is more important. The roads were empty, the situation was serious. The campus was already heavily guarded. However, within an hour by 2.30 pm there was jubilation on the road. Local channels showed that Bangladesh PM Shaikh Haseena has resigned and fled. Now, we were all sitting in front of a TV in the faculty lounge. The internet was out from Sunday night. Monday morning there was a total internet outage. Suddenly after 2.30 PM the internet was restored and I called home. My wife was panicking the entire episode, through patchy ISD calls we connected in the last 2 weeks and she was worried about my well-being. I started receiving calls and messages from friends and family from India. People were rejoicing on the streets. Shops opened. Cars started plying on the streets. Little did I know what awaited me on Tuesday morning.

I woke up at 4 am on Tuesday 6th August and got ready. We were transported to the airport by an Ambulance. I spotted burnt cars on the way. There was zero traffic in that wee hour. The real trouble began after we reached the airport. There were few students leaving for Nepal via Dhaka, one professor to Sharjah and another British citizen to Dubai via Dhaka. Since Dhaka airport was closed all the flights were cancelled, and the airport authority was initially not allowing anyone to enter the airport. However, after pleading and prodding the passengers were allowed entry after 7.30 am. I was stranded outside the airport from 5.30 am, then US Bangla airline announced their flight to Kolkata was on time. I jumped and entered the airport. Immediately after check-in, I was still anxiously waiting in the lounge, thinking ‘What if the flight didn’t take off?’ There was only one aircraft standing on the tarmac. However, by 10.30 am they started boarding, and there were Bangladeshi passengers also flying to Kolkata for medical check-ups. That was the most harrowing flight I had ever taken in my entire life. The moment the flight landed in Kolkata I felt a sense of relief in my mind. Never before had I liked Kolkata so much. I deplaned and collected my baggage. The customs officers and airport authority came and spoke to me asking about my well-being. They told me, “No baggage check at customs, just go home and recover from the trauma”. I came home and home never felt so safe and happy.

I never expected an event like this will happen when I stepped in Bangladesh. I never knew I would see a government topple and change in regime in a foreign land under such a dramatic and harrowing turn of circumstances. It was drama all the time since 17th July. My pulse shot up, I was scared, I had sleepless nights and the place did nothing to inspire confidence. My friends and family panicked and constantly tried to contact me. Whenever the internet was available, my wife called up at the Chittagong Indian Embassy and asked about my well-being. Some relatives and friends started praying for me. I thank them all from the bottom of my heart and I thank the Asian University officials who helped in my safe passage to India.
In the end, I must tell you apart from a few days I never felt and spoke about Bangladesh, it is their country’s citizens who will decide their fate and who am I to comment on who is right and who is wrong? And the students I taught were from diverse countries and communities, teaching whom I felt pleased. But I can never forget what happened to me in those three weeks, starting from 17th July 2024. Indians must know what a beautiful country we have where the rule of law is supreme and freedom of speech is unrivalled. I came from a country back where students gave their lives for upholding the freedom of speech. I returned from a country where mayhem and bloodshed were regular and where the military took over the country. I now celebrate the greatness of India. A blood-stained change of fascist regime in a foreign land taught me to value what we have the most in India- “Peace”.
(Authored by: Dr Biswa Prasun Chatterji, PhD (IIT Bombay), Professor, Faculty of Science, Assam down town University, Guwahati, India; Global Visiting Professor, Asian University for Women, Bangladesh).