THE Appellate Division has revoked the High Court verdict of June 5 that ordered the government to reinstate 30 per cent of civil service job reservations for the children and grandchildren of freedom fighters. The appeals court in its verdict after hearing two petitions on July 21 brought down the civil service job reservations from 56 per cent to 7 per cent, in the light of the demands of protesters seeking reforms in the reservations. With the order set in force, 93 per cent of the civil service jobs will have to be based on merit. The 7 per cent of job reservations include 5 per cent for the children of freedom fighters, 1 per cent for people from national minorities and 1 per cent for people with disabilities and the third gender. This is a moral victory of the students, who have held protests since July 1, although the students sought no resolution of the issue from the court, but the executive and by an act of law. Yet, on part of the government, this is bowing down to the demands of the student protesters. The earlier 56 per cent reservations had 10 per cent of the civil service jobs reserved for women, which the verdict has abolished. We believe that that job reservations for women should have been there.
The court, noticeably, has given its verdict, after the hearing, the time, the day and the way that the government has earlier said that the court would. But, meanwhile, at least 135 people 鈥� students on protests seeking reforms in job reservations and people 鈥� died in attacks on the protests by the Awami League鈥檚 fronts Chhatra League and Juba League, the police, Ansars personnel and border guards in five days beginning on July 16. The Awami League鈥檚 general secretary Obaidul Quader, who is also the roads and bridges minister, who said that the Chhatra League was enough to counter the protesters and asked the Leaguers to confront the protesters, and the home minister Asaduzzaman Khan, who ordered law enforcement units to attack the protesters, have presided over the death of such a large number of people. The court has not made any observations on this episode in the short verdict. Now after the verdict of the appeals court, it is difficult to say whether the protesters would leave the streets and is equally difficult for the protesters to agree to go back home, as the government has asked them to do, as the protesters have earlier sought that the prime minister would offer an apology for what has happened, the home minister would resign shouldering the responsibility, all murders that took place centring around the protests would be credibly investigated and all perpetrators should be brought to justice.
But the government, meanwhile, appears to have no room for complacence that it has 鈥榮uccessfully鈥� contained the unrest born out of the quota reforms issue, as the remaining demands of the students still remain legitimate and, therefore, valid. The government seems to have resorted to the tactic of dividing the leaders of the protests to rule the campuses. Such a 鈥榗olonial鈥� tactic might help in the short run, but it is destined, in the long run, to fail. The government would, in such a situation, do well in, rather, taking action on all the fronts that the protesters have talked about.
