The Shahbag protest and imagining an “ideal” Bangladesh

Abstract

This chapter discusses how the Shahbag protest demanding justice in the face of genocide became a political struggle that involved a return to the moment of Bangladesh’s independence-itself a violent conflict-to interrogate the ways in which Partition has produced unstable contexts which propagate violence, trauma and ultimately a form of failure. The question addressed is as follows: how did the memories of the Liberation War and war crimes inform the consciousness of the generation that took part in the protest? The essay examines how individuals attempted to construct an ‘imagined community’ of the nation through pro-Shahbag blogs. Further to this, I discuss the emergence of Bengali blogs in which individual accounts of national belonging received a platform for expression in Bangladesh, articulating new ideas of an ‘ideal’ Bangladesh. How does the imagination of this ‘ideal’ Bangladesh help to create the momentum necessary to organise resistance? This chapter will suggest that the past represents a point of tension between the state and contemporary protest.