The morning of July first started like any other day for the protesters who were protesting against the High Court's rule that reinstated the freedom fighter quota for government jobs (grades 9 to 13).
When the High Court gave this verdict on June 5, declaring a 2018 ruling that cancelled quotas as illegal, protests surged immediately. Protesting students submitted a memorandum on June 9 to the attorney general, and the Supreme Court's Appellate Division set July 4 for hearing the state's petition to suspend the High Court's quota reinstatement ruling.
On July 1, students at Dhaka University and other universities across the country started protesting in demand of the reinstatement of the quota cancellation circular. At the DU rally, students demanded a final resolution by July 4. During this time, the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement announced a three-day programme including a mass rally the next day.
Their four demands were: The 2018 circular that cancelled the quota system in government jobs and established merit-based recruitment must be upheld; based on the 2018 circular, a commission should be formed to remove unreasonable and discriminatory quotas from government jobs, and the quota system should be reduced to a minimum level including only disadvantaged groups as defined by the Constitution; quota benefits should not be used multiple times in government job recruitment exams, and if qualified candidates are not found under a quota, the vacant positions should be filled based on merit; effective measures must be taken to ensure a corruption-free, neutral, and merit-based bureaucracy.
Although the turnout on the first day was small, the organisers were hopeful that the movement would gain strength. In the following days, their hopes started to materialise on the streets.
The student protests were also taking place amid wider unrest in the public education sector. At that time, strikes by teachers and staff had brought 35 public universities across the country to a halt, as they opposed the newly introduced Prottoy Universal Pension Scheme. This ongoing disruption added to the urgency and frustration felt by students on campus.
But it would be fair to say that on July 1, 2024, no one among the general public, most of whom would take to the streets by the end of the month, would have thought that this was when history began to change for Bangladesh.
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