The man in the middle is Mahfuj Abdullah.
You can say he was the brains behind the Student Revolution. Mahfuj is known for his addabaji and erudition.
He knows about every political group and the political settlements we had since the Partition of British India.
He knows the mental make-up of every political leader in the country.
He has encyclopaedic knowledge of political events and why they succeeded or failed.
I know Mahfuj for over four years. He did a short journalistic stint while he was still a student of law at Dhaka University. His friends including Akhter Hossen or Akram Hossain, pictured here, were heavily involved in the student protest of 2018. Mahfuj was close involved but did not belong to any party. When Akhter and Nahid Islam, the face of the movement, launched Gonotantrik Chhatra Shakti ( Democratic Student Force), Mahfuj took an active interest in the party. They wanted to build a student movement free of any political connection.
When the High Court restored the quotas, Mahfuj, Akhter, Nahid, Asif and Baker Majumder saw the opportunity to organise a successful movement. Newly married Akhter stepped back for his legal practice. Mahfuj became the chief strategist. Nahid and Asif the faces of the movement and Baker the main organiser. But instead of turning the GCS the main frontliners of the movement, Mahfuj and the three came up with the idea to create an umbrella group called the Students Against Discrimination( SAD).
I met Mahfuj early in July when they just launched the Bangla Blockade protests. Mahfuj was hugely euphoric about the success. He wanted to bring in the women and they were pouring in from all corners. At a Shahbagh rally, he told me: Bhai, we came to Shahbagh today. Next month we will be in the Ganobhaban.” He kept his word, but it came five days later. But students said it happened on the 36th July.
Mahfuj’s big strategy was to fix the language of the movement. He worked aggressively to bring disparate group of protesters under the fold. He helped select more than 55 coordinators of SAD. The idea was that if Nahid or Asif or Sargis or Hasnat were arrested, there would be enough people to take the movement forward. They dropped any Islamist keaning student from the list of coordinator or anyone from the JCD, the student group of the BNP, so that the government and the ruling party can’t portray the SAD as a pro-BNP or pro-Jamaat group.
Mahfuj and Nasir Abdullah, a former Chhayra Federation chief, also kept the leftist student groups at bay. There are overwhelming perception among the centrist student that leftists are the B team of the BCL, the student group of the then ruling Awami League party. Only after the movement got some traction and widespread popularity that they brought the leftist groups into the movement. The Islamist students joined the movement only in the last three days of the protests.
In my last write-up about the SAD, I didn’t mention Kahguj’s name because of the pervasive fears that he will be arrested. His friend Akhter was arrested very early and Mahfuj was needed to show the direction from behind the scene. Mahfuj too went into hiding, changing homes every day. He also employed posse of people to ensure that the news of the movement and its every action plan are spread to social media and the local media.
After the overthrow of Hasina, Mahfuj also played a big role in the formation of the interim government. He was in the student negotiation team which held talks with the army chief and the president. Behind the scene they were also holding talks with all the political parties except Awami League to bring acceptable people to the interim government cabinet. Mahfuj thinks his job is still not done. They want to push crucial reforms to restore democracy and create institutions that ensure check and balance in the state. They also want to document every murder committed by Hasina’s security forces during the student carnage.
Right now, Mahfuj wants to get married and complete his masters in law. He is still worried about his security. When I called him at around 1pm, he said he just woke up after a long sleep. “I can see we have a long and hard journey ahead,” he said. “But first I need some sleep”
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By Shafiqul Alam, Ex AFP
