From Omi:
Dear Faustina,
I was planning to answer your mail much earlier . But it seems that we
needed time , because of the issues you mentioned in your mail. We
from Counter Foto sat, discussed, had debates and came to a conclusion
which is mentioned below. We have had several visits to Kansat,
interviewed people, talk to many in the capital city. And to be honest
this process is going still strong. We are now ready to write the
script , then we will send it to all the involved organizations .After
everyone gives a feedback , we will finalize the script , and
hopefully start shooting from the first week of next month.
Our observations about Kansat:
The people of Kansat involved in the movement were clearly conscious
about the position of govt. through the behavior of the police and
the local authority as they had appeared as the govt. representative.
Government, specially the local negotiator Rajshahi City Mayor Mr.
Minu thought people would be scared of as police fire on them. They
were wrong. People burst out to the protest in stead of leaving the
battle field, and they didn’t hesitate to stand infront the bullets.
People of Kansat say that, Govt. stand against the people who elected
them in order to favor a company who are making business through
cheating people. They are very proud now to declare that they have no
interest to cast their vote for neither ‘Dhaner Shish’ nor “Nauka’. So
they are now really ready to confront the state repression.
In the view of the larger context of the Bangladeshi politics, people
are not in the centre in their consideration, people are only to cast
vote. So people have nothing but to come out to the protest this
certain manner. No
political party could take even a very small part or to express
solidarity in these incidents, leading is a very far concern. It is
not a matter to be happy that no political party were involved in the
incidents, rather it is unfortunate that the views of the political
parties are too poor to hold the people’s voice.
In kansaat, a big change appeared in the view of the upcoming national
election. People hope Mr. Rabbani will compete in the election and
they are not to be happy to see that only ‘Nauka’ and ‘Dhaner Shish’
are in front of them to have their vote. They want to say good bye
to the both in the coming election.
There is a clear class difference in kansat in the participation in
the protest programs. Most of the people that were involved in the
movement are poor and from labor or peasant class. Middle class
participation is a very rare and exceptional case. There are many
students in Rajshahi
University, who are from Kansat, were in Kansat then as the
university was closed then, but didn’t take part in the movement. All
that are died and seriously wounded are from very poor family. It is
not just incidental. Rather, it proves many calculations and brings
many different dimensions in front of our eyes.
May be, Mr. Rabbani is a people from a middle class family, but people
didn’t hesitate to accept him as a leader as he was involved in the
initiative of agitating electricity from very earlier. Moreover, he is
a very pro-people person.
There were some differences in the feeling of the quantitative and
qualitative necessity of the electricity and its uses. We, the urban
middle class will hardly be able to feel the necessity of electricity
of the Kansatbashi. They even don’t bother in case of the failure of
electricity in home uses like light or fan or TV. They felt that their
food that is going to be allocated for the whole coming year is going
to be spoiled due to the absence of the electricity for irrigation.
Then they had nothing do but to come down in the street and protest.
That’s why they didn’t hesitate to stand over open fire
“,1] ); //–>sacrificing themselves.
We are bound to undertake the historical account of how Kansat
happened, what happened and where it went.
We are not going to show the parallel comparisons of other right based
issues happening in Bangladesh, rather we want to draw an overall and
comprehensive conclusion, how and on what pre-conditions a movement
could reach to the goal, how middleclass are unsuccessful to create
and lead a people based and right based movement. How politics and
political parties are very far from the people and serving the
business companies and their interests.
