The student uprising that ousted Bangladesh’s fascist prime minister cum dictator Sheikh Hassina on 5 August 2024 has continued to articulate its aims in terms of abolishing inequalities based on any and all forms of discrimination. While an interim government has been formed and includes representatives of, for example, the student movements, civil society organisations and some Indigenous communities from the Chittagong Hill Tracts, representation for Bangladesh’s tea garden workers, remains absent.

Watching Baganiya, we understand why. The film deals with the 150-year-old inequalities of tea garden workers (self-titled as baganiya) labouring in the Champarai tea estate in the Moulvibazar division of Sylhet, a north-eastern region of Bangladesh. 

Colonial oppression

The tea garden workers were brought here from other parts of India in the 1800s by British imperialists and local middlemen. Originally under the British East India Company, Champarai now belongs to the state owned National Tea Company Limited under the chairmanship of Sheikh Kabir Hossein, a relative of the now ousted but active Sheikh Hassina. 

Though Baganiya precedes today’s revolutionary Bangladesh, its scenes and the communities it represents bear the marks of abuse, neglect and continued colonialism which Bangladesh’s student body is currently, and most visibly, challenging. While the movement was triggered by protests against government job quotas, youth unemployment and middle class wealth disparity, the call for an end to a fascist state not only tackles the dictatorial rule of Sheikh Hassina and the Awami League, but also challenges the state apparatus in the way it has functioned since Bangladesh’s independence in 1971. 

The messages being chanted and painted across the country and diaspora remain clear: the freedom of some cannot be sustainably built on the oppression of another.

Baganiya offers a specific but important position to consider in this moment of social and political change. The colonial oppression of tea garden workers in the country necessarily must be part of the change the revolutionary part of Bangladesh’s population wishes to make. To do this, it is necessary to consider the ways the state relates to these communities and society at large. 

The making of a film

Documentary films about tea communities in Bangladesh are a popular focus for Dhaka-based filmmakers, artists, ethnographers and academics, with many being screened locally at middle class institutions and universities in the capital. Humaira Bilkis’ oeuvre joins this canon. 

I first watched Baganiya in 2019 at the Goethe Institute in Dhaka, a space nestled in the older upper class district of Dhanmondi and a popular space for cultural events visited by local middle class and foreign patrons. The film is remarkable in its use of sound, allowing for minimally edited soundscapes of the natural environment in which the tea trees thrive and the communities labour and live. 

Bilkis makes a point not to over explain, or to provide an overly probing narrative, but rather follows the people she has chosen to focus on, like Padmaluv Bunarjee and Sojoy Yadav, who both answer questions and at other times just allow the camera to join them through their days and thoughts. 

On the one hand, this offers a sense of the tea communities from within their homes, at work in the tea gardens, and over adda (chat, conversation) between duties. But given the asymmetrical power dynamics between the filmmakers—who are ethnically Bangali, of the Muslim majority, educated, middle or upper class, and based in the state capital—and the tea workers, the absence of the filmmakers in Baganiya left me with a sense of unease. Why did they come to the tea gardens? Why then? How did they negotiate their access? How did they nurture their relationships with their interlocutors?

Bilkis describes the way her relationships to her interlocutors developed: “I first came to the tea gardens to make a workshop film that was partly facilitated by an NGO around 2007. I had no intention of making a film.” She was just spending time in the community and slowly their relationship developed. 

“I started making the film much later, in 2015,” she recalls. “I initially wanted to make the film about a young orphan girl who was living in the village on her own, and who was supported by everyone, this was really remarkable for me. But I ended up going to India for a year and when I came back she had fallen in love and left the village.” After that, the subject of her film somehow shifted. “I have most contact with Sojoy, he is very active and politically astute, working in the tea garden labour union himself,” Bilkis explains. 

The focus on Sojoy is palpable in the film—he gives us the political context of the space the film is navigating.

Asymmetrical relationships

The unequal social positioning of Bilkis and the tea garden workers and how this affects their relationships are emblematic of the relations of patronage that develop between people of different classes in South Asia working and/or living together. “When the tea garden workers were on strike a few years ago, they were fighting for a 300 Taka minimum wage (EUR 2.30). Sojoy called me during that time and said ‘we need food’. So we put money together and sent them food so they could continue to live. They only reached a 170 Taka minimum wage (EUR 1.30).” 

For Chandon, a teenage boy avoiding school and whom the film follows mostly through his roaming in the tea gardens, Bilkis and her film crew were actively involved in his future building. “We paid for his college fees, but finally he didn’t go. He works now: we really wanted him to be able to finish school. This is really sad for me.” 

Bilkis is well aware of the asymmetrical relationships and how they are necessary both to support Sojoy, Chandon and the tea garden communities, as well as to provide her subject matter as a filmmaker. Like many in Bangladesh, as the student movement has also shown, she is aware that these relationships do not sustainably ensure the autonomy of those oppressed by state and structural violence. Especially given the historical, colonial nature of the oppression of tea garden communities in Bangladesh, more than social awareness, structural change through state policy is necessary to ensure sustainable change.

Having spent time in Sylhet through friends who have generational ownership of tea gardens or family members who are managing them, I have been part of the power structures that hold up the inequalities I lay out here. Many people escape Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka to Sylhet in order to enjoy time in nature and away from the city. Sylhet is teeming with eco lodges, bed and breakfasts, and large scale resorts catering to domestic tourists, who drive or hike through the tea gardens. What for some is a place of generational oppression becomes a leisurely escape from city life to another. 

“The community in Baganiya is far removed from the dominant tourist trails, though many come to visit the waterfalls close by,” Bilkis describes. People trying to capitalise on the touristic potential of the area come from outside the tea garden communities and are met with resistance. “Sojoy is one of the biggest fighters against building tourist infrastructure in their area. Once a man came from outside trying to convince him that they should build housing for tourists. I was standing on the side with my bags and the man pointed at me and said ‘Look, she has nowhere to stay, if there was housing she could stay there.’ Sojoy laughed and said ‘She’s staying at my place.’” 

A struggle for equality

Sylhet distinguishes itself economically and linguistically from the rest of the country. While the language spoken in the area, Sylheti, is considered by some to be a dialect of Bangla, the national language of Bangladesh, it has a different script and many locals and people in the diaspora argue for Sylheti to be recognised as its own language. The region is also known to be wealthy due to the high remittances sent to communities there from abroad, particularly the UK. Nestled within this region, the tea gardens form a microcosm of isolation not only nationally but regionally also. 

This isolation is central to Baganiya. In the first minutes of the film, Sojoy tells us that the British brought or coerced people from different parts of India to the tea gardens that are now in Bangladesh. These people came from vastly different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, so there was little possibility to unite against their shared oppressors. Bringing communities thousands of miles from their original homes, and further alienating them by denying them land rights or access to social development, left the tea garden communities isolated both from their land, their labour and each other. 

In the context of the revolutionary moment in Bangladesh today, Baganiya inadvertently presents an important question: how can Bangladesh develop equality intersectionally across socio-economic strata, genders, religions and ethnic communities? In retaliation for its downfall, the Awami League has instigated violence against Hindu and other religious minorities (though partly this violence is also ‘organic’). The student movement remarkably responded by protecting non-Muslim religious sites, homes and businesses. These are scenes until now unseen in South Asia at this scale. 

The Awami League’s actions show that religious-based violence remains a potential instrument to destabilise community and state. But the actions, art and organising potential of the students and their supporters tell a new story and project a different kind of future. A dismantling of existing power structures should necessarily entail a new beginning for tea garden workers also, no longer defined by their labour alone and state-sanctioned impoverishment, remembered through elite holidays in the tea gardens or film viewings in the city. This, however, is unlikely. 

Asked if the student movement is providing momentum for change for the tea garden communities, Bilkis responds with a bleak outlook. “Unfortunately, I don’t think there is going to be any change for tea garden workers now. The government has been saying for years now that the tea gardens aren’t economically viable.” While their labour has been their yoke for generations, the tea garden workers are also reliant on his labour for their income. Without it, and in the modus operandi of successive and current Bangladeshi governments, they may lose all leverage in their struggle for equality.

BAGANIYA is available for global streaming on Cinelogue– a collaboratively curated streaming platform dedicated to cinema by the Global Majority.

The post Baganiya: The struggle of Bangladesh’s forgotten tea workers – A film review appeared first on Untold.

In practice, this quota has been used predominantly by the ruling Awami League to benefit their own supporters. The Awami League, one of the major political parties and one of the protagonists of the independence struggle, had ruled in an authoritarian manner for a decade under the premiership of Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the ‘founding father’ of modern Bangladesh.

After the protests erupted, Hasina met the students with unprecedented force, first with her private political militia and then the state forces, resulting in the death of hundreds of demonstrators. The sheer cruelty of the response led to widespread anger and waves of protest across the country. 

Sheikh Hasina’s government had faced protests before and consistently resorted to violent suppression. This time, violence proved not to be enough: what began as a student movement in mid-July grew by the first week of August into a widespread people’s revolt, culminating in millions marching to the capital Dhaka, and ultimately forcing the Prime Minister to resign and flee the country. 

A revolution long in the making

As it is often the case, revolutions begin from the simplest demands or a ‘small incident’, and this was no exception. For over a decade, Bangladesh languished under an autocratic regime – democratic processes were strangled, dissenters were forced into exile or killed, elections were rigged, and, most importantly, the country became a key site for neoliberal capitalist exploitation. 

Socio-economic indexes often tell us an opposite story of reality. According to the World Bank, Bangladesh “tells a remarkable story,” elevating itself from one of the poorest countries in the world to a middle-income country. 

But, as it often happens, data can be deceiving. One of the major developments is that the country has become the textile hub of the world since the early 2000s. In fact, it is likely that you are reading this text while wearing a t-shirt produced in Bangladesh. Textile production reached its peak in the last decade. According to the local Export Promotion Bureau data, in the fiscal year of 2021-22, Bangladesh exported garments worth $42.613 billion, making it the second largest apparel exporter in the world. 

While this meant more wealth in the hands of the capitalist class, the socio-economic situation of workers hardly changed. Thousands of workers died in different accidents in the factories in the last 15 years, as they hardly enjoyed any labor rights and their wages remained stagnant. With almost 85% of the workforce in informal employment, the socio-economic conditions of many in the country have not seen the kind of development described by macrotrends. 

In addition, even though Bangladesh’s GDP growth remained relatively high among developing nations, it largely remained an importing country. Beyond textiles, Bangladesh’s largest export is human capital. Approximately 7.4 million Bangladeshis live abroad, making the country the sixth largest in terms of out-migration globally. The Bangladeshi diaspora, often composed of workers living overseas with limited or no labor rights—and in some cases, without legal documentation—remains a critical financial lifeline for the nation. Each year, they send home $21 billion in remittances, a large segment of Bangladesh’s economy.

Under Sheikh Hasina’s regime, the neoliberal exploitation of natural resources intensified, with the Sundarbans and the Chittagong Hill Tracts becoming major sites of primitive accumulation. Sundarban recently became a site for the most important power plant project in Bangladesh’s recent history, endangering the diverse flora and fauna of the UNESCO heritage site. On the other hand, Chittagong Hill Tracts became the site for uncheckered mining, endangering nature and the indigenous communities living there.   

The role of India

The nature of the current protests, like Bangladesh’s political economy, cannot be fully understood without considering the role of India. The India-Bangladesh relationship is historically complex. Bangladesh was once part of British India and became the eastern province of Pakistan after the partition of 1947. India played a crucial role in Bangladesh’s liberation, hosting the exiled government and ten million refugees, and ultimately assisting the Bangladesh Liberation Army in defeating Pakistan in 1971. 

In the years that followed, India remained a close ally of the Awami League, first during Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s regime (1971-75) and then Sheikh Hasina’s (1996-2001 and 2009-2024). In between, Indo-Bangladesh relations experienced ups and downs. 

What is significant in relation to the July uprising is India’s increasing hegemonic role in Bangladesh’s political economy. Indeed, several infrastructural projects, heavy industries, and a large portion of the Bangladeshi market is under the control of Indian capitalists. A large number of Bangladeshis visit India for healthcare, education, and other reasons, even if the visa regime has become harder over time. This growing influence of the Indian capitalist class in Bangladesh accelerated under Sheikh Hasina’s regime, in exchange for strategic support from the Indian government. 

Sheikh Hasina’s government increasingly came to be seen as a satellite establishment of India, fueling widespread anti-India sentiment, which became a crucial component of the July Movement. Anti-India slogans and posters were ubiquitously present in the demonstrations, following several calls to boycott Indian goods since last year. The growing tension in India against minorities (especially Muslims) under the Hindu nationalist regime also contributed to the anti-India sentiments. 

Troubled past

During the last decade of Hasina’s rule, there was an unprecedented attack on democratic values and procedures. Opposition parties became almost non-existent, with the opposition leader of the right-wing Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Khaleda Zia, placed under house arrest for years. There are claims that the 2018 and 2024 elections were blatantly rigged by the Awami League. Civil society opposition, as well as alternative social and political movements, were brutally suppressed by the police, secret police, and army. Kidnappings, extrajudicial killings, and illegal detentions became everyday occurrences in Bangladesh. Thousands were either killed or imprisoned or forced into exile. No one was spared: intellectuals, journalists, political activists, indigenous rights activists, and climate activists, all faced the same fate. 

Sheikh Hasina’s authoritarian government has maintained its grip on power in Bangladesh not only through the use of violence but also by cultivating a political and historical consensus among the country’s secular and cultural elite. The recent events, and more broadly, the regime of Sheikh Hasina, must be understood within the context of Bangladesh’s history and the ideological battles that have unfolded since 1971.

Though Hasina had little democratic legitimacy, she wielded a certain cultural and ideological authority. Bangladesh has a troubled history and is still grappling with the legacy of the 1971 liberation war. During that war, Awami League and the left parties largely led the struggle against the Pakistani army while Islamist forces acted as collaborators of the Junta, actively participating in the genocide, mass-rape, and other crimes against humanity.

Until 2006, the period from the 1975 assassination of Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the Liberation Movement and the first president – save for the brief period of Sheikh Hasina’s premiership in the late 1990s – is largely perceived as a reversal of many ideals of Bangladesh’s liberation. Linguistic nationalism, secularism, and socialism were abandoned, and the war criminals of 1971 not only roamed freely but became part of the ruling coalition. 

In fact, after the assassination, the collaborators with the Pakistani regime during the liberation war, Jamat-i-Islami, were not only reinstalled by the military government but eventually became part of the government led by Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) between 2001 and 2006. 

Though BNP’s founder Ziaur Rahman was a decorated hero of the liberation war, it was during his military regime that Islamists were handed over the opportunity to return to mainstream politics. 

Therefore, when Sheikh Hasina returned to power in 2009, she had a mandate to complete the ‘unfinished liberation’- punishing the collaborators and assassins of her father, Mujibur Rahman. 

2013 marked the height of post-independence Bengali nationalism, when thousands of students and civilians took to the streets to ensure justice for the 1971 war criminals. Though it was a civil society movement in every sense, Hasina was the ultimate beneficiary, as it provided  her with impunity rooted in her father’s legacy and the Awami League’s role in Bangladesh’s liberation. Hasina capitalized on this by converting the cultural-historical legacy into a political license to silence all opposition, labeling them as anti-liberation forces when necessary. Practically, anyone questioning her authority was automatically branded a traitor to the legacy of liberation. 

At the same time, though Hasina crushed Jamat-i-Islami as a political entity, she did little to stop the increasing Islamization of the country. In fact, she made a tactical alliance with Islamists, allowing them to indoctrinate thousands and alter the social fabric, as long as they did not challenge her political authority. In simpler terms, she allowed Islamists to operate freely within limited political sovereignty, even letting them infiltrate the Awami League’s ranks. Meanwhile, she maintained the façade of being a secular leader, acting as the protector  of minorities and liberal culture, without whom Bangladesh would supposedly become an Islamist state.  

Glimpses of hope in an uncertain future

The larger question that now looms after the collapse of the tyrannical Hasina regime is: in which direction will Bangladesh go? The student movement, which forms the core of the protests, is not a homogenous political force. It lacks organizational structure, political vision, and most importantly, an ideological framework. 

The broad-based, grassroots open alliance that was the strength of the movement could quickly become its weakness unless a progressive political party with a clear agenda emerges, or the existing progressive leftist forces are able to guide the movement in the future, which so far does not look likely. 

In the aftermath of Hasina’s government’s collapse, Islamist forces began wreaking havoc across the country, attacking minorities, destroying “anti-Islamic” sculptures, and toppling statues of Mujibur Rahman. However, the Islamist forces were met with resistance. The progressive section of the movement and common people intervened to stop them together with  minority communities. While these actions provide hope that Bangladesh might not fall into another tyranny, Islamists and the right-wing Bangladesh Nationalist Party remain the strongest organized political forces at the moment.

If there were a free election tomorrow, they would likely win a majority of the seats.    

Another important factor in the future of the country is the role of the United States. We still don’t know whether the US or its allies played a role in supporting the anti government protests, but what is certain is that the regime change plays in favor of the US strategic vision in South Asia. The interim government formed after rounds of negotiation between the army and the protesters is being led by Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel laureate economist, who has close ties with the US establishment. Hasina’s government, because of several historical reasons and geopolitical compulsions, was averse to the US, becoming increasingly close to China. 

At this moment, there are two competing geostrategic projects that are becoming instrumental in navigating diplomatic relations in South and South-East Asia. The first one is China’s Belt and Road initiative, which would invest $40 Billion in Bangladesh reflecting the growing influence China has in the country. The second project is the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) which tried to include Bangladesh in an anti-China alliance. Hasina was cautious and refused to get on board with a blatant anti-China military collaboration. This scenario is likely to change under the new regime, which is already showing more willingness to cooperate with the West.   

In this context, the lack of strong leftist and socialist forces that could have given this movement a more progressive direction is unfortunate. What is needed today is a new progressive political force that could break the cycle of tyranny that has marked the country’s post-independence history to ensure peace, justice, and democracy for all working classes, minorities, and every segment of society. 

However, this does not mean the current movement itself is reactionary. Bangladesh’s working people and democratic public have endured an immensely repressive phase over the last decade. The July Revolution has brought an end to an authoritarian regime, and this achievement deserves recognition and celebration.

The most important decision that the interim government has to make at the moment is when and how they are going to conduct the next election. It is difficult to predict when, but the legitimacy that this government earned through the “revolution” has its own expiry date. Until now, the government has not come up with a concrete roadmap for handing over the power to an elected cabinet. The hope and the relief that came with the change in government will quickly transform into frustration and anger unless the interim government finds a way to ensure a peaceful transition of power to the hands of elected representatives. 

It has been more than a week since the interim government has taken over and the political situation is stabilizing in Bangladesh. The institutions of the state, like the army, judiciary, and the bureaucracy, have not seen any radical reform yet, which can be an indication that the “revolution” has not brought any fundamental change, especially within the state apparatus and the political economy. Unless the interim government succeeds in bringing meaningful changes in the lives of the working classes and addressing the social and economic issues of the majority of Bangladeshis, one may expect there can be another round of protests and growing peoples’ movement and that could be decisive for Bangladesh’s fate. One can only hope that the young generation and the working class who inspired the July movement will soon emerge as a progressive political force that will guide the real changes in Bangladesh. 

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