Their home country is in upheaval thousands of miles away, but Bangladeshis in Philadelphia remain optimistic

Naimul Islam, a University City resident, hadn’t heard from any of his friends and family in Bangladesh for over a week. The country where he was born and raised was in the middle of a violent upheaval, and its internet and communication networks were shut down by the government. All he could do was follow the news and videos trickling in on social media.

“It was exhausting and tiring. I was literally on my phone and watching news 24 hours. It was a very stressful situation,” said Islam, a community engagement specialist for the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health. He said he couldn’t believe how quickly the situation in Bangladesh had changed.

“Like 20 days ago, this government looked like they’re so powerful and they’re invincible,” he said.

That is no longer the case. Over the past month and a half in the South Asian country, there have been nationwide protests, hundreds of unarmed people killed by the country’s police force, and its long-standing prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, was ousted and replaced with an interim government.

According to Pew, there are at least 7,000 Bangladeshi people living in Philadelphia. Islam said there could be as many as four times that in the Philadelphia region. In 2022, they successfully advocated for the Bangladeshi flag to be raised at City Hall for the Philadelphia Honors Diversity Flag Raising Program to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence from Pakistan.

Members of this community have felt a mix of intense emotions while the situation thousands of miles away has changed rapidly. Anxiety, uncertainty, as well as gratitude and appreciation for the young generation of Bangladeshis who have led this movement.

“We are saying that this is our second independence,” said Md. Karimuzzaman, a Bangladeshi Ph.D. student at Drexel University.

The unrest began in June, when students in Bangladesh protested the country’s quota system for government jobs. By law, 30% of those highly sought-after positions were reserved for descendants of freedom fighters in Bangladesh’s 1971 war for independence from Pakistan. The protesters argued that the quota system disproportionately benefitted people who already were among the country’s upper class. The quota and others for marginalized groups meant less than half of civil service jobs were awarded based on merit.

In July, Bangladesh’s security force responded to the protests with violence. Hundreds of people were killed, including some children, and thousands more were injured or arrested. What began as a protest of a discriminatory jobs system became a broader fight against Hasina, her autocratic rule, and widespread corruption.

“I think everyone [in the] Bangladeshi community here was so anxious at the very beginning of the movement. We call it the July Massacre. When it happened, everyone was traumatized,” Karimuzzaman said. He was one of the students who led a demonstration of over 100 people at Philadelphia City Hall in July, to show support for the protesters and call for an end to the violence. “We didn’t concentrate on our work. We [lost] our focus. It’s really impacted our mental health. Everyone was so tense,” he said.

Even as Hasina’s government instituted internet blackouts and curfews, by Aug. 5, demonstrations swelled. Protesters stormed her official residence in Dhaka, the country’s capital, causing her to resign after 15 years in power and to flee to India.

Philadelphia City Councilmember Nina Ahmad, a Bangladeshi immigrant, said she and other Philadelphia Bangladeshis were troubled by what they were seeing and hearing from their home country.

“Our Bangladeshi American communities stateside are very worried about the upheaval in our country of origin. Having survived the bloody war of Liberation of Bangladesh and experienced the postwar chaos, I deeply empathize with all who are picking up the pieces to restore peace and order in Bangladesh,” she said in a statement to The Inquirer.

“I have seen the resilience and grit of the people of Bangladesh, and I am sure Bangladesh will emerge stronger from this crisis, with democracy intact and civil society restored,” she said.

“That’s a dictatorship they [had],” said Mohammad Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi immigrant in West Philly. “Nobody can own the country.”

Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s founding father and its first president.

Bangladesh is in more stable position now. It has an interim government, led by Nobel Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus, and people are returning to their daily lives. Bangladeshi students are now taking on some of the country’s major leadership roles as well as more mundane ones like directing traffic.

But there is still some cause for concern for Philly’s Bangladeshis. There are reports of people committing retaliatory violence, including against Hindus who are a religious minority, and some members of Hasina’s party remain in power. Bangladeshis in the city said they were pleased with the initial steps that the interim government has been taking to regain normalcy and establish democratic rule, but also acknowledged that the situation remains fragile.

“They have a big challenge to fix this … [there’s] lots of holes in Bangladesh to fix up,” said Ibrul Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi immigrant, medical scientist, and health-care consultant living in Lansdowne.

“The movement is one thing. Running a country is a different thing,” Islam said.

To Ziauddin Ahmed, this movement in Bangladesh is distinct from its fight for independence in 1971. He knows because he was there. When the Temple Health nephrologist was an 18-year-old medical student in Bangladesh, he became a resistance fighter when the war broke out. Ahmed said it feels very different to win your freedom from a foreign army than from an autocratic ruler within.

But what is the same is his love for his country, and his optimism for its future. He was at the student-led demonstration at City Hall last month, and said he felt proud of this younger generation of Bangladeshis.

“What is best for the country is [what’s] important,” he said. “Not for a few people.”