The Mutiny (25th-26th Feb)

Some of you no doubt caught the BBC’s rather sensationalist coverage of the mutiny of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) which began on Wednesday. Given that I was in Dhaka when this occurred, just down the road from the BDR headquarters, I sort of hoped that I’d be able to write a riveting, real-time piece about what was going on. However, as it happens, being privy to an unfolding drama is not quite as dramatic as you might think. In reality, there was a lot of confusion and uncertainty about what was going on, a lot of rumours that turned out to be false, and a lot of waiting around with strict instructions not to step outside except in case of emergency. In short, although it was initially quite a surprise to be woken by the crackle of gunfire on Wednesday morning, and quite worrying to be escorted home, 20 metres from the office, on Thursday afternoon, the last two days were actually quite tedious…

I woke up early on Wednesday morning because the power, and thus the fans, went off, and it quickly became too hot to sleep. With the fans off, in my still sleep-befuddled state, I’m pretty sure I heard a distant rattling that, looking back, was probably gunfire. However, I didn’t think anything of it then, just rolled out of bed to take a cold shower.

The first real indication that something was up came midmorning, while I was in the throes of a hair-tearingly boring VSO review. Mamun, my Programme Manager, began to get messages and phone calls from friends and relatives, all with different stories, but all suggesting that something bad was afoot at the BDR cantonment. News filtered in slowly to VSO: there were lots of conflicting stories, and at first I felt nothing more than a mild interest – it seemed like just another episode of distant political wrangling that had no effect on me. But soon there were rumours of officers being shot, civilians being killed, bodies lying in the streets. It gradually dawned on us that this – whatever it was – was going to be serious.

It had never occurred to me before that you could be so close to the epicentre of something like this and still have absolutely no clue what was going on. When I say ‘close’, I’m not exaggerating much: the BDR headquarters are right beside Rifle Square market, the shopping complex where I buy my knock-off DVDs and where my family stayed when they were in Dhaka, all a 10-minute rickshaw ride from the VSO office. Yet no-one seemed to know what was happening. My colleagues were on their phones to contacts in the national newspapers, friends and family in the military, contacts in the government, anyone who might have an insight into what exactly was happening within the walls of the cantonment. But no-one could say with any authority what was going on. All we had were stories, rumours and theories.

(Incidentally, it seems now that the main grievances were about pay and conditions, and the leadership structure of the BDR. BDR officers are drawn from the main army, while the BDR itself is a separate border force that gets paid significantly less than the army, and has pretty much no opportunity for advancement because of the recruitment system. Given the current economic problems and the spiralling price of food in Bangladesh, the BDR’s tiny salaries have become more and more of a pittance, and it’s thought that this more than anything else was the mutineers’ motivation. At the time there were rumours of encouragement by the opposition, but it now seems that this was all hot air. However, the brutality of some of the mutineers’ tactics have left many questions about what they were hoping to achieve – questions that are now being investigated by the government. As mass graves are discovered and bodies pulled from surrounding sewers, these questions are likely to get louder and more insistent.)

Anyway, back to Wednesday afternoon: amidst talk of a curfew being declared by the government after lunch, VSO decided to send us home. Although the curfew never materialised, we all went home anyway and spent an agreeable afternoon playing cards and drinking beer (acquired – in violation of warnings – by Ollie, in the fastest trip on record to the duty free shop, thanks to the lack of traffic on the roads). Clearly, we VSO volunteers know how to make the best of a bad situation…

During the night, I was glued to the online versions of The Daily Star, an English-medium national newspaper; VSO also kept us up-to-date with the latest developments via their emergency number. It seemed, reassuringly, that the Prime Minister’s offer of an amnesty was going to be accepted by the mutineers, and we were given a tentative all-clear around midnight, although this was accompanied by a warning to wait for confirmation in the morning before leaving for work.

As I walked to the office the next morning the streets were quiet, but not so much as to arouse suspicion: it seemed that things were going to be okay.

But unfortunately this wasn’t to be. In a chilling repeat of the day before, another workshop was interrupted midmorning by the VSO staff being called to an emergency meeting. It turned out that the army was not happy with Hasina’s deal, given that more than a hundred officers were still missing, and was preparing to attack the BDR headquarters. Rumours that tanks were rolling down Satmasjid road towards the cantonment (literally a stone’s throw from the VSO flat where I was supposed to be staying with two other volunteers) brought a growing realisation that the situation was different from the previous day. The tension was visible on the faces of my friends and colleagues, and in the fact that we were allowed to use the office phone to call home and reassure our families (although how reassuring it is to be woken at 7am and told that your child is safe from a threat you didn’t know existed is debatable). When VSOB insisted on escorting Megan, Laura and myself from the office to Job’s flat, a distance of roughly twenty metres, I began to wonder if we were actually in real danger.

However, what actually happened was that we spent another afternoon cooped up in the flat, watching Gossip Girl and cooking. VSOB gave us strict orders not to go outside, but by evening I was so sick of being inside that I was half-tempted to head down to Rifle Square to see for myself what the deal was. Despite what was going on just down the road, the night passed uneventfully in Lalmatia.

By morning, things appeared to be back to normal. VSO texted to say that the situation had normalised, Sheikh Hasina’s skilful negotiation and firm handling of the situation had resolved the crisis, and both sides were backing down. Apart from a momentary wobble on Friday night, which did nothing more than derail our plans to go to a party at the British High Commission, life in Dhaka had very much gone back to normal.

Despite my personal experience of tedium at a safe remove from events, the situation in Dhaka this week was obviously very serious. The still-unknown number of dead, and the uncertainty over why and how the mutiny occurred, indicates this clearly. Since its independence in 1971, coups have not been uncommon in Bangladesh: it would have been another blow for the country’s struggling democracy had things this week spiralled completely out of control. Hasina’s government has only been in power for a month, and when reports of the mutiny began to emerge, it seemed like just another in a long list of obstacles for Bangladesh: had the events been badly handled, it’s not difficult to imagine a repeat of previous experiences.

But the mutiny did not blossom into a coup or even a serious challenge to the government’s authority. Because of this, some commentators are calling it a ‘triumph’ for Bangladeshi democracy. I’m not sure I’d go that far: that the situation emerged at all is testament to the shortcomings of the country’s democratic development. However, that the new government managed to prevent the mutiny from mutating into anything more serious is a significant achievement on its part. And for this reason, if it is capable of maintaining political stability in the long term and not allowing problems such as this from triggering a descent into chaos, perhaps the way might be paved for the future triumph of democracy in Bangladesh.