Exactly one year ago, on 3 July, 2024, thousands of students from universities and colleges gathered at Dhaka’s Shahbagh intersection for the third day in a row.
Campuses turned into protest grounds as thousands took to the streets, blocking highways, staging sit-ins, and marching in unison under the banner of “Boishommo Birodhi Chhatra Andolon” (Anti-Discrimination Students’ Movement).
Students from Dhaka University, Jagannath University, Eden College, Dhaka College, and many others joined the protest. In the afternoon, they marched from their dormitories and campuses and gathered at Shahbagh, chanting slogans. Their main demand was to bring back the 2018 government order that had cancelled the quota system and introduced merit-based recruitment.
This new wave of protest started after a High Court ruling on June 5, 2024. The verdict declared illegal the 2018 government circular that had scrapped 56 percent of quotas in civil service, including 30 percent reserved for freedom fighters’ descendants. The court’s decision restored the previous system, much to the dismay of job-seeking students preparing under a merit-based expectation.
In response, the protesters announced four demands. Their top demand was to cancel the court’s verdict and fully bring back the merit-based system from 2018.
“We don’t want a quota system that ignores talent. We will continue this movement until this injustice is removed,” a student leader had said from Dhaka University during the protest.
This protest reminded many of the major student movement in 2018 that had pushed the government to cancel the quota system back then. But the 2024 court ruling undid that decision, creating frustration and anger among today’s job seekers.
At the time, the government did not immediately respond to the protest. However, the Ministry of Public Administration stated that the old quotas would stay unless a higher court overturned the verdict.