Bangladesh: In the burning of the Bangabandhu Museum, embers of a multilayered history

As the flames spread, our caretaker Mizan ran from our home in Dhanmondi to Road 32. Intuitively remembering that my academic research was in the history archives, he went inside, rescued a few scraps of paper and called me to say he had Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s handwritten letters. After he sent me images over WhatsApp, I had to let him know that he had risked his safety for a mirage. The dates on these letters, under cursive Bengali, were 1992 – in that chaotic scene of arson, Mizan had actually wandered into the caretaker’s office. The actual museum inside the house had already been burnt to embers and every piece of historical ephemera was destroyed.

Attacks on state buildings after the dramatic collapse of the Awami League government are understood as the expression of people’s fury at an oppressive state and its endless circumnavigation around one-name history. Given the very recent insensitive expressions of government mourning for infrastructure but not student lives, it is challenging to now explore empathy for state structures facing the wrath of those mourning their dead. But I wonder if any of the arsonists at Road 32 paused to think that they may be burning down their own...

Read more