The Anti-discrimination Student Movement in Bangladesh garnered support of a wide number of people in a remarkably short time, which led them to victory at a lightning speed. This movement has raised the hope of democratic rights, human dignity, freedom of speech, economic equity and political equality in the hearts of people. These golden moments are rare to visit a population in history. Yet this like the previous ones also contains some significant weaknesses.

Its strength, however, has been mostly derived from some conspicuously big faults of the Hasina government. That government had many power at its disposal to suppress the movement and it wielded many of these such as sticks and guns in the hands of its legal and illegal forces. Yet they fell down like a house of cards because of their lack of legitimacy in the minds of people. Their alienation from the mass, leadership's detachment from the grassroots, staying in power without elections, looting of state money, big scale corruption, ludicrous boastfulness of holding power for decades to come, etc. made their fall so rapid and disastrous. In addition to these, dividing the people into Muktijoddha and Rajakar (freedom fighters vs. collaborators) camps was a dirty game they played for years in power, which ultimately went against their own existence.

Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, despite being a renowned, well-respected and popular writer in the country, fell into this trap of dividing people into two warring camps. Being in the government chorus team gave him an easy ride ensuring financial and other successes in life. Many like him, therefore, were in slumber of comforts and so egregiously failed to be one with the change of historical course. This is not unnatural for intellectuals in society, but they later earn hatred from the new generation sitting at the helm of change. The age-old problem is lack of hardness in their backbones. Mass people expect iron-hard backbones in their favorite intellectuals and they usually lose heart discovering the shocking absence of it. Losing heart sometimes steps on the border of craziness and that is what happened in the social media call for burning books authored by Muhammed Zafar Iqbal.

His role during the student movement was so despicable as to raise doubt about existence of any spine in his back. Not only that, he behaved quite unteacherlike with his students who once adored him greatly. He showed them his back when they were targets of attack by the squads of death unleashed on the streets. For his derogatory comment about the rebellious students, many publishers and bookshops declared that they would remove his books from their shelves. To sell or not to sell someone's book is the right they fully possess. To read or not to read books written by some authors is an inviolable right of any man and woman. I myself read his novel Dipu Number Two with a lot of fascination and later read a couple more. Then I lost interest in his writings, but thought and still think that his books are important for building minds of the young generation into a positive, scientific and patriotic mold. His writings are easy, attractive, imaginative and favorite to children and adolescents of the country. This contribution to building a generation with open mindedness, curiosity and love for knowledge is enormous and he deserves genuine credit for this. Call for burning his books even in a symbolic way does not augur well for intellectual development in society.

It would have not gone to this sad extent if the rebellious students had brought to their minds the words of Ahmed Sofa pronounced just after independence of Bangladesh. Sofa wrote in 1972 in his book of essays, Buddhibrittir Natun Binyas, which has become one of the most quoted lines in our time: "Bangladesh would not have achieved independence if people had listened to what the intellectuals used to say. If people believe what they are saying now, there won't be any radical change in the structure of society."

To the great happiness of Sofa as well as ours, today's students also did not pay heed to what Muhammed Zafar Iqbal said and expected from them. Sofa lamented how intellectuals of his time had been singing the praise of the state policy without limit. They wrote stories, novels, poetry, history, even textbooks from primary to university levels, all to make the powerful happy. The condition is almost the same now, too. The same with Muhammed Zafar Iqbal and so the fire of anger thrown against his books, which are, on the contrary, well readable and worthy for young minds.

The fire of anger has clearly been misplaced. It is inconsistent with the spirit of this revolutionary change in the country. Burning of books is a medieval culture practiced by rapacious armies occupying foreign countries and looting other people's properties. Any seed of such medieval intention in our minds is alarming and must not be associated with the current generation of students who are the maker of this remarkable history.

The more important tasks that are on their hands is to remove all undemocratic practices, fascist attitudes, autocratic mentality and so many other evils attached with past regime from all sectors and institutions of the country. Let's finish this piece of writing by quoting from the last page of Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela, one of the greatest leaders in the twentieth century: "I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity."

The nation cannot move a step ahead by practicing what leaders of the fallen regime used to do. The last line of this great book worth remembering again and again is: "But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended."

The revolutionary students of today's Bangladesh have far more important tasks than occupying themselves with acts more suited to the regime fallen ungraciously to the ground and shown through the exit. Let's move forward with the new vision of building a better state.

The writer is Editor, Biggan O Sangskriti (a little magazine)