In early July, a university student protest began over Bangladesh’s job quota system that disproportionately benefits the descendants of Bangladesh’s 1971 liberation war fighters, which many students view as unfair and outdated.

The Bengalis took great pride in their culture and language which, with its Bengali script and vocabulary, was unacceptable to the West Pakistani elite, who believed that it had assimilated considerable Hindu cultural influences. West Pakistanis, in an attempt to “Islamise” the East, wanted the Bengalis to adopt Urdu.