THE Bangladesh Expatriates’ Rights Council’s demand for the recognition of the contribution of the expatriates to the 2024 July uprising, which toppled the authoritarian regime of the Awami League for a decade and a half on August 5, 2024, and their political inclusion in the July national charter 2025 merits justification. The council, a platform of expatriate Bangladeshis, has put forth the demand in a memorandum that it submitted to the national consensus commission on August 19. A delegation of the council handed over the memorandum to a consensus commission member at the commission’s office in the National Assembly Building, noting that expatriate Bangladeshis have played an active role in the July uprising by not sending remittances, with financial backing, by mobilising opinions abroad and with moral support. But the council leaders have expressed their disappointment as the draft July national charter that the consensus commission distributed to the political parties on August 17 has not included any specific proposals for the recognition of their contribution, their voting rights and the representation of Bangladeshis living abroad in the parliament. The council leaders have described the expatriates as an integral force in economic and democratic progress of Bangladesh and recommended that the July national charter should include a section on them.
Whilst the demand for the representation of the expatriates through reserved seats or direct election may have little merit or is subject to debate, the demand for the recognition of their contribution to the uprising and their voting rights appears genuine that the interim government should pay attention to. This is true that the expatriates in their own capacity have played a role in the uprising and the government can, therefore, logically recognise the contribution of the expatriates, which the council’s memorandum roughly puts at 20 million, by mentioning the matter in the July national charter that is yet to be put into a final form. This officially makes the uprising a matter of all walks of people, home and abroad, and gives it a universal significance. But what the government should earnestly try at is the implementation of their voting rights in a meaningful manner. The government is learnt to be making preparations to allow expatriate Bangladeshis to exercise their voting rights with postal ballots after a process for their online registration as voters. Such a large number of Bangladeshis who live abroad, working as a mainstay of the economy with their remittances, should be allowed to play a role in Bangladesh’s democratic future.
Whilst the government should, therefore, recognise the role of Bangladeshi expatriates in the July uprising by way of the July national charter and frame a policy for the political recognition of their economic and social contribution to the nation, it should ensure that the expatriates can meaningfully exercise their voting rights in the national elections.
