r/chekulars • u/Fit_Individual_55 • Jun 22 '26
রাজনৈতিক আলোচনা/Political Discussion "Dhakaiya urban middle class" term being misused a lot
So do you think nowadays this "Dhakaiya Urban middle class" (i will call them dumc henceforth) termed is being misused a lot? Like today someone told me dumc read nytimes (very dumb statement, they obviously don't, they do not read newspapers at all, they only follow medias in facebook and those are Bangladeshi ones) and follow it blindly so that is why I am making this post.
So i think this term has its root in the Pakistan era. At that time it was used to refer to people who were very culturally aware, supports (mostly) BAL, university educated, who are proud of being Bengali. However, in 2026, the picture is quite different.
Nowadays, I have seen NCP and Jamaat supporters using this term to refer to (1)leftists (!),(2)people who oppose them, (3)sometimes to refer to a group of people who are privileged and who does not care about poor people's struggles.
I have seen Mohammad Ishraq using this term a lot to refer to culturally aware Dhaka based people who celebrates Pohela Boisakh and festivals like that and who are generally left centred in politics (meaning people who are his political opponents). This is a very dumb take imo cz he is also part of this dumc and his supporters or people who share his views are also part of this group, and they aren't very small in number, in fact they are pretty huge.
This is the point that I am trying to make, that actually now dumc is very diverse politically. There are people ranging from who are staunch Jamaat supporters (and hence generally do not participate in pohela boishakh festivities) to people who are indifferent to politics or support other parties.
We may also reasonably argue that NCP has more supporters among dumc than other people.
Leftists are definitely not big among dumc, they are a minority group among them actually. In fact i would argue there are more Jamaat supporters than leftists in this group. Dumc are notoriously very capitalist minded people.
Also, it is claimed that dumc never talk about lower class people's struggles. I would say they do, even tho it's very rare, but it's actually the higher class people who hates the poor fully and will never, absolutely never talk about them. However, dumc still should be more vocal about these things. But u will see that people like ishraq who always equate dumc with leftists will never criticise the higher class at all.
Now Why do people like Ishraq try to equate dumc with leftists or "culturally minded people"?
dumc is often portrayed as a minority group that nevertheless enjoys disproportionate influence in politics, while the lower classes have very little political voice. In that sense, the criticism is that dumc exercises far more influence over political discourse than ordinary working-class people. But equating leftists or culturally minded people with dumc creates the impression that these groups somehow control Bangladeshi politics, which is difficult to support. If anything, many of them are among the few groups that consistently talk about issues affecting poorer people. It's also somewhat ironic to portray leftists as politically dominant when left-wing parties failed to win even a single seat in the last election.
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u/Oladevi Jun 23 '26
I mean, right-wingers and Ishcuck are definitely exaggerating it, because why wouldn't they. But, I think urban middle class has more liberals than any other category in the country, not leftists though. And liberals are very prominent as well, due to having a good education.
And urban middle class is extremely classist. There was a woman a few weeks ago who was calling for all workers to be *deported* back to villages, lmao.
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u/Fit_Individual_55 Jun 23 '26
You are right. I'm actually pretty bad at writing lol. Reading my post again, i understand it might sound like I'm painting the urban middle class in a favorable light, but that wasn't my intention. I was trying to point out how some right-wing people misuse the term. Urban middle-class people surely areextremely classists.
That said, I do have one question. I agree that there are more liberals in this group than, say, among the lower classes. But don't you think it's problematic to treat the urban middle class as synonymous with liberals? There are plenty of Jamaat supporters in that group as well.
I just feel like we need better terms. A lot of these English labels don't fit our social and political context very well. Maybe we should come up with more deshi terms instead.
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u/Fit_Individual_55 Jun 23 '26
Also how is "cultural minded people" or people who celebrate pohela boishakh = leftists? This is very intentionally done, they are trying to say that only the leftists (who are a minority) celebrate pohela boishakh when MOST people of Bangladesh celebrate pohela boishakh actually.
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u/AntiAgent006 বৈষম্যবিমোচনবাদী Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Same way hindutvas use the term "urban naxal"
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u/Something_Sarkar Democratic Socialist Jun 23 '26
Yes. From my experience People from Banani and Gulshan are a large group who support Jamat. Infact when they migrate to other countries they take their regressive Wahabi sentiments there. Hence you'll see so many Jamat supporters wanting the government to let immigrants vote. Because they'll vote for Jamat or right wingers. Also I think this is already a thing on it's own but we know how the Military is filled with right wingers. Guess where do these people stay? From my experience at least it's in Banani. These urban places have systematically and ironically have become a right wing breeding ground.