How village life and economy reel under curfew and blackout

Ruhul Amin runs a digital centre at Dadshi Bazar in Rajbari district. His store has been shut ever since the nationwide internet blackout swept across Bangladesh starting on 18 July. 

Work-less, penniless he roams in his village without an idea when things will come back to normal.

"I have been without earning for a couple of days already. The town stores are shut due to curfew. Although the military doesn't patrol in villages but there is no point opening my store because all my work is dependent on the internet," Ruhul Amin said.

One of the main services he provides to the customers is printing photos – in which case, the photos are transferred to his centre's computer through emails; unlike older days when people used to carry pendrives with them.

Apart from this, Ruhul Amin downloads music, prints admit cards or registers job applications etc for the customers – all of which requires access to the internet.

"Some of my adjacent stores provides MFS and Flexiload services [mobile phone recharge]. Their work also has been badly impacted as most transactions of mobile finance services are failing. Flexiloads too are not working well," he said.

Although no clashes were reported nor did security forces patrolled his village, his neighbourhood still remains full of fear amid the uncertainty swallowing the country whole.

"The entire village is full of rumours about what is happening in the country," Ruhul added.

We interviewed around a dozen men and women from Bangladeshi villages over the phone, all of them shared the same fear and anxiety about the future of the country and their livelihoods.

Obaidullah, a middle-aged man in Feni said his grocery store has been shut for two days.

"We are afraid for the country and at the same time my income sources are drying up. If the curfew continues and restrictions are not lifted, I am going to face economic severe hardship," Obaidullah told The Business Standard.

On Saturday, TBS photojournalist Mehedi Hasan had come across Dudu Mia, his wife Reshma and sister-in-law Mahmuda in Sadarghat waiting for a means to reach Bhola.

Reshma and Mahmuda's father had died due to old age complications in their hometown in Bhola. The sisters, who settled in Tangail, reached Sadarghat in various ways spending a fortune on transport. But they had no idea how they would reach their village from Sadarghat.

Due to the curfew, the launches were not departing. 

"We languished so much on the way here. Our bad luck we didn't see our father in years. Now we cannot see him for the last time," Mahmuda cried.

Shajib Khan lives in Shariatpur Sadar's Purbo Sharenga village.

He said most of the television in their villages are smart television connected through wifi. After the internet blackout, they lost sources of information through mobile phones and smart television.

"A few people in our village keep the daily papers, that is how we are getting access to information of what is going on in the country," Shajib said.

The predicament of the people in his village who have their relatives abroad are also impacted, he said.

"I have my several uncles who work in the Middle East as migrant workers. We were always in touch with them through the internet. Now that internet blackout continues, our families can only contact them when they call on their phones which is very expensive," Shajib said.

We talked with a housewife in Rajbari whose husband works as a migrant worker abroad. "We recently had a baby. My husband tries to stay online as much as possible. He cannot stay an hour without seeing our boy. We are desperate to have our communications back," the housewife told TBS.

We have interviewed many other people in villages whose livelihood have been greatly impacted by curfew and internet blackout; and they expressed similar grievances. "It is a very uncertain situation. It feels like something very scary is coming to our life," Ruhul Amin remarked.

TBS' Mehedi Hasan contributed to this report.