Hi! I am a non EU student who is interested in completing a PhD in Europe. I want to know what is the difference between these two designations? If someone is a phd student, what would be their designation? I actually do not have much idea about the academic system in German speaking world
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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We may also reasonably argue that NCP has more supporters among dumc than other people.
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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.
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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.