July uprising – anatomy and aftershocks
Arshad Siddqui :
What does it take for a nation’s youth to bring down a regime? Courage? Desperation? Or just the quiet, growing certainty that injustice has become unbearable? On August 5, 2024, Bangladesh gave the world a powerful answer.
What started as a student protest over an unfair civil service quota system exploded into a nationwide movement. Within days, the seemingly unshakable 15-year rule of Sheikh Hasina collapsed under the pressure of a country that had had enough.
Students with nothing but handwritten placards, backpacks, and conviction filled the streets. Their anger, their songs, their slogans-it all echoed something deeper than jobs. They were rejecting fear, silence, and the slow erosion of dignity. Despite rubber bullets, tear gas, government denials and brutal killings with lethal weapons, the uprising grew. It left its initial issue behind and became something bigger-a rebellion against a system that no longer listened.
From university halls to village squares, people came out not just in defiance but in hope. They organized across class lines. They created new solidarities. And when Hasina left the country and the smoke began to clear, what was left was not just a toppled government-but a nation that had begun to believe change was possible again.
In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt reminds us that such systems don’t collapse because opposition is strong-but because their inner legitimacy dies. That’s exactly what happened. As the crackdown intensified-detentions, internet shutdowns, media blackouts-the state’s grip didn’t tighten. It crumbled.
Geopolitics and the World’s Watchful Eyes
This was no local ripple. Bangladesh is too important for the world to ignore-its garment industry fuels global supply chains, its ports near India, China, and Myanmar.
Rapidly, global powers had to recalibrate. India’s diplomats issued careful statements urging peace while quietly welcoming the fall of a complicated neighbor. China, deeply tied to the Hasina government through infrastructure deals, paused and assessed its options. Western governments, once cautious, began voicing support-for democracy, yes, but also for regional stability and economic continuity.
The uprising also reminded the world of how fragile “stability” can be. The illusion of order had been sustained through patronage, suppression, and spectacle. But when the young stood up, the mask fell. The system’s true foundation-what Johan Galtung calls “structural violence”-was exposed, a politics that worked only for a few, built on the quiet suffering of many.
The Pulse of the People’s Resistance
This was not a political movement, it was cultural. It was emotional. It was deeply human. The government’s attempt to rewrite textbooks, marginalize secular and minority voices, and monopolize religion had left a gaping wound. The young people of Bangladesh filled that space with creativity and boldness.
Street art bloomed on walls. Protesters sang Baul songs and Nazrul’s verses side by side. Online, memes became manifestos. A chant like “KothayKothay Bangla Char, Bangla Ki Tor Bap Dadar” (You shout me to leave the country,Is this country only your father’s land?) wasn’t just rhetoric-it was counterattack.
In the spirit of FrantzFanon’s belief that dignity is restored through struggle, these young people were not just protesting, they were healing, imagining, building.
Interclass and Intersectional Solidarity
For once, class and identity did not divide. Students marched with garment workers. Hijabi girls linked arms with activists in jeans. Hindu, Muslim, and indigenous youth stood side by side. This kind of solidarity is rare-and beautiful-in a country often divided by geography, religion, and class.
Women, too often sidelined in political discourse, were at the heart of this storm. They organized, they resisted, they dreamed aloud. They were not just demanding jobs or justice, they were challenging patriarchy, daring to imagine a future in which they were heard.
Even Madrasa students-once thought apolitical or conservative-joined the secular youth. Something powerful had broken loose: a sense that this country belonged to all, not just the powerful few.
As James C. Scott observed in his work on hidden resistance, systems rot from the inside long before they fall. This uprising was not an accident. It was the inevitable breaking of something long strained to the point of rupture.
Fragile Hopes, Real Fears
The Hasina government was gone. An interim administration stepped in, promising elections, reform, and healing. But revolutions don’t end with resignations. The days after were chaotic and painful. Violence flared-police stations torched, regime loyalists attacked. The military stayed cautiously distant, stepping in only when needed.
Now, Bangladesh faces its hardest test. Can it build institutions that serve the people, not the party? Can it ensure that justice isn’t selective? Are the courts free? That journalists don’t fear for their lives?
There are glimmers of hope. Laws are being revised. Investigations into past abuse have begun. But there are also fears-of elite bargains, of unfinished business, of fatigue. The hardest thing in a revolution is not the fight, it’s the follow-through.
The Economic Shock and Its Aftereffects
The economy suffered. The stock market fell. The money swayed. Manufacturing slowed. However, there was a deeper reckoning underneath the panic. On paper, Bangladesh’s growth had appeared impressive for years, but the benefits were not evenly distributed. Opportunities were closed off to young people, particularly those living outside of cities. Nepotism flourished. Corruption became commonplace.
These cracks were exposed by this rebellion. It forced long-suppressed discussions into the open: Should we reconsider our reliance on clothing? Can we create an economy that prioritizes workers over exports alone? Can young people in rural areas obtain good jobs and education without having to leave their homes?
As international donors reengage, these questions will shape the country’s future more than any foreign investment.
Why It Matters Beyond Bangladesh
This wasn’t just a Bangladeshi story. In Sri Lanka, students watched with familiarity. In India, whispers grew louder: “Could it happen here?” In Pakistan, where student unions remain banned, this felt like a distant dream.
South Asia has been drowning in despair, with strongmen rising and dissent crushed. But here was a counterexample reminder that people still matter. That history isn’t just made in parliaments, but in streets, songs, and shared meals among strangers.
Where We Stand Now
August 5, 2024, will be remembered not just as the day a regime was challenged-but as something far more intimate, a moment of heartbreak, courage, and a stubborn kind of hope. It was a day shaped by loss of lives, of innocence, of illusions – but also by something tender and powerful. It revealed a generation that refused to be quiet, that would not be longer wait for permission to dream, act, or belong.
These young people didn’t see democracy as something handed down from above, some ritual repeated every five years. They saw it as something they had to reach for with their own hands, shape in the streets, demanded in slogans, and imagined in real time.
Political scientist Pippa Norris reminds us of that democracies only thrive when people stay engaged-not just at the ballot box but every day in between. The young people of Bangladesh lived that truth. They didn’t ask politely for change. They pushed it forward, even when it cost them extremely.
Bangladesh now stands at a difficult juncture. Those same forces – elites, divisions, old habits of control -are still lurking. A new kind of politics has broken through. It’s not tidy or polished. It’s raw, plural, and often messy-just like real democracy. The political thinker Chantal Mouffesays that real democracy isn’t about quiet agreement. It’s about arguments, conflicts, and different voices finding ways to live together without silencing one another. That’s exactly what we’ve seen begin here.
In that “mess,” there is life. There is energy. There is the refusal to go back to a politics of fear, of obedience, of exclusion. The fight for a better Bangladesh isn’t over – it’s only just begun. But what matters is that the people are no longer spectators. They are participants, creators, owners of their own future.
Historian Timothy Snyder reminds that the courage to stand up in the present is what makes freedom possible in the future. That’s what August 5 gave us, a glimpse of what happens when a generation stops waiting and starts building.
No one knows exactly where this road will lead. But the spark lit in August is still burning-in songs, in conversations, in the quiet resolve of those who stood together and refused to give up.Democracy, here, is no longer something to be gifted. It’s something to be made – and remade – by the people, every single day.
(The writer is researcher and journalist now residing in Germany).
