Sinthia Mehrin Sokal recalls the head-punch she received on July 15, 2013, when she marched in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, in protest of a contentious quota system in government jobs.
The attack by an activist belonging to the student wing of the then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party left Sokal – a final-year student of criminology at the University of Dhaka – with 10 stitches and temporary memory loss.
When the police shot another 23-year-old student at Begum Rokeya University in the Rangpur district, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Dhaka, the next day, he was protesting. A video of him, with his arms outstretched and collapsing on the ground moments later, went viral, igniting an unprecedented movement against Hasina, who governed the country with an iron fist for more than 15 years before she was toppled last August.
Students defied a brutal crackdown and marched to the streets as students from schools, colleges, universities, and madrassas. Soon, the young protesters were joined by their parents, teachers and other citizens. Important support was provided by opposition parties, including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, making it unlikely to form a coalition against Hasina’s government.
“Even students in remote areas came out in support. According to Sokal, “real change was about to happen.”
On August 5, 2024, as tens of thousands of protesters stormed Hasina’s palatial residence and offices in Dhaka, the 77-year-old leader boarded a military helicopter and fled to neighbouring India, her main ally, where she continues to defy a Bangladesh court’s orders to face trial for crimes against humanity and other charges.
By the time Hasina fled, more than 1, 400 people had been killed, most when government forces fired on protesters, and thousands of others were wounded, according to the United Nations.
On August 8, 2024, the protesters installed an interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, the nation’s only Nobel laureate. Hasina fled. In May this year, the interim government banned the Awami League from any political activity until trials over last year’s killings of the protesters concluded. The Chhatra League, the party’s student organization, was outlawed in October 2024 due to anti-terror laws.
Yet, as Bangladesh marks the first anniversary of the end of Hasina’s government on Tuesday, Sokal said the sense of unity and hope that defined the 2024 uprising has given way to disillusionment and despair.
They are “selling the revolution,” she said, referring to the various political parties currently contesting positions of power ahead of the upcoming general elections that are scheduled for next year.
“The change we fought for remains out of reach”, said added. The uprising is no longer the property of the interim government.
What did my son give up for, you ask?
Yunus, the 85-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner presiding over Bangladesh’s democratic overhaul, faces mounting political pressure, even as his interim government seeks consensus on drafting a new constitution. The way forward for Bangladesh is currently being fought between the rival factions that staged shoulder-to-shoulder during anti-Hasina protests.
On Tuesday, Yunus is expected to unveil a so-called July Proclamation, a document to mark the anniversary of Hasina’s ouster, which will outline the key reforms that his administration argues Bangladesh needs – and a roadmap to achieve that.
Not many people are optimistic, though.
“Our children took to the streets for a just, democratic and sovereign Bangladesh. Sanjida Khan Deepti, whose 17-year-old son Anas was fatally shot by the police during a peaceful march near Dhaka’s Chankharpul area on August 5, 2024, said, “But that’s not what we’re getting.” Witnesses said Anas was unarmed and running for cover when a police bullet struck him in the back. He was still holding a national flag when he passed away on the spot.
“The reforms and justice for the July killings that we had hoped – it’s not duly happening”, the 36-year-old mother told Al Jazeera. We marched for a more just, peaceful, and peaceful nation. If that doesn’t happen, then what was my son’s sacrifice for”?
Others, however, continue to put their trust in the interim administration in tact.
“No regrets”, said Khokon Chandra Barman, who lost almost his entire face after he was shot by the police in the Narayanganj district.
He told Al Jazeera, “I am proud that my sacrifice helped to end a system that is based on prejudice.”
Barman feels the country is in better hands now under the Yunus-led interim government. The old evils won’t vanish overnight, according to the saying. But we are hopeful”.
Atikul Gazi agreed. On Sunday, Gazi told Al Jazeera, “Yunus sir is capable and doing his best. “If the political parties fully cooperated with him, things would be even better”.
The 21-year-old TikToker from Dhaka’s Uttara region managed to survive being shot point blank range on August 5, 2024, but he lost his left arm.
A selfie video of him smiling, despite missing an arm, posted on September 16 last year, went viral, making him a symbol of resilience.
“I’m not afraid; I’m back in the field.” One hand may be gone, but my life is ready to be offered anew”.
‘ Instability could increase ‘
Others are less optimistic. “That was a moment of unprecedented unity”, said Mohammad Golam Rabbani, a professor of history at Jahangirnagar University on the outskirts of Dhaka.
On July 29, 2024, Rabbani had recited a poem during a campus protest. Speaking at an event last month to commemorate the uprising, he said: “Safeguarding that unity should have been the new government’s first task. But they slipped it.
The coalition of students, professionals and activists, called Students Against Discrimination, that brought down Hasina’s government, began to fragment even before Yunus took charge.
Since the uprising, the main opposition BNP has been demanding immediate elections in an effort to capitalize on the strong anti-Awami League sentiment. But parties like the National Citizens Party, formed by student leaders of the 2024 protests, and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami want deeper structural reforms before any vote is held.
The Yunus administration established a National Consensus Commission on February 12 this year to reconcile these demands. Its mandate is to merge multiple reform agendas outlined by expert panels into a single political blueprint. Any candidate who wins the following general election must formally commit to implementing this charter.
But so far, the meetings of the commission have been marked by rifts and dissent, mainly over having a bicameral parliament, adopting proportional representation in both its houses, and reforming the appointment process for key constitutional bodies by curbing the prime minister’s influence to ensure greater neutrality and non-partisanship.
Analyst Rezaul Karim Rony warned that “instability may increase” if political forces don’t come to a consensus on reforms.
But Mubashar Hasan, adjunct fellow at Western Sydney University’s Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative, thinks a political deadlock is “unlikely”, and that most stakeholders seem to be moving towards elections next year.
Hasan, however, continues to be skeptical of the reforms itself, calling them a “cosmetic reset.”
“There’ll be some democratic progress, but not a genuine shift”, he told Al Jazeera. He made it clear that the Awami League, which once had millions of members, is still banned, which some analysts fear could undermine Bangladesh’s electoral democracy’s legitimacy.  ,
Political parties are fighting for power, according to Deepti, who lost her teenage son during the protests. They are not fighting against those who facilitated Hasina’s brutal repression during the protests last year.
“Most of the officials and law enforcement members involved in the violence are still at large, while political parties are more focused on grabbing power”, she told Al Jazeera.
Inquilab Manch (Revolution Front), a non-partisan cultural organization inspired by the uprising, warned that elections without justice and reforms would “push the country back into the jaws of fascism.”
His group, with more than 1, 000 members in 25 districts, organises poetry readings, exhibitions and street performances to commemorate the 2024 uprising and demand accountability, amid widespread concerns over deteriorating law and order across the country.
A “city of demonstrations”
While the police remain discredited and are yet to recover from the taint of complicity in perpetuating Hasina’s strong-armed governance, military soldiers are seen patrolling Bangladesh’s streets, armed with special power to arrest, detain and, in extreme cases, even fire on those breaking the law.
In a recent report, the rights organization Odhikar reported that between April and June this year, there were at least 72 fatalities and 1,677 injuries. The group also documented eight alleged extrajudicial killings during this period involving the police and notorious paramilitary forces like the Rapid Action Battalion.
Other crimes have also surged.
Between January and May this year, police found 1,587 murders, an increase of 25% from the same time last year. Robbery nearly doubled to 318, while crimes against women and children topped 9, 100. There has also increased kidnapping and robbery.
“Mob justice and targeted killings have surged, many with political links”, Md Ijajul Islam, the executive director of the nonprofit Human Rights Support Society, told Al Jazeera. A demoralized police won’t be able to contain it unless political parties rein in their activists.
The demoralisation within the police stems mostly from the 2024 uprising itself, when more than 500 police stations were attacked across Bangladesh and law enforcement officials were missing from the streets for more than a week.
Ijajul remarked that the force had to start over after being morally broken.
Several police officers Al Jazeera spoke to at the grassroots level pointed to another problem: the collapse of what they called an informal political order in rural areas.
A senior police officer at the Roumari police station in the Kurigram district near the Indian border said, “During the Awami League era, police frequently worked in tandem with the ruling party leaders to resolve local disputes.”
“That structure is gone. He claimed on condition of anonymity that he was not authorized to speak to the media and that currently several factions, including those from the BNP, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, and others, are attempting to control markets, transportation hubs, and government tenders.
Things aren’t getting any better in Dhaka.
“Every day, managing street protests has become one of our major duties”, Talebur Rahman, a deputy commissioner with the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told Al Jazeera.
“People break into government offices just to make their demands heard,” Rahman said, “feeling like Dhaka has become a city of demonstrations.”
Still, Rahman claimed the city’s law and order situation was better than immediately after the 2024 uprising. Shafiqul Alam, Yunus’s spokesperson, claimed in a televised interview on July 15 that “if you take overall statistics into account, things are stabilizing,” referring to law and order in Dhaka.
Alam said that many people who were denied justice for years, including during the uprising, are now coming forward to register cases.
Some people concur.
“Things are slowly improving”, said 38-year-old rickshaw-puller Mohammad Shainur in Dhaka’s upscale Bashundhara neighbourhood.
For one, there are some encouraging signs in the economy. Bangladesh is the world’s 35th largest economy and the second in South Asia – mainly driven by its thriving garment and agriculture industries.
Foreign reserves increased from more than $ 24 billion in May of this year to nearly $ 32 billion in June, thanks to a global financial crisis, record-setting remittances, and new funding from the International Monetary Fund. Inflation, which peaked at 11.7 percent in July 2024, dropped to 8.5 percent by June this year.
The International Labour Organization claims that nearly 30% of Bangladesh’s youth are unable to get a job or go to school. Moreover, a 20 , percent tariff announced by the United States, the largest buyer of Bangladesh’s garments, also threatens the livelihood of 4 million workers employed in the key sector.
Gazi is determined to keep the protests of 2024’s alive in Dhaka.
“Let the people remember those martyred in the uprising, and those of us who were injured”, he told Al Jazeera. We want that freedom to continue as living representations.
Source: Aljazeera
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