Dhaka Diary 1: Fading impact of July 2024 uprising

Almost a year since protests toppled the Sheikh Hasina regime. (Source: AP photo/File)

“Does the July uprising still hold promise?” I asked a top editor in Dhaka during a recent off-record interview. “The opportunity is getting corroded and eroded with time,” he said.

Just minutes ago, he was explaining how the deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina used a malleable court to remove the constitutional provision for poll-time caretaker governments, thereby manufacturing election results. The bench was divided. The Chief Justice cast his decisive vote in favour of removing the provision, two weeks ahead of his retirement, in 2011.

Jump cut to 25th May this year. The incumbent Chief Justice, Syed Refaat Ahmed, called on the Chief Adviser (Prime Minister-equivalent), Muhammad Yunus, at his official residence at the state guest house, Jamuna. Coincidentally, two days later, on 27 May, a Chief Justice-led bench at the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court acquitted the death-row convict and Jamaat-e-Islami leader, ATM Azharul Islam, of charges of crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.

Jamaat and its associates were known collaborators of the Pakistani army in 1971. According to the chargesheet, Azharul Islam was responsible for killing 1,256 people, abducting 17, and raping 13 women. The International Crimes Tribunal sentenced him to death in December 2014 on five of the nine charges. The Appellate Division had previously upheld his death penalty but took a 180-degree turn on a review petition. Azhar walked out of jail with fanfare.

“Our courts have been as friendly as they were, you see!” the editor smiled.

Disillusioned and Desperate

Strange but true, in barely 10 months, Dhaka has become disillusioned with the regime change. Grievances against the Sheikh Hasina government are fading from memory.

That does not mean people have forgotten the excesses of law enforcement agencies during her 15-year rule, nor the high-handed attitude of her Awami League, particularly over the last five years. It also doesn’t mean that League regained its popularity.

But it certainly means Dhaka has a bigger problem to deal with than Hasina.

“In the past I lived under fear of arrest. I was grilled several times by intelligence agencies. Now I live under fear of getting killed by a ‘mob’ acting on behalf of powerful people or groups. That is the only change we have witnessed,” said a city intellectual. These days, he does not step out into crowds alone—all for speaking his mind on complex policy issues.

He is not alone. Many in the city’s intellectual circles are now ready to accept even a military takeover.

“We have seen enough of army rule, coups, counter-coups and regime changes in this country to develop any love for a military government. But the current situation has become unbearable,” someone remarked.

This does not mean the Yunus administration is without support. In 10 months, it has created its own set of beneficiaries in business and the intelligentsia. Barring a few exceptions, Dhaka’s media has a reputation for staying on the right side of power. This time, the shift has been far more intense (“Allegiance shifts, so do faces at the helm,” The Daily Star, 31 Jan 2025).

Bloggers wielding mob-power now run virtual courts to tame dissent. All things considered, there is no dearth of eulogies for the government.

Yet, two things are noticeable.

First, discordant voices—though fewer in number—are becoming sharper in both mainstream and social media. The TV media is visibly giving more space to criticism, following recent ultimatum by the army chief to hold elections and end mobocracy.

Second, the government is showing telltale signs of losing its nerve.

On 31 May, Dr Yunus’s press secretary issued media guidelines for the “post-July uprising era” from his personal Facebook handle. The post read: “Editors and commentators, take heed: reputations painstakingly built over decades can be dismantled in an instant. Today, thousands of young individuals meticulously analyse every word you publish. They give a damn to your reputation!!”

An outspoken editor interpreted it as a veiled threat to their fraternity.

Something more interesting happened on 4th June. Senior media officials of the Yunus administration took to Facebook to accuse several media houses of publishing “baseless, false and confusing” reports on an ordinance (Jatiya Muktijoddha Council (Amendment) Ordinance 2025) relating to freedom fighters.

The reputed vernacular daily Samakal (meaning "contemporary") was targeted for “trying to destabilise the government on behalf of Hasina.” The next day, Samakal published a front-page report defending its coverage—an act of defiance that would have been unthinkable just months ago.

Shifting Ground

Changes on the ground are even more apparent.

Over the last 10 months, the Yunus administration and its two principal support groups—student leaders of July protests and Islamists—made every effort to glorify uprising and vilify Hasina as the greatest evil in the land. Almost all of Dhaka’s walls are now covered in graffiti and slogans. The Awami League is banned.

‘Anti-India’ sentiment remains a popular card in Bangladesh and the neighbourhood. With Hasina taking refuge in India, the scope for deploying this card widened—and it was used amply.

However, the effort appears to have backfired. Ordinary people have grown detached from the rhetoric.

I ran a dipstick with over 20 randomly selected Uber drivers and bike riders—many of them young and participants in the July protests. The results were revealing.

While many criticised Hasina’s “mistakes,” there was no outpouring of emotion against her or India (contrary to my expectations). Some even pointed to the network of flyovers and metro rails as signs of her contribution.

All of them had moved on from July—and now crave good governance.