July 2024 is a hard month to reflect on; not only because of the collective trauma we carry from it, but because, ideologically and philosophically, we witnessed something rare: the kind of moment that perhaps arrives once every two decades, if a nation can shake off the amnesia of living poor and overcrowded for long enough.

For me personally, July was the last month hope broke away from apathy. July 18 was the revolutionary day — the day the movement stopped being a quota reform protest and became a national reckoning with indiscriminate killing.

It also made its way through the BRAC University, where students came out peacefully and blocked the road in front of their campus. A day that started as a protest ended as a day of national mourning, for students and bystanders alike who did not survive it.

The protest on July 18, 2024 began by bridging a historic divide. For years, the political culture at public universities was viewed as foreign and dangerous by students at private institutions, where political organising was often strictly banned.

However, as state violence escalated, particularly after the bloodied image of a brutally beaten victim of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), Sanjida Ahamed Tanney, a Psychology student at Dhaka University (DU) went viral on social media on July 15, 2024, near the Vice Chancellor's residence, followed by the death of Abu Sayed on July 16, 2024, after being shot by police while participating in the quota reform movement in front of Begum Rokeya University in Rangpur.

"I think these two incidents were the tipping point for private universities to participate in the protests. Students were baffled at the level of violence inflicted on students in the name of damage control and how the state was not making any statements to stop this,” said Shaheer Ahnaf, a former student of BRAC University, who was at the time of the protest completing his last two semesters.

“I still don’t know how a peaceful protest turned into a war scene in minutes. They had us cornered. Police and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) were coming towards us from Hatirjheel and Rampura areas with tear gas, and simultaneously, we were getting news from private university students protesting near the Badda area that BCL members were coming towards BRAC University with their machetes,” said Shaheer.

He said if it weren’t for the support of the residents living near-by who were throwing newspapers, water bottles from their houses to the streets to help them protect themselves against the tear gas and shopkeepers who sheltered students in their shops against the live rounds, there would’ve been far more casualties.

For Shaheer and a few other students, the grueling day had ended with carrying the lifeless body of Zillur Sheikh, an 11th-grade student from Dhaka Imperial College, wrapped in Bangladesh’s flag on their shoulders towards his home in Aftabnagar.

Students were coordinating and organising rapidly through Facebook groups and sharing live updates on Instagram. Abir Hossain, a current BRAC University student and journalist at The Daily Star said, “I can’t remember us [private university students] having any central coordinators for the protest. There may have been assigned leaders, but the way we organised had nothing to do with a central leader.”

When asked what the campus atmosphere was like post revolution, Abir said, “There was an obvious surge in political discussions. Most of us had never voted before, the July revolution was our first gateway into Bangladeshi politics, where, for the first time our involvement in politics mattered.” Both Shaheer and Abir had agreed, it didn’t seem like the average student was particularly interested to actively engage in politics at their university, but both had noticed a new era of censorship had emerged.

"During the protest itself, it was 'anything goes' as long as it was against the regime, but post-July, it turned into a situation where there's a new set of things you can't talk about. You have to side with the violence because it's 'right' — there's only one right answer. I didn't feel safe expressing [differing opinions]. The consequences definitely involved social rejection."

Iman Arshad, another former student of BRAC University had a different lens to add to this situation, saying, “During the protests, it felt like there was a great community. I never felt unsafe because of my male contemporaries. But post-July, campus culture had changed and religious student groups became very popular. Women faced intense policing of their clothing (demands to wear "Muslim dresses" over western clothes) and discussions blew up on social media. Fear of being secretly photographed and having images spread in private group chats forced women to self-censor their attire.”

Iman also recounted a harrowing tale on August 5, after her brother, herself and a few of her friends were arrested by then Shahbagh police for breaking the curfew. “After news broke out that Hasina fled, the police abandoned the station, and we got out. People were celebrating on the streets and suddenly a man came up to me, casually grabbed my bottom and left. That’s when it immediately dawned upon me that we may have fought together, but perhaps the sexism was put aside to remove the autocrat, and now that the job is done, women are back to being objectified.”

Tahsim Uzzaman, a registered July Jodhha (Bangla term for warrior) and a former IUB student voiced different frustrations about the protest and the aftermath.

“Apart from DU, which had a clear agenda and co-ordination committee, wider Dhaka didn’t have a plan. Seeing that I was very active among the protesters, I was introduced to the central co-ordinators from DU. We had an online meeting on the night of July 17 with the central co-ordinators who were pushing us to join them in Dhaka University. But private university student representatives disagreed and decided to divide areas from Bashundhara to Aftabnagar into sectors. But nothing could prepare us for July 18. I had never seen more dead people on the streets. And after the bloodshed witnessed on July 18, even students retorted to extreme violence and vandalism. It was frustrating since we couldn’t draw a line between us vs. them [authorities firing gunshots against students.”

Post-revolution Tahsim had joined the DU co-ordinators (now named National Citizens’ Party) as a private university students, among 80 other representatives, but left after witnessing self-servitude among those representatives.

"I realised that the people who were key organisers of what was supposed to be the revolution slowly actively participated in the same system of self-interest that they fought against, and it is disappointing. They just became part of the wheel. They never consulted us on any decisions. We were just token private university representatives for free labor and critical mass endorsements."

So, two years after the uprising, the revolutionary optimism had largely decayed into systemic apathy. The bureaucratic nightmare facing the injured remains one of the revolution’s most tragic legacies. Tahsim, while registering as a July fighter at the Civil Surgeon’s office, described watching a father, who was a freedom-fighter stand in line for hours with surgical documents from Singapore for perforated intestines, begging the new administration to officially recognise his severely injured son in the right category.

"I was shocked to learn that his son was categorised as Category C, the same category I was assigned. I had only one lead shrapnel in my arm. But his son was still going through the repeated surgeries, he did not belong in the same category as me. The government seemed to just file the information, providing no legal support for these people.”

Today, perspectives on the elected BNP government are fractured. Some view the administration with a cautious, pragmatic hope, prioritising their focus on bureaucratic reform over populist rhetoric.

"We wanted a clear separation of powers between the three branches of government to make things better for marginalised groups. The interim government didn’t address the surge of mob violence across the country and now with the BNP in power, it’s going to be the same old brand of politics that we’ve seen. I don't think young people are expecting any real change anymore, " said Abir.

For women and minority groups, the political reshuffling feels like a mere aesthetic change masking the same underlying dangers. "I don't think for girls or minorities there is much hope. I think every girl at this point has grown sick of it," Iman concluded. "The female dream in Bangladesh just means migrating to someplace safer."

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Nazifa Raidah is a journalist and researcher. Reach her at nazifa0419@gmail.com