Those who once sought to malign and muzzle dissent against Sheikh Hasina's undemocratic rule are now suggesting that the July Uprising’s political changeover was an act of "mob."
They refuse to reckon with their own record, choosing instead to accuse Muhammad Yunus or Tarique Rahman of crimes they portray as worse than Sheikh Hasina's.
Yet neither has been responsible for anything comparable to what occurred before Hasina and the Awami League fled in the face of the student-led mass uprising.
Which of the three leaders oversaw the killing of 1,500 people in less than a month? Under whose rule were thousands of political activists and ordinary citizens subjected to enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings? Who rigged the elections of 2014, 2018 and 2024 to retain power?
During the Awami League's 15-plus years in office, were there no stock market scams, no banking fraud, no cyber heist, no siphoning of public wealth, no institutionalised corruption?
Recent social media posts and statements by Awami League leaders and supporters suggest they feel no remorse for murder, plundering public resources or suppressing voting rights until the regime's fall.
They show no respect for the people's mandate—revolutionary or electoral—that created the environment in which they can still express their opinions, however devoid of democratic spirit.
Instead, they have sought to stigmatise the heroes of the revolution, undermine Bangladesh's democratic journey and weaken the renewed hope of building a stronger country for future generations. Falsehoods are repeated millions of times to confuse people about the past and leave them hopeless about the present and future.
After Hasina's fall, demonstrations over sectoral demands, public anger over past injustices, incidents of attack, extortion and robbery, and isolated cases of crowds detaining alleged perpetrators of the fascist regime were all lumped together under a single label: mobocracy.
This was a trap laid by invisible forces and the Awami League's respectable faces in civil society, one into which even some supporters of the revolution have fallen. Narratives about "mob" and "mobocracy" were carefully crafted to suggest that Hasina's rule was preferable because it tolerated no such disorder.
Never mind the democratic deficit, as long as the beneficiaries of her oligarchic politics prospered.
Unfortunately for them, Bangladeshis remained remarkably restrained despite provocations, including threats of "killing half a million" during the transition. Some degree of disorder has followed revolutions in many countries.
Now the banned Awami League is behaving like a band party, using its soft-power networks to dominate the public conversation. The defeated forces are attacking everything associated with the July-August 2024 uprising through an organised propaganda campaign, even as those who fought Hasina's autocracy and the elected government prepare to mark the revolution's second anniversary.
The losing side now insinuates that the July fighters killed police personnel, as though Hasina's law enforcers had greeted demonstrators with flowers instead of bullets, and as though the regime had been defending democracy.
These are the same forces that manufactured specious arguments across every sector and communication platform to justify keeping the Awami League in power through coercion.
"We believe more in development, less in democracy," "The annihilation of Islamic militants is critically important," and "There is no alternative to Sheikh Hasina" were among their slogans.
Hasina's propagandists made the absurd appear reasonable: democratic activists were branded enemies of the Liberation War, while those who subordinated the country to another state were cast as its true defenders.
Shielded by Awami League narratives, Hasina's supporters—openly or in disguise—mobbed anyone who demanded the restoration of democracy or protested against her anti-people rule.
Awami League activists, apparently led by a film actor, laid siege to an already besieged opposition leader, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, at her Gulshan residence in 2014.
Former caretaker government adviser Barrister Mainul Hosein was targeted during a television talk show to pave the way for his imprisonment in 2018. Amar Desh editor Mahmudur Rahman was beaten and bloodied on court premises in Kushtia the same year. Former Dhaka University Vice-Chancellor Emajuddin Ahmad was publicly humiliated at Dhaka College during a city corporation election.
Throwing shoes at the bodies of executed politicians in the 2010s, beating people to death during the Logi Boitha violence in 2006, or encouraging civil servants to defy the government through Janatar Mancha in 1996—were these not acts of mob politics?
It is one of the ironies of Bangladesh's politics that the Awami League and its affiliates, which long relied on mob tactics, have consistently branded others—especially political opponents—as mobs. Yet on 14 July 2024, when Hasina once again used the label "Razakar" to attack quota protesters and the students defiantly embraced the term in their chants, her politics of tagging began to collapse.
Having witnessed Hasina's flight from Ganabhaban to India, the forces aligned with her politics have become desperate to regain influence. Instead of apologising to the people, they continue to justify her 15 years in power.
By defending the fascist regime, these frustrated voices present themselves as its collaborators while insisting they did nothing wrong. They have not asked what would have become of those who abetted the atrocities of Hitler or Mussolini in post-war Europe.
The Awami League was no less brutal than the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or the Partito Nazionale Fascista. Its absconding leader, Sheikh Hasina, will stand in history beside Lhendup Dorjee, who presided over the end of an independent Sikkim.
For these reasons, there is no basis to dismiss the July Uprising as meticulously designed regime change. The scale of participation, the depth of the movement and the cause that united people across social classes make that impossible.
The collapse of Hasina's system, followed by the departure of those who sustained it, confirmed that it was a revolutionary-scale uprising.
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Khawaza Main Uddin is a journalist. He can be contacted at khawaza@gmail.com.