An assessment of any political upheaval requires a sharp distinction between the event itself and the messy business of governance that follows. 

In Bangladesh, the mass uprising of July 2024 achieved what many internal and external observers long deemed impossible: the dismantling of Sheikh Hasina’s deeply entrenched, autocratic regime. Yet, a contentious narrative has steadily gained traction within the country’s chattering semi-secular classes, asserting that the July movement has ultimately failed. 

To understand this phenomenon, one must look beyond the immediate performance of the erstwhile interim administration and ask a more fundamental question: who stands to gain from portraying the July uprising as a failure, and what political logic drives their narrative?

To evaluate this, it is necessary to first define what constitutes success for a popular revolt. An uprising functions much like a sudden atmospheric disruption. It begins with a long period of mounting pressure, characterized by severe political stagnation and public discontent. This is followed by the crisis itself—a chaotic, unpredictable burst of public fury that tears through existing political structures without a preordained script. 

Finally, the storm passes, leaving behind a transformed landscape and a blank canvas for institutional reconstruction.

Whether the subsequent rebuilding effort succeeds or falters does not alter the historical reality of the disruption. The primary measure of an uprising's success is its capacity to break a political deadlock and remove an unyielding authority. In July, the singular, overriding objective for millions of ordinary citizens was the removal of a regime that had lost its moral authority. 

Measured against this concrete benchmark, the uprising was a spectacular success, ending decades of Awami League dominance in a matter of weeks. The subsequent challenges of statecraft belong to an entirely different historical chapter.

Why, then, is there such a concerted effort to delegitimize this achievement? The critics broadly fall into three distinct political camps, each motivated by their own ideological grievances and strategic calculations.

The first group consists of the remnants and sympathizers of the ousted regime. For those emotionally and politically invested in ‘Mujibist’ statecraft, admitting that the July movement succeeded is tantamount to acknowledging that the previous administration had lost all domestic legitimacy. 

Because the moral justification of the old order and the legitimacy of the July uprising are mutually exclusive, this faction must aggressively frame the transition as a disaster to justify their own record and keep hopes of a restoration alive.

The second group comprises participants within the movement who harbored highly idealistic or structurally incompatible expectations for the post-uprising era. For these individuals, the harsh realities of governance, economic friction, and institutional inertia feel like a betrayal of the revolutionary moment. 

By measuring the success of July against an unachievable utopian standard rather than its actual structural achievements, they have prematurely concluded that the entire enterprise was in vain.

The third and most intellectually influential camp is Bangladesh’s urban secular intelligentsia. For decades, this cohort has held a near-monopoly over the nation’s cultural and political discourse. They have long written the poetry of revolution, chanting slogans demanding the dismantling of a rotten state. 

Crucially, however, their ideological framework was built on the implicit assumption that they alone possessed the intellectual authority to lead such a transformation.

The July uprising disrupted this monopoly. It was a broad-based, pluralistic explosion of public anger that bypassed traditional vanguard parties and elite intellectual circles. Because this historic shift occurred without their stewardship, the traditional intelligentsia finds itself structurally sidelined. Unable to claim ownership of the outcome, they are psychologically predisposed to view the current dispensation as flawed or illegitimate.

This elite skepticism contrasts sharply with the historical memory of the 1990 anti-Ershad movement. That mobilization did not instantly transform Bangladesh into a flawless democracy, yet it is universally canonized as a glorious triumph. The difference lies entirely in authorship. 

The 1990 movement was directed by the established political parties and traditional elites who controlled the historical narrative. Because it stayed within the family, so to speak, its subsequent failures were forgiven; because July broke the mold, its triumphs are contested.

Furthermore, the urgency to brand July a failure has intensified due to a highly unusual structural outcome: the birth of a new political party directly from the vanguard of the student movement. In traditional revolutionary scripts, activists return to their classrooms or peripheral roles, leaving the state to established players. 

The emergence of a new, organized political force threatens the long-term survival of the traditional political duopoly. By portraying the uprising as a failure, established political actors hope to strangle this new competitor in its infancy.

Ultimately, the mass uprising of July 2024 remains the most significant popular mobilization in the modern history of the republic. It successfully executed a profound shift in the nation's political trajectory. The ongoing debates regarding institutional reform, economic stability, and social cohesion are legitimate, but they represent the challenges of a new era. 

Conflating the difficulties of reconstruction with the validity of the uprising itself is a deliberate act of political revisionism, designed to serve those who fear the new realities of a reshaped nation.

—

Dilshana Parul is a leader of NCP