At around midday on August 4, 2024, Rakibul Islam Rakib joined thousands of protesters marching toward Jatrabari, one of the deadliest flashpoints of July uprising.
Only two weeks earlier, the president of the Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD) had been wounded by gunfire during clashes in the same neighborhood. Protesters were falling to live bullets as security forces opened fire. Hospitals filled with the injured while mobile networks collapsed, leaving many cut off from their families.
“None of us were thinking whether we would survive or become martyrs,” Rakib told Daily Waadaa.
On that August afternoon, demonstrators from JCD, alongside students, madrasa pupils and local residents, marched from Dania College toward Jatrabari police station. Armed supporters of the Awami League and security personnel had taken positions around the area.
As the crowd swelled, protesters pressed forward despite live fire, eventually forcing government forces to retreat.
“The determination to remove Sheikh Hasina was so strong that even the deaths around us could not stop us,” Rakib said.
Two years later, the barricades are gone. The chants have faded. The student-led uprising that ended Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year autocratic rule has entered Bangladesh’s political history.
For many of the young people who took part, however, the movement is no longer defined by street protests but by a quieter effort to preserve its memory… and to ensure its promises are not forgotten.
Throughout this July and early August, youth-led organizations are organizing documentary screenings, public discussions, counseling sessions, mural projects, memorial events, campus programs and visits to families of those killed.
Their goal, participants say, is not simply to mark an anniversary but to safeguard what they call the “spirit of July” and “press for the accountability and reforms” they believe remain unfinished.
Political parties have announced monthlong observances as well. The National Citizen Party has launched a 36-day campaign titled “July Awakening to Build the Nation.” Chhatra Dal is holding remembrance programs nationwide, while Chatro Shibir has organized rallies, publications and visits to families of victims.
For many participants, though, July is remembered less through political programs than through personal loss.
Mahmud Fantasir, a co-founder of the July Revolutionary Alliance, now works closely with families of those killed during the uprising.
“I can still vividly remember how traumatic it was,” he told Waadaa.
Some memories remain impossible to shake. He recalls a mother identifying her son, Sajal, only by the shoes on his body. He also remembers Mokhlesur, a teenager who climbed onto an armored personnel carrier before, according to Fantasir, his body was later thrown into the Turag River.
“It is hard to process how so many people died right in front of us,” he said.
This month, the alliance is organizing documentary screenings, discussions on justice and reconciliation, counseling sessions, mural campaigns, children's art competitions, letter-writing programs dedicated to those killed and visits to bereaved families.
Fantasir acknowledged that many supporters have grown frustrated by the pace of political change. But he argues that the movement's ideals have endured.
“The spirit is still alive inside people,” he said. “It mostly stays hidden, but it wakes up whenever the right moment calls for it.”
For Saleh Mahmud Rayhan, another founder of the alliance, the defining memory of July is not violence but solidarity.
Having lost faith after the failed quota protests of 2018, he doubted another student movement could succeed. His view changed on July 16 in Uttara.
Standing in the afternoon heat, he watched a van driver distribute bottled water to exhausted protesters without charge.
When Saleh asked why he was giving away merchandise he normally sold for a living, the man replied: “Students are my customers. If it’s for the students’ movement, I don’t mind giving them water.”
Days later, as demonstrators fled into Uttara’s Sector 7 during a police chase, residents leaned from apartment windows, tossing down pillows, bedding and cloth that protesters burned to create smoke against tear gas.
For Saleh, those moments transformed a student movement into a broader public uprising.
He believes preserving that legacy now requires more than annual commemorations.
“We need intellectual work to preserve July,” he said, calling for books, literature, cultural programs and public discussions that can embed the movement into the country's historical memory.
Others are trying to institutionalize that memory.
Rafi Patwary, president of the Private University National Association of Bangladesh (PUNAB), said his organization will visit families of students killed during the uprising, recognize those killed and injured at a July 13 event at the National Museum and launch a “July Memorial Award” for university clubs.
“Our main objective is to make July part of private university culture,” he told Waadaa.
Patwary said many expectations that emerged from the uprising remain unmet, citing incomplete state reforms, what he described as the marginalization of private university students from national politics despite their role in the protests, and financial controversies involving people associated with the movement.
Some activists have focused on preserving the historical record.
Hasan Enam helped establish the July Massacre Archive with a group of friends. Several members later joined the research team working on Bangladesh’s planned July Museum.
“Our main focus this July is to help get the July Museum opened,” he said.
The story that continues to motivate him dates back to July 15, when he was recovering at home after being injured.
He later learned of a schoolboy who arrived at a hospital still wearing his uniform after being struck by live ammunition. According to Hasan, the boy urged doctors to remove the bullet quickly so he could return to the protests.
“I realized this was no ordinary movement,” Hasan said.
Whenever his motivation fades, he said, he remembers that story.
Across these organizations, the approaches vary. Some are documenting testimony. Others are supporting bereaved families, organizing cultural programs or building archives. Together, they are attempting to answer a question that confronts many popular uprisings: how does a movement endure after it leaves the streets?
For Rakib, the answer begins with accountability.
Chhatra Dal says 142 of its leaders and activists were killed during the uprising. Two years later, Rakib said any discussion about the future political role of the Awami League or Sheikh Hasina must first address responsibility for those deaths.
“Without justice for those responsible for the July killings, there will be no return of the Awami League,” he said.
“If we have to fight again, if we have to return to the streets again, Chhatra Dal will certainly join that fight.”
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