As August 5 marked the second anniversary of the July Uprising, thousands across Bangladesh celebrated the day with rallies, remembrance, and tributes.

But for many, one of the day's most unexpected moments came through a simple text message.

Nahid Islam, one of the key leaders of the July Uprising and now the Convenor of the National Citizen Party (NCP), personally sent customised messages to a significant number of young people who had taken part in the movement that ultimately led to the fall of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

Screenshots of the messages started circulating on Facebook almost immediately.

Those who received the messages shared them with disbelief, surprise, gratitude, and emotion.

At the same time, many who had not received a message joined the online buzz with memes and humorous posts, joking that they were still waiting for a text from Nahid.

Some even created a Facebook event demanding a "DM" (direct message) from the proclaimer of the One Point of the July Uprising.

Abrar Faiyaj, the younger brother of Abrar Fahad, the BUET student who was beaten to death by activists of the now-banned Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) in 2019, was among those who received the text.

Sharing Nahid's message on Facebook, Faiyaj praised the apparent care taken in selecting the recipients.

"Today I received a message from Nahid bhai on the second anniversary of the July Uprising. But after seeing so many posts since yesterday, one thing must be said: whoever worked on selecting the recipients did an excellent job," he wrote.

He added that many BUET students who had been active long before July had also received the messages, including several who are no longer politically active.

"It means an effort was made to give credit to those who truly deserve it," he wrote.

Nahid's message to Faiyaj was deeply personal, describing Abrar Fahad as "the Imam (leader) of July" and calling Faiyaj "the Muezzin (who calls for prayer) of July."

He credited Abrar's sacrifice with inspiring students to resist political violence and thanked Faiyaj for standing with the movement, concluding: "Without you, we are nothing."

For many recipients, the message felt like more than an anniversary greeting. Several said they saw it as an acknowledgement of the countless students and activists whose contributions to the July movement often went unnoticed, making the gesture all the more meaningful.

The recipients came from different walks of life, including students, activists, commentators, journalists, and families whose lives had been shaped by political violence long before the July movement.

Satirist and political commentator Nayel Rahman shared Nahid's message on Facebook and wrote a lengthy note thanking him and the student leaders for what he described as leading Bangladesh out of a nightmare.

He said people around him had waited every day during the uprising to see what decisions Nahid and his fellow leaders would make, expressing confidence that history would remember the wisdom behind those choices.

Nayel also reflected on years of political disappointment, saying that many in his generation had stopped believing meaningful democratic change was possible. The July Uprising, he wrote, restored that hope.

"Even if I forget everything else someday, I will never forget your contribution," he wrote, thanking Nahid for both his leadership during the uprising and the courtesy of personally reaching out to ordinary citizens.

The messages also reached student activists who had never expected such recognition.

Adiba Rahman Reefa, a student at the University of Dhaka, admitted she initially assumed the message was spam.

"I genuinely thought this was some random spam text from a fake account. Honestly, didn't expect it to be from Nahid bhai himself," she wrote on Facebook.

Recalling the evening of August 5, 2024, she added that the image of Nahid standing on a rickshaw in front of Parliament remained, for her, the lasting symbol of the defeat of authoritarian rule.

Not every response, however, was unreservedly positive.

Some recipients thanked Nahid for the gesture while using the opportunity to voice political disagreements with the NCP.

Dhaka University student activist Muntaha Rahman Manami thanked Nahid for supporting the recent protests to keep female dormitories open throughout the night and to stop the harassment of female students and their families.

However, she also criticised what she described as the party's accommodation of "far-right" politics.

"That may be your political reality," she wrote. "But that is not my dream of July."

She concluded by saying, "We are not NCP. Anyway, thanks for the good wishes."

Whether received with gratitude, surprise, criticism, or humour, Nahid Islam's messages sparked an unusually personal conversation for many on the second anniversary of the July Uprising.