The city became our campus

We have come together from different private universities to recount our memories of July. The stories that follow open four windows onto students from campuses with no common organisation finding one another, the city becoming our shared campus, and an issue that once seemed distant becoming impossible to ignore. 

Taken together, they shed light on a side of the July Uprising that is often overlooked: the role private university students played in shaping it, and the questions that legacy continues to pose.

Early on 5 August 2024, Nayeem reached the designated gathering point in Rampura-Badda to find only five people. Three were women, one a university teacher. Soon the gathering had grown to a few thousand. That crowd was no accident. It grew out of weeks of cross-campus coordination. 

Around it, an improvised support system had taken shape: university medical centres treated the injured, while students, teachers, parents and strangers provided food, transport and shelter. 

Without residential halls or established student unions through which information and decisions could circulate, the whole city itself became our campus.

Our paths into July

What united all of us was the realisation that injustice did not have to affect our own studies or careers before it became our responsibility.

For Sakin Shabab, of BRAC University, that realization came on July 15. One image stayed with him: a student named Tanni, her clothes stained with blood after students at Dhaka University were attacked. After that, the distinction between public and private university students felt meaningless. An attack on them was an attack on us.

Nafsin Mehanaz Azireen, of North South University, also joined out of solidarity with friends at Dhaka University. The killing of Abu Sayed on July 16 made the movement more urgent. The quota system might not have shaped her career, but justice could not matter only when injustice affected her personally.

For Sadique Al Arman, of East West University, state repression was already personal. In 2021, he spent three months in jail and three days on remand in a fabricated case filed against political opponents under the Hasina government. He sat his Dhaka University admission test from jail and missed his other entrance examinations.

Nayeem Abedin, also from East West University, remembers only 30 or 40 people initially participating around Rampura. After the attacks of July 15, that number grew into the thousands. Students began searching for contacts across campuses.

How we organised

The movement that emerged was decentralised, but not disorganised. Students from BRAC, East West, North South, IUB, AIUB, UIU, IUBAT and elsewhere connected through personal networks and late-night online discussions. Sometimes the next day’s programme reached us only at one or two in the morning.

Dhaka was divided into coordination zones. Students determined where each university would assemble and which neighbouring campuses could respond if one area came under attack. When the internet was shut down, ordinary phone calls replaced online meetings.

Political parties were part of this reality, and an honest history should not erase them. Arman coordinated with political activists including Zubayer, president of Islami Chhatra Shibir’s private university wing, and Jahangir, a Jubo Dal leader from Rampura thana. 

Political leaders were also present in person, including DU Chhatra Dal leader BM Kawsar and central Shibir leaders such as Salahuddin. Rifat Rashid, then a student coordinator and now an NCP leader, was connected via WhatsApp. 

These relationships helped move crucial information and assistance, but no single party commanded what emerged.

On July 18, that coordination network became visible as one group responded when another came under attack. Nafsin marched from North South University toward BRAC University; Arman did the same from East West University. 

Students from IUB, AIUB and other Bashundhara campuses approached from another direction. Their united resistance trapped some of the attacking police officers near Canadian University, where they took refuge on a rooftop before being evacuated by helicopter. Arman remembers some officers gesturing to the students below, asking for forgiveness.

During the attacks, Nafsin took shelter in a pharmacy and later reached BRAC’s medical centre. In the lobby, she saw the body of Shaheed Zillur Rahman Sheikh being carried away. She remembers crying out, “They have killed my brother,” then regaining control because she feared others might lose courage too.

Our university identities became secondary. Many private universities treated students from universities, colleges and schools regardless of where they studied. Students and teachers paid for supplies, medical staff gave first aid, and ambulances carried the seriously injured to hospitals.

How the movement grew beyond us

July did not only dissolve boundaries between universities. It also weakened the class and social barriers that separate people in Dhaka.

Near Rampura Bridge, Arman saw street children and hawkers join the protesters. One boy told him, “Brother, we are with you. Don’t be afraid. Keep going.” When another street child was injured by pellets, students carried him to safety, and an East West University receptionist helped with his treatment.

Residents of Aftabnagar and Banasree brought food, water and saline. One woman fed the students khichuri; Arman never learned her name. Nafsin remembers a rickshaw puller refusing her fare after learning she was a protester. These gestures showed that the movement had travelled well beyond the university gates.

Families, too, formed part of this support structure. On July 18, Nafsin was injured and unable to find transport home. Her father travelled from Mirpur by motorcycle to collect her. On the journey home, he said, “You can continue participating, but please take care of yourself.” He was frightened, but did not make his fear a reason for her to stop.

Women were not auxiliary participants in July. Nayeem remembers women in hijab and women in Western clothing marching in the same line. Nafsin led slogans and encouraged women who were frightened. Despite physical danger, family restrictions, cyberbullying and sexualised threats, women continued. 

On August 5, when Nafsin’s family was too frightened to let her leave, her teacher Tamoha Siddiqui hired a CNG from Uttara, travelled to Mirpur to collect her and took her to Bashundhara. Teachers did not merely express support; many entered the danger alongside their students.

Courage in July did not mean the absence of fear. Sakin’s greatest fear was for students who responded to programmes announced through his coordinating group. Once police began firing, he worried that someone might be injured or killed because they had trusted the call. He urged students not to expose themselves unnecessarily.

Nafsin felt the same responsibility on August 5. After police attacked students outside North South University, she took the microphone and resumed leading slogans while fighting tears. She believed that if students could still hear a voice rallying them, they would know the movement had not broken. But the tears were real, as was the fear.

Nayeem remembers private university students marching outside East West University in heavy rain, chanting, “Through storm, rain and darkness, we are still on the streets.” The procession sent a simple message: we were still there.

What July now asks of us

July challenged the stereotype that private university students cared only about degrees, careers and private lives. We brought more than numbers to the streets. We built networks, treated the injured, raised resources and reinforced one another across the city.

More importantly, July changed how many of us understood citizenship. We learned under fire that civic responsibility is not determined by the name of someone’s university. Nor does it begin and end with an issue that directly affects one’s future.

We do not claim that July completed the work it began. We can speak more openly than before, and many young people who once avoided politics have become more willing to question the country’s direction. But the fall of one government did not automatically produce the just, accountable Bangladesh for which people sacrificed their lives. That is a longer battle.

Private university students therefore need transparent and independent ways to participate in public life. We may cooperate with political parties and acknowledge their assistance, but we should not reproduce coercive campus politics.

One of Nafsin’s most widely shared remarks from the uprising captured this spirit: “July belongs to no one’s father.” No party, platform or university can claim sole ownership of the revolution. 

July belongs to the injured and the dead, but also to the students who carried water, teachers who bought paint, parents who crossed the city, rickshaw pullers who refused fares, medical workers who treated strangers, and unnamed residents who opened their homes.

We began this article with different memories that converge on one lesson. July’s lasting achievement will not simply be that private university students fought in the revolution. It will be whether we retain what the streets taught us: public injustice is never somebody else’s problem; courage must remain answerable to human life; and every government, party and leader must remain open to question, including those who once stood beside us.

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Nafsin Mehanaz Azireen is a social activist and a former coordinator of the Students Against Discrimination movement.

Nayeem Abedin is a former coordinator and former central executive member of the Students Against Discrimination movement. He currently serves as Senior Joint Secretary of Jatiyo Chhatra Shakti (NCP).

Sadique Al Arman is a former coordinator of the Students Against Discrimination movement, a former member of the Electoral System Reform Commission, and an organiser of July Oikko.

Sakin Shabab is a former coordinator of the Students Against Discrimination movement and an executive member of PUSAB.