After every historic uprising: Why do our dreams fade?

If you look back at Bangladesh's long history of resistance, you can find one uncomfortable truth that becomes difficult to ignore: removing a ruler has often been easier than transforming the system.

July is here once again. Just two years ago, this month became a defining chapter in Bangladesh's history. Students and ordinary citizens poured into the streets, and more than 1,000 people sacrificed their lives. It was only for the hope of ending a system they believed had become deeply unequal and discriminatory under the Awami League government. Finally, the regime fell. Then what happened next?

If we look closely, an uncomfortable reality emerges. While a government can fall, institutions often remain remarkably unchanged. Power changes hands, but the structures through which power operates – the bureaucracy, political culture, patronage networks, and administrative practices – can endure. Two years after the July Uprising, many citizens continue to ask whether the aspirations that inspired such extraordinary sacrifice have truly been realised.

Yet this question is not only about July. It has recurred throughout Bangladesh's history.

A pattern older than the nation

Long before Bangladesh emerged as an independent country in 1971, people repeatedly rose against injustice.

In the nineteenth century, Titumir mobilised peasants against oppressive taxation and the exploitation of landlords backed by colonial authorities. His bamboo fort became more than a military position; it symbolised resistance against a system that denied ordinary people dignity and justice.

The Indigo Revolt followed, where farmers challenged European planters who forced them into cultivating indigo instead of food crops. The movement exposed how economic systems could become instruments of oppression.

The Faraizi Movement, the Tebhaga Movement, and countless local struggles carried a similar message: people were demanding not merely relief from immediate suffering but a fairer social and political order.

Most of these movements succeeded in exposing injustice. Few fundamentally transformed the structures that produced it. But it's true that resistance to injustice runs in the blood of the people of this region historically.

Language, liberation, and unfinished promises

The Language Movement of 1952 was about far more than the recognition of Bangla. It represented a demand for political inclusion, cultural identity, and democratic rights within Pakistan.

Sixteen years later came the Mass Uprising of 1969, when students, workers, and political activists united against military rule. Their movement weakened Ayub Khan's regime and accelerated the struggle for self-determination.
Then came 1971.

The Liberation War remains Bangladesh's greatest collective achievement. Millions fought for a country founded on democracy, equality, justice, and human dignity. Independence promised not simply a new flag but a new political culture.

Independence brought hope, but building the nation proved far more difficult. Political turmoil, economic challenges, military takeovers, and recurring authoritarian rule slowly eroded many of the values and aspirations that had united people during the Liberation War. 

The streets return again

History did not stop after independence.

The anti-autocracy movement of 1990 united students, professionals, workers, and political parties against military ruler Hussain Muhammad Ershad. His resignation was celebrated as a victory for democracy.

Bangladesh returned to parliamentary democracy, but many of the practices people hoped to leave behind – political violence, partisan institutions, patronage politics, and weak accountability – continued under successive governments.
The faces changed. The incentives rarely did.

Why systems outlive governments

Political scientists have long distinguished between changing a government and transforming a state.

Governments are temporary. Institutions are enduring. Courts, law enforcement, civil service, election management, universities, regulatory bodies, and local administrations shape how power functions long after particular leaders leave office.

As long as the constitution, institutional structure, and political culture remain largely unchanged, any new government will face significant challenges in eliminating corruption, inefficiency, and abuse of power.

If all these remain politicised and unaccountable, public expectations inevitably collide with reality.

Expectations and reality

For many young people who joined the 2024 July movement, the dream went far beyond changing the country's leadership. They wanted a Bangladesh where public institutions worked independently, merit mattered more than political loyalty, dissent was respected, and everyone was held accountable under the law.

The reality, however, has been different. While some reforms have begun, many of the deeper changes are still incomplete. Allegations of extortion continue, while mob violence, political attacks, sexual violence, bribery, and other crimes remain a concern. For many who marched in July, this was not the future they had hoped for. They wanted not just a new government, but a better system.

Yet Bangladesh's history is not just a story of repeated frustration; it is also a story of enduring hope. Every uprising has broadened public awareness of rights, accountability, and citizenship. Each generation has inherited unfinished work from the one before it.

Perhaps that is history's most important lesson: the true measure of an uprising is not how successfully it removes those in power, but whether it builds a system where future generations no longer have to rise up for the same dreams.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.