A revolution under the monsoon rains: Bangladesh's new story

DHAKA

I have come to Bangladesh again after roughly a year. A year ago I had been here on the occasion of the anniversary of the July Revolution, and had the chance to observe the excitement of the revolution, the exuberance of the young, the society breathing again, and the psychological atmosphere created by a long-suppressed people's first encounter with freedom. Frankly, when I arrived this year, I could not help drawing a metaphor from those aspects of the rains, which had not caught my attention much last year, that evoke the revolutionary process in Bangladesh.

Indeed, what first greets people arriving in Dhaka is often not crowds of people but rain. July in particular is the month when the three-month monsoon rains fall most heavily.

Here rain is not merely a weather event. It is an actor in its own right that sets the rhythm of life. Seasons here are told not from the pages of a calendar but from the color of the sky and the intensity of the rain. A day that begins with scorching heat can take on an entirely different face in the afternoon with black clouds that suddenly roll in. People who were sweltering under the sun a few minutes earlier begin looking for shelter under the monsoon rains that suddenly pour down.

It was so on this visit too. The sky waited for a long time without giving any sign. Then all at once the horizon darkened. Within minutes the rain poured down so hard that some of the city's streets and back alleys turned into small ponds. Rickshaws tried to make their way through the water, shopkeepers hurriedly took measures to protect their goods, and people met this whole scene as if it were the ordinary flow of life.

At first glance these rains give one a sense of disorder. But looking a little more carefully, you cannot help thinking that Bangladeshi society, too, has a character like these rains. Within this life that looks complicated, scattered and hard to control from the outside, there is an order of its own, a resilience and fortitude of its own.

Perhaps that is why, to understand Bangladesh, one must first understand its rain.

Because this country, just like the suddenly pouring monsoon rains, is capable of surprises that outside observers do not expect.

And indeed, did the July Revolution, which took place two years ago before the eyes of the whole world, not happen somewhat like this? The people of Bangladesh, whom Orientalist formulas wanted to see as a silent, resigned and passive Eastern society, suddenly rose to their feet and ended a sixteen-year dictatorship. Just as the courage of the young people who filled the streets in those days surprised many, the scene we encounter today, two years after the revolution, gives rise to new questions and new hopes about Bangladesh's future.

THE PROMISE AND REALITY OF THE JULY REVOLUTION

This time my reason for coming was to attend the launch of Ümmet Magazine and its online platform, published by the Ummah Foundation. But when one comes to a country for the second or third time, one looks not only at what one sees but at what has changed. What strikes you on your first visit is the scenery; on later visits, it is the direction of change.

Bangladesh today is no longer merely a country that has made a revolution; it is a country trying to live the post-revolution. The real test begins here. Because overthrowing a dictatorship is much easier than building a free order.

The experiences of the Arab Spring taught us more than enough how much heavier a matter this is. In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen the peoples made revolutions, but the vacuums that emerged after the revolutions were filled by remnants of the old regime, foreign interventions or new power struggles.

Everyone in Bangladesh today seems aware of this danger.

Perhaps that is why here the revolution still survives not as a memory but as a living consciousness.

THE EXIT FROM THE REGIME OF FEAR

The system Sheikh Hasina built over roughly sixteen years was not merely a political power. It was an order of fear that enveloped all the institutions of the state.

The suppression of the opposition, the silencing of journalists, the emptying of elections of meaning, the politicization of the judiciary, arbitrary detentions and widespread corruption had for many years become part of the daily life of the Bangladeshi people. Walking the streets of Dhaka today, chatting with people, the first thing that stands out is that people now speak more freely.

This is not something that can be measured in statistics. But it is one of the most important indicators of social transformation. People's not being afraid to talk politics, being able to criticize the government, and different views becoming visible in the public sphere are the first and most important gains of democratization.

I talked with many young people. These young people, the heroes of the revolution two years ago, are still in politics today. But now they discuss how institutions are to be built more than they shout slogans. How should a constitution be drafted? How can the judiciary be made independent? How should mechanisms be set up to prevent any leader from ever again acquiring absolute power?

Although the situation has become somewhat clearer since last year, these questions have been part of Bangladesh's daily political agenda for two years. This shows that the revolution has begun to mature.

THE NEW PERIOD AFTER THE ELECTION

After the July Revolution, the transitional administration formed under the leadership of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus prepared the country for elections.

The elections held on 12 February 2026 went down in history as the first genuinely competitive election in about twenty years. The new government formed after the elections was the first major stage in transferring the people's demand for change into the political system.

Although the people of Bangladesh made a revolution, they did not prefer to build politics entirely from scratch. In the atmosphere in which the young people's influence in the Revolution was so decisive, Jamaat-e-Islami could not deliver the performance expected of it in the elections. The figure who came to power after the revolution also came from the Zia family, which represents the country's other great political tradition. The candidate of the current party, which surprised everyone by winning more than two thirds of the seats in the elections, Bangladesh's present prime minister Tarique Rahman, is the son of former president and BNP founder Ziaur Rahman and of Khaleda Zia, prime minister of the government before Hasina and a three-time prime minister herself. Seen from this angle, it appears that the structure of Bangladeshi politics, shaped for many years around two great political dynasties, has not been broken. Indeed, the deposed prime minister Hasina too was the daughter of the country's founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. That is why the observation is often made in Bangladeshi politics that for many years the country was defined by the "rivalry of two families." On one side Hasina and the Awami League, representing the Mujib family; on the other Khaleda Zia and the BNP, representing the Zia family.

The story of the current prime minister Tarique Rahman is also a story of exile and return. After the period of military tutelage in 2007-2008, he lived for many years in London because of the cases brought against him. He remained in de facto exile for about 17 years. After the overthrow of the Hasina regime, a significant part of his cases was dropped and he returned to his country in 2025. In the elections held a year later, he became prime minister.

In terms of his political line he represents the BNP tradition founded by his father: he emphasizes Bangladeshi nationalism. He keeps his distance from a foreign policy overly dependent on India. He says he will try to build a more balanced Türkiye–Pakistan–Gulf–China–West relationship. He supports a free-market economy and the private sector. He represents a conservative-nationalist line that does not exclude religious identity from public life but is not directly Islamist either.

This picture shows that, after the revolution, the people of Bangladesh are seeking a political balance able to carry freedom, stability, national independence and economic development together, rather than radical breaks. The mood felt in the country today points to a period in which the excitement created by the revolution is gradually giving way to a search for institutionalization, yet the demand for freedom still retains its vitality…