[This article was translated from the French and fi rst published by our sister organisation Lutte Ouvrière in their monthly journal Lutte de Classe #250 September-October.]
On 5 August 2024, General Waker-uz-Zaman, Chief of Staff of the Bangladesh Army, announced the flight of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who had been in power for fi fteen years. On 8 August, Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition fi gure, took over as head of a provisional government endorsed by the army. His promise? To respond to the democratic aspirations expressed during the popular uprising that, despite bloody repression, had just ousted Hasina. One year on, what has become of the hopes raised by the "July revolution"?
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Bangladesh emerged out of the division of what had been British colonial India. Partition in 1947 gave rise to two new independent states: India and Pakistan. This suddenly separated populations living on both sides of the border. Brutal communal violence followed and an estimated 2 million people died as a result. The territory of Bangladesh - East Bengal - was originally designated as part of Pakistan and only became an independent state in 1971 after a bloody war of independence against the Pakistani army.
When the British colonial power had drawn the borders on the Subcontinent, the intention was to separate Muslim-majority and Hindu-majority territories. Three centuries of colonialism also left a legacy of famines - in 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had left three million Bengalis to starve to death. Economies were destroyed or plunged into backwardness leaving them unable to provide a decent life for the population. There was no account taken of the real economic and social ties, nor the wishes of the populations they divided. This was a source of constant border confl icts between the states that emerged from decolonisation. Colonisers have always played ethnic and religious groups off against each other to ensure their domination and this was a classic case. The ruling nationalist successors continued the same policies.
The former colonial Bengal was one of the territories divided in two in 1947: West Bengal was incorporated into India; majority Muslim East Bengal became the eastern part of Pakistan, but it was 2,000 kilometres distant from its western part (present-day Pakistan), with India in the middle. In March 1971, Bengali nationalist forces staged an uprising demanding independence. There followed a genocidal repression by the West Pakistan army. When the Indian army was sent by Indira Gandhi to intervene on the side of the Bengalis, this developed into full-scale war between India and Pakistan which ended in a defeat for the Pakistani generals.
Bangladesh's political life ever since, has been marked by violent clashes, assassinations of activists and political leaders, and military coups. Apart from periods of military dictatorship (most of the years between 1975 and 1990), two rival bourgeois nationalist parties have alternated in government: the conservative Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Sheikh Hasina's Awami League (People's League), which has historically presented itself as progressive, even socialist. Returning to power in 2009, Hasina established an authoritarian regime.
An underdeveloped country shaped by imperialism
Sometimes described as an "economic miracle" for its high growth rates, Bangladesh - with its 170 million inhabitants, half of whom are under the age of 26 - remains in reality plagued by poverty and underdevelopment. These ills, inherited from colonialism, are exacerbated by the domination of the world economy by the imperialist big bourgeoisie. The world's second largest textile exporter since 2010 (behind China), Bangladesh is integrated into the global economy as a low-level subcontractor, subject to the decisions of American and European multinational clothing companies such as H&M, Zara, Adidas and Gap. These companies control the market and pocket the lion's share of the wealth created in the country's 4,000 textile factories.
As many as 4.5 million workers (60% of whom are young women) produce clothing and footwear in often dangerous conditions, tragically illustrated by the deaths of 1,138 workers when the Rana Plaza building collapsed in 2013. For a monthly wage of around £28 in 2024, they work 9 to 14 hours a day (and even more, seven days a week, during peaks in global demand). They produce 82% of the value of Bangladesh's exports (worth £27 billion in 2023), on which the fortunes of Bangladesh's capitalists and political and military leaders are built, either directly, or through the plundering of the state coffers, in their role as agents of the big imperialist bourgeoisie.
As for the vast majority of the population, including 18 million young people forced into unemployment, they must seek informal work in order to survive, when they are not forced into exile, like the 500,000 Bangladeshis who emigrate each year, thus joining the world's working class, especially in neighbouring Asian countries and the Persian Gulf states. Capitalism has proved incapable of guaranteeing the population even a job and a living wage. Nor is it capable of lifting Bangladesh out of underdevelopment. While the value of textile production has quadrupled in the last fifteen years, the number of industrial jobs has stagnated. The ferocity of exploitation has not changed, and its intensity has increased. This is the "economic miracle" in which the July 2024 revolt was born.
From an anti-quota struggle to a revolt against the regime
The immediate cause of the revolt was a quota system for government jobs, perceived as unfairly favouring supporters of the ruling party, Sheikh Hasina's Awami League. Thirty per cent of public sector jobs were reserved for civilians who had fought against the Pakistani army during the 1971 war of independence, as well as their children and, since 2010, their grandchildren. Abolished in 2018 after years of student struggle, these quotas were reinstated on 5 June 2024 by the Supreme Court. Immediately, the anti-quota movement resumed. On 1 July, the students formed a leadership organisation, Students Against Discrimination (SAD). Cities then saw a succession of demonstrations and road and railway blockades (the Bangla Blockade) by tens of thousands of students and, increasingly, young people from all walks of life who felt deprived of a future.
Faced with the protests, Hasina did not content herself with provoking the demonstrators by calling them "anti-national liberation traitors". In mid-July, she also launched a fierce crackdown led by gangs of students and Awami League cadres armed with batons and fi rearms, as well as by state security forces. Among the most brutal were the anti-terrorist units of the Rapid Action Battalions, which had been trained in the 2000s by the United States and Britain. These units were known for having "disappeared" thousands of opponents. Added to this were the police and the army. The death of Abu Sayed, a student killed by the police on 16 July while standing with his arms outstretched, was particularly striking. The video recording of his murder circulated widely, as did his story: that of a young man from a poor working-class family, whose village had clubbed together to pay for his education. Sayed was one of more than 1,400 people killed, including dozens of children, often in their homes, during raids by state forces. More than 10,000 people were arrested, and often tortured. But far from being curbed by the repression, the protests were fuelled by it.
In addition to the sense of injustice over quotas, the mobilisation drew its strength from a deep anger inflamed by the contrast between the triumphant official discourse on Bangladesh's development and a very different reality. What the vast majority of the population saw for themselves were widening social inequalities, double-digit inflation, spreading poverty and hunger (38 million people were officially "food insecure" in 2023). Added to this there was mass unemployment, widespread corruption in access to employment, and finally the unabashed authoritarianism of the Hasina government. Far beyond the quotas, the movement launched by the students became a rallying point for expressing accumulated social and political exasperation. On 21 July, when the Supreme Court backed down on quotas, it was already too late: the movement had turned into a revolt against the regime.
Workers in the July revolt
The courage of the students, the feeling that they were fighting against social misery and an authoritarian and corrupt state, had drawn new layers of society into the struggle. Rickshaw pullers turned their bicycle taxis into ambulances to rescue protesters affected by the repression. Day labourers, small traders, workers in the informal economy, and textile workers (of whom probably several hundred were killed) joined the revolt all the more naturally because, like Abu Sayed, most of the students who defi ed the regime came from working-class families themselves.
The workers shared many reasons for rising up with them. And they also had their own. In the industrial districts around the capital, Dhaka, including Gazipur, the largest, labour and student activists organised clandestine meetings from 16 July onwards, sometimes in forests, to extend the struggle to the textile working class. In Gazipur, thousands of leaflets were distributed between the 16th and 17th. Here, textile workers led students and other workers: 10,000 gathered on the 17th. The next day, the police carried out raids and mass arrests in homes, schools and factories; at the same time, army helicopters fi red on the demonstrators. A textile worker, Nazrul Islam, was killed and many others were injured. On 25 July, new leaflets appeared: they supported the students' demands, calling for justice for the worker killed, an end to the prosecutions, a ban on the repression of gatherings, a minimum monthly wage of 30,000 taka (£200) and the publication of factory profits.
The leadership of the revolt in the hands of SAD students
Although many workers took part in the demonstrations, and although here and there some activists among them sought to formulate their demands, the working class never had its own organs of struggle, nor its own programme, and even less a leading role in the revolt. The demands, slogans and appeals depended on the SAD student leaders. Despite their hesitation, they assumed the leadership of a movement that had become a popular revolt against the regime. But they never put forward demands related to the needs of the workers, nor did they set objectives targeting the profits and power of the capitalists. They confined the revolt to their petty-bourgeois democratic aspirations: their appeals to the principles of freedom, progress, equality and justice, even if they echoed the sentiments of broad masses, were doomed to remain empty words as long as they accepted capitalist domination and the imperialist order.
After winning their case on quotas, the student leaders limited themselves to demanding justice for the victims and the resignation of various leaders. On 3 August, the deepening of the revolt, its very insurrectionary character (450 of the country's 600 police stations were attacked or burned down), led them to present a single demand: Hasina's departure. To achieve this goal, they presented a plan of "non-cooperation", centred on boycotting taxes and public institutions. This plan also called on workers, especially those in the textile industry and the port of Chittagong, not to go to work. The student leaders hoped to use the economic weight of the working class as leverage. Finally, on 4 August, one of these leaders, Nahid Islam, declared: "If sticks are not enough, we are ready to take up arms. [...] Form resistance committees in every neighbourhood, every village. [...] From now on, the students will run the country". What followed would show that, despite these revolutionary words, they were incapable of doing so.
The army abandons Hasina
For although Hasina ruled in an authoritarian manner, she did so in the name and interests of the real holders of power: the capitalist class, itself supported by the state apparatus. However, the student leaders never targeted this power. The question would not then have been one of boycotting or blocking, but of seeking to sweep away this power and replace it with another: that of the working class, which alone would have been capable of doing so. But no political force within it sought to give it this objective.
On the side of the leaders of the propertied classes, it became clear that the movement could not be contained solely by repression, curfews and internet shutdowns. On 3 and 4 August, more than half a million demonstrators had gathered again, undeterred by the repression, which was then at its height. A solution had to be found to defuse the revolt before it turned into a revolution. Rather than engaging in even more violent repression, with uncertain consequences, the decision was made to play on democratic illusions. Already, on the evening of 4 August, General Waker-uz-Zaman, the top military leader, had declared that the army - which was still participating in the repression that same day - would "always be on the side of the people". On the same day, retired offi cers called on the army to "withdraw its forces from the streets". A former chief of staff added: "We are deeply concerned, troubled and saddened by all the killings, torture, disappearances and mass arrests. [...] Our armed forces should under no circumstances come to the aid of those who are responsible for the current situation". They abandoned Hasina. The next day, after fifteen years in power, Hasina was forced to flee to India. General Zaman made the announcement. Hundreds of thousands of protesters were already on their way to the "Long March for Dhaka" called by the SAD: what was supposed to be, according to student leader Asif Mahmud, the "final battle" turned into an eruption of popular jubilation.
Hasina gone, the generals remain
The revolt had forced the wealthy to take a significant step back, even if, and this was not widely realised, this success was by no means decisive. Hasina had placed loyalists at the head of the army and the state apparatus. General Zaman himself was related by marriage to Hasina's family. Many textile capitalists were associated with the Awami League, sometimes as members, sometimes even as MPs. With Hasina's fall, some thought it prudent to close their factories and flee abroad. But the class interests of the capitalists went beyond Hasina and the case of individual capitalists. To preserve the essentials, it was necessary to take the risk of a setback and a superficial upheaval.
It was urgent to act because more and more workers were taking part in the revolt and were likely to follow the call to form committees. Signs of discontent with the violence of the repression, and even sympathy for the revolt, were appearing among conscripts and young army officers. Above all, it was necessary to return to a stable situation in order to resume the exploitation of textile workers, while at the end of July, employers in the sector declared that they were losing £113 million a day. The revolt and repression had disrupted production. And for the contractors, the American and European multinational clothing companies, there was no question of waiting. Were the Bangladeshi capitalists incapable of fulfilling orders? The contractors passed them on to their competitors in India or Vietnam. In global economic competition, competitiveness is measured not only by wages, but also by the ability of states to maintain order and continuity of exploitation. As Hasina was no longer fulfilling this role, she was abandoned, and the generals set about finding a plan B.
Yunus and the interim government
The students were also organising, but for different purposes. Hasina's flight had prompted the country's 200,000 police officers to go into hiding, fearing the wrath of those they had just suppressed. The most reactionary factions of society took advantage of this to engage in communal violence, particularly against the Hindu minority. The students, with their committees, organised themselves to ensure traffic flow, clean the streets, and protect neighbourhoods, property, and places of worship. But there was a long way between that and "running the country".
The initiative lay with the army, which never abandoned the streets. It had plenty of experience behind it. On 6 August, a meeting was held between its leaders and the opposition parties. On the same day, the army invited the student leaders to negotiate the composition of a new government. To the great satisfaction of all the exploiters of Bangladesh, the student leaders offered their support to the army, which, after a bloody crackdown, was acting as the guarantor of democracy. They agreed on a name: Muhammad Yunus. On 8 August, he formed his provisional government.
Winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, known as "the banker to the poor" and specialising in microcredit, Yunus had a long career in various bourgeois institutions behind him. An opponent of Hasina, he did not belong to any party. He was likely to serve as a democratic front to ensure the perpetuation of the domination of the imperialist and Bangladeshi bourgeoisie over the proletariat. And he skilfully flattered the sentiments of the students, referring to their revolt as the "July Revolution," a danger that he was precisely charged with defusing.
Yunus formed his provisional government with former bankers, prosecutors, ambassadors and senior army officers. He appointed an economist who had worked for 27 years for the International Monetary Fund (whose interventions helped to sow misery in Bangladesh) to head the central bank. He entrusted the Ministry of the Interior to a former senior army officer, who insisted on the need to recover the firearms seized by demonstrators during the revolt, as quickly as possible. Finally, he offered junior ministerial posts to two of the main student leaders, Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud, to give the illusion that the provisional government also represented the July fighters; in fact, to better demobilise them.
The provisional government against textile workers
But workers still faced poverty, unpaid wages, unemployment and rising prices. That is why, for months, starting in August 2024 and again in March 2025, strikes and workers' demonstrations multiplied. There were illusions about the provisional government, whose promises of social equality and justice served to raise hopes that it would care about the plight of workers.
But, expressing a certain mistrust, the workers did not wait: they took action. By driving Hasina out, they had gained confidence in their own strength. And if they considered that they had won democratic rights with her departure, it was in order to improve their lot, to organise and fight for their demands: on wages and working hours, for permanent employment, an end to lay-offs and blacklists, and for the recognition of their trade unions.
Opposing them, the workers once again found themselves facing gangs hired by the bosses, the leaders of the yellow unions and, as always, the police and the army. Yunus accused the workers involved in the struggle of being in the service of foreign powers or the Awami League, of being enemies of the "July revolution". At the end of August 2024, the army was given special judicial powers and deployed to industrial districts to put an end to what one of Yunus' advisers described as "subversive activities". Since then, as during the months of labour struggles in 2013 and 2023, at least two workers have been killed by state forces. By fighting back immediately, the textile workers exposed the anti-worker nature of the interim government. They realised that with Yunus, as with Hasina, they are facing the same capitalist exploiters, the same police, the same state.
The outcome of the struggle remains to be decided.
Today, the crisis remains unresolved. The Awami League has been banned, and 12 000 of its members were arrested last February and March during Operation Demon Hunt. Competition to fill the vacant positions is raging between the various political factions of the bourgeoisie. The BNP, the Islamic Congress and, now, the National Citizens' Party (formed by student leaders of the SAD) are, like the provisional government, taking nationalist and martial positions (against India in particular). Already, BNP gangs are replacing those of the Awami League in the service of the bosses. As for the Islamists, they are demonstrating and beginning to harass women who do not cover their hair. At the end of May this year, Yunus, whose relations with the army are tense, threatened to resign. The generals' threats are of a different order: in the name of "the sovereignty and unity of the country", they could attempt to resolve the political crisis - and, at the same time, try to silence social unrest - through a military coup.
What will be the outcome? What is certain is that even before it formally existed, bourgeois democracy had already given all it could in an under-developed country like Bangladesh: a political option, determined by circumstances, for the pro-property classes to maintain their exploitative society. For the rest, contrary to what the student leaders, Yunus and his ilk claim, neither possible elections in February 2026 nor constitutional reform will prevent "the return of authoritarianism". Bangladesh is integrated, at one of the lowest levels, into a global capitalist economy that is itself in crisis. It is these foundations that determine the character of the bourgeoisie and the state of Bangladesh, while keeping the masses in poverty and subjecting the working class to relentless exploitation. The brutality of the state under Hasina was not the result of her personality, but the result of these irreconcilable social contradictions. Under capitalism, it cannot be otherwise. This is the impasse into which the SAD student leaders led the July revolt. And this is why the Yunus government responded to the struggles of the textile workers with slander, truncheons and bullets.
Lessons for the future
Whether the army takes the offensive again, whether the initiative belongs once more to the student youth, or whether it comes from a generalisation of the still fragmented struggles of the working class, more decisive battles than those of the summer 2024 are yet to come. It will then be crucial to have learned the lessons of the past year.
As in recent years in Burma and Sri Lanka, the rebels in Bangladesh have not lacked fighting spirit. What has been lacking is a leadership aimed at challenging the capitalist system and the division of the world imposed by imperialism. In this sense, a decisive battle is already being fought: to work towards building a revolutionary communist party so that the working class can, in future struggles, defend its interests and its programme, and set itself the goal of taking power itself, sweeping away the capitalists and their state. By showing the way forward for workers in Asia and around the world, the working class of Bangladesh would thus take the first step towards escaping poverty and under-development. It is by giving substance to this perspective in the working class that those workers and students who were brought into action by the revolt of summer 2024, who refuse to be satisfied with promises and empty phrases about freedom or progress, can set to work.
20 August 2025