Lenin said, "There are decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades happen."

The July Mass Uprising of 2024 was one such moment. After 36 days of relentless protest, Bangladesh brought an end to fifteen years of autocratic rule. On August 5, Sheikh Hasina fled the country in the face of a student-led mass uprising.

Yet, July was never merely a political event. It became a rare moment in Bangladesh's history when people across religions, ethnicities, generations, professions, and regions stood together for a single demand: freedom from authoritarian rule. They achieved it through the sacrifice of hundreds of lives.

The Uprising is now approaching its second anniversary. Perhaps two years is not too short a time to begin understanding an uprising and the consequences it leaves behind. Looking back at the story behind the event after two years, countess characters emerge before us. Among the many stories that have emerged since July, one remains strikingly underexplored: its cultural significance.

One of the foremost reasons the uprising reached so many people within such a short span of time and succeeded in drawing people from every corner of Bangladesh into its fold was the cultural language of July. Against the cultural language shaped by Bangladesh's urban middle-class structure, the Uprising forged an entirely new cultural expression—one that ordinary people could embrace as their own, one in which they discovered their very existence.

"I have said this before, and I will keep saying it: to me, July was fundamentally a cultural event. Yes, it found political expression, but at its core, it was the consequence of the cultural fault lines we have created over decades," said Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, renowned filmmaker and former adviser to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs of the Interim Government.

As we return to July after two years, we find ourselves looking at two distinct dimensions of this cultural uprising.

The July Uprising witnessed Bangladesh's cultural community overcoming years of fear imposed by censorship and state repression. Theatre artistes, musicians, actors, photographers, painters, poets, writers, filmmakers, and cultural workers from every walk of life joined the movement spontaneously, making it the country's most significant cultural mobilization since the Liberation War of 1971 and the anti-autocracy movement of 1990.

At the same time, a new cultural language of resistance emerged as mainstream cultural expression, long suffocated under authoritarianism, found renewed life. Rock anthems such as Shunno's Shono Mohajon, Nazrul songs including Durgam Giri, Kantar Moru... and Mohini Chowdhury's Mondir Sopanotole, alongside Sezan's Kotha Ko, Hannan's Awaaz Uda, and numerous rap songs became the soundtrack of the movement. Graffiti, memes, reels, photography, cartoons, literature, and Debashish Chakroborthy's posters documented the uprising while inspiring ordinary people to embrace July as their own. Older literary works such as Akhtaruzzaman Elias's Raincoat gained renewed relevance, while verses by contemporary poets, including Hasan Robayet, appeared on graffiti walls and Facebook profiles as the language of resistance. By day, people confronted police bullets and armed ruling party cadres with little more than stones. By night, they carried these cultural expressions across social media, taking the spirit of July far beyond Bangladesh's borders.

"Two years on, if we are to speak about the significance of the July Movement, then the most significant outcome of this uprising is that the people of Bangladesh are inherently democratic, freedom-loving, and, at the end of the day, freedom of speech matters to them above all else," said filmmaker Tanim Noor, who was on the streets in July.

But what compelled so many artistes to leave their studios and take to the streets? "Artistes cannot tolerate injustice. That is exactly what happened in July. Watching the massacre unfold before our eyes, it was impossible for us to remain indoors. That is why we came out onto the streets," said renowned actress Azmeri Haque Badhan.

Beyond landmark moments such as the cultural activists' human chain in front of the Parliament Building on July 19, the curfew-defying Ganer Michhil on July 23, and the Drohajatra on August 2, cultural workers organized street theatre, mime, patriotic musical processions, and numerous other programs across the country while standing alongside students and ordinary citizens. The movement also came at a cost. Photographer Tahir Zaman Priyo was killed by police gunfire on July 19, many cultural activists came under government surveillance, and rapper Hannan was arrested on July 25 over Awaaz Uda, by which time the song had already spread across the country.

"Not everyone was involved. Those who felt a sense of duty as cultural activists to resist and protest injustice were there. It was not a resistance born in a single day. They took to the streets as the consequence of fifteen years of injustice, abuse, enforced disappearances, the DSA, and attacks on freedom of speech," said theatre artiste and University of Dhaka teacher Samina Luthfa.

On August 5, 2024, the autocratic ruler Sheikh Hasina fled the country. An interim government then assumed power in Bangladesh. It came to office as a non-political government, backed by the overwhelming support of the people of Bangladesh. Cultural activists, too, were filled with both hope and expectation at that moment. "All we wanted was the freedom to think and speak independently, accountability, transparency, and the assurance that everyone would be able to exercise freedom of expression in their own way. We wanted nothing more than that," said Tanim Noor. The July Mass Uprising was, for almost every deprived citizen and for those oppressed or outraged under the rule of the ousted government, an aspiration to live freely on their own terms. Artistes, too, stood before the guns in the hope of securing artistic freedom and justice as citizens. "What we asked for was not excessive. Even our Constitution says that every citizen is entitled to equal rights. We merely wanted to remind the nation of those constitutional rights," said Samina Luthfa.

From the very beginning, the Interim Government that came to power on the mandate of the July Mass Uprising witnessed mounting assaults on freedom of expression. Theatre productions and film screenings were obstructed, concerts canceled by mobs, cultural institutions, shrines, and museums attacked, and statues demolished in the name of protecting religious sentiments. Baul singers were assaulted, forcibly had their hair cut, and were even handed over to the police. Women, including those who had stood at the forefront of July, faced growing violence and character assassination, while dissent was increasingly branded as fascism. Individually, such incidents might have seemed isolated in a post-uprising transition. Collectively, and in the absence of decisive government action, they raised a troubling question: did the dream that brought cultural activists onto the streets remain out of reach?

"We are, without a doubt, still far from the dream we once envisioned. Just look at what the graffiti on our walls proclaimed—we are now miles away from those ideals. Two years have passed, from 2024 to 2026. Yet the reality remains unchanged. Even the leaders who rose to prominence as organizers of July have become controversial in various ways. A man has been burned alive during this so-called second independence. So, what hope are we left with?" says Razib Dutta, a cultural activist whose work extensively documents the graffiti of July. The dream of an egalitarian Bangladesh that once united everyone during July has gradually begun to fade into shades of grey. We have already spoken of the negative developments behind this disillusionment, but why have these very incidents continued even in this era of the so-called second independence?

"Since July, Bangladesh has witnessed the forceful rise of the far right. Sadly, the empowerment of these far-right forces has been enabled by the leaders of July, the mutual consent of our political parties, and the silent approval of the Interim Government," says Tanim Noor. At a time when Bangladesh's political parties should have stood together to move the country forward, what we witnessed instead after July was an irreconcilable division. "Political parties not showing civility, faith in due process, and the return to partisan appointments instead of merit-based and criteria-based selections within our administrative structures—all of these combined make the dream that brought us to the streets in July seem far-fetched today," said Samina Luthfa.

The July Uprising became a mass movement because it united people across ideological, social, and political divides. Women in burqas and T-shirts marched together, as did people from the hills and plains, villages and cities. Students, garment workers, day laborers, left-wing activists, DSA victims, survivors of the 2013 Shapla tragedy, right-wing supporters, and ordinary citizens frustrated by inflation, corruption, and the absence of democracy all shared one goal: ending autocratic rule. Having emerged from such a broad coalition, the Interim Government carried the responsibility of ensuring that every stakeholder felt represented in its aftermath. To what extent did it fulfill that responsibility?

"It would be unrealistic to expect a post-uprising government to transform everything overnight. We inherited a state in which almost nothing was functioning. The police force and the administration were fractured, ineffective, and largely non-functional. On top of that came the vacuum created by the uprising itself, with different groups trying to exploit the uncertainty. These were extraordinary circumstances," says Farooki.
 

His acknowledgment, in broad terms, offers us a glimpse into Bangladesh's post-uprising reality. Throughout almost the entire tenure of the Interim Government, law and order remained largely beyond control. On one hand, there was mob violence; on the other, a surge in robberies and killings, while the government repeatedly demonstrated its inability to contain them. But when asked what the government had done for cultural practitioners and the rebuilding of the country's cultural sphere, Farooki said, "Within those constraints, our ministry focused on three priorities. Past: preserving the memory of the previous sixteen years through documentaries, public screenings at home and abroad, commemorative concerts, the July Mass Uprising Memorial Museum, and reimagined celebrations of Bijay Dibosh and Noboborsho. Present: building a cultural policy that reflected Bangladesh's diversity by bringing together different ethnic, religious, and artistic traditions in state-sponsored programs. Future: nurturing 'cultural imagination, openness, and a shared sense of belonging,' because democracy cannot be sustained by institutions alone; culture must play an equally vital role."

Another reality unfolded in the aftermath of the July Mass Uprising. People from different ideologies, beliefs, and backgrounds had stood together with a single objective: to free themselves from an autocratic state. But amid that struggle, few stopped to ask what would come after the fascist fell. In the months that followed, July was increasingly claimed by certain groups, while the broad coalition that had sustained the movement gradually gave way to division, labeling, and diminishing tolerance for dissent. That culture of polarization also seeped into Bangladesh's cultural sphere. Nearly six months into the democratically elected government's tenure, many cultural practitioners, as during the Interim Government, still struggle to find much reason for hope.

"We had greater expectations from the Interim Government than we do from the elected government. The elected government is a political government; it will naturally move forward within a political framework and with partisan priorities. But we believed the government born out of the uprising would be able to fulfill our expectations," said Badhan.
 

As a result, while certain specific groups and political parties may have succeeded in consolidating their own interests after July, the countless ordinary people of Bangladesh—those who had simply dreamt of building a better country, those for whom the graffiti of that time carried profound meaning—have all returned home empty-handed. The same holds true, almost in its entirety, for Bangladesh's theatre workers, filmmakers, photographers, musicians, and countless other cultural activists, for what they had hoped to receive in a new Bangladesh now appears to have dissolved into an uncertain and fading future.