On August 5, 2024, Bangladesh staged nothing short of a miracle. Through the sacrifice of nearly two thousand lives, thirty thousand wounded bodies, and the defiance of millions, a fifteen–year fascist regime collapsed.

But the miracle was incomplete. The old state, its bones untouched, survived intact. What began as revolution quickly receded into something less: a mass uprising without a new republic to anchor it.

The questions demand blunt answers. Who led this revolution? Who died for it? Who filled the streets in a tidal surge of resistance? And above all, what did they want?

From the very first day, activists and student leaders insisted this was not simply regime change. It was a Second Liberation, a Bangladesh 2.0. Their aspirations were larger than ejecting one strongman; they sought to remake the state itself.

History shows us what that requires. France and Spain, in their revolutions, understood the necessity of rupture: dismantling old constitutions, discarding the laws and bureaucracies that had protected tyranny.

Bangladesh needed its own rupture. The vision of a Second Republic demanded a new state philosophy, a new charter, a new moral contract with its people.

The steps were obvious. First, a full accounting of the martyrs–a database to ensure that no future government could quibble, as they still do over 1971, about the human cost of freedom.

Then, urgent treatment and rehabilitation for the thousands maimed in July, binding the state’s credibility to those who had risked everything for it. Next, structural transformation: rewriting laws, rebuilding institutions, convening a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution.

And finally, reconciliation: a commission to hold collaborators of fascism accountable while offering the possibility of reintegration, not vengeance. Only after such a reckoning could elections be more than the recycling of old elites.

That was the path to a new Bangladesh. But the path was abandoned almost instantly. Within seventy–two hours, the historic chance was squandered.

The fascist president–the living emblem of dictatorship–was retained as head of state. The old constitution was left untouched. Instead of rupture, there was compromise. The military, student leaders, and political parties cut a deal: a “new” government sworn in under the very order it claimed to have overthrown.

It was an extraordinary moment of hesitation, and it carries an extraordinary cost. A nation that demanded rebirth was given continuity. A people who bled for transformation were offered reformism in disguise.

The questions of August 5 remain open, unresolved: Was this a revolution, or merely an intermission in the long play of Bangladeshi authoritarianism?

What changes really do take place?

Over the past year, Bangladesh has witnessed the choreography of reform but not its substance. Eleven commissions were formed.

The National Consensus Commission sat with political parties, hammering out agreements on eighty-four reform issues, most of them hedged with Notes of Dissent.

The disputes were telling: presidential powers, caretaker governments, proportional representation, the separation of party and state, even the creation of an ombudsman. On each, consensus fractured.

And so the interim government now prepares to sign the July Charter, a document touted as a new “social contract,” but one without a legal anchor. Should it rest on ordinances, Supreme Court interpretation, or a referendum?

No one knows. For millions who once filled the streets with hope, the promise of a Second Liberation has blurred into uncertainty.

Instead, elections are now promised for February. But what confidence can be placed in a government that has failed for twelve months to deliver structural change? Can it, in barely six more, deliver the reforms necessary to ensure a free and fair vote after four consecutive elections mired in controversy? The answer is self-evident–and bleak.

The reasons for failure are threefold.

First, leadership. The interim government never embodied the uprising it claimed to inherit. With few exceptions, its advisory cabinet was drawn not from the ranks of those who fought a fifteen-year dictatorship, but from outsiders and administrators.

They never spoke the language of a new republic, of justice and dignity. They governed instead as technocrats. Critics call it the “NGO government.” Reform was undertaken without urgency, vision, or sequencing–policies scattered without a blueprint for state transformation.

Second, sincerity. Nowhere was the absence of political will clearer than in education, the sector most ravaged under authoritarian rule. Fifteen years of distortion, politicization, and neglect demanded an overhaul–on curricula, history, AI integration, and preparation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Yet no education reform commission was ever formed. Likewise, the BDR massacre investigation was allowed to languish. Tribunals meant to prosecute the crimes of the fallen regime were obstructed by bureaucracy.

Out of eleven commissions, only six have seen their proposals incorporated into the July Charter. The rest have been shelved, consigned to the mercy of some future government.

Third, resistance. The interim state was besieged from without and within. The fallen Awami League maneuvered from the shadows, while opportunists carved space in the new political order. The judiciary staged open revolts.

Bureaucrats resisted at the National Board of Revenue and inside the secretariat. The police looked away. Ansar units mutinied. Farmers and workers struck. Professionals refused cooperation.

Students, the engine of the uprising, returned to the streets again and again. Meanwhile, BNP and NCP fractured into feuding camps, opportunists bartered with Jamaat, and the ghosts of banned Islamist groups resurfaced.

Add to this communal provocations, shrine attacks, minority panic campaigns stoked across borders, targeted killings, extortion mafias, and factional violence—each crisis siphoned off time, energy, and credibility.

The result is plain: a government entrusted with revolution has delivered paralysis. What was meant to be Bangladesh 2.0 risks degenerating into Bangladesh déjà vu.

Broken promise of restoring democracy

Fourth, the interim government failed at the most basic task of democratic reform: listening to its citizens.

While it spent months in closed-door sessions with political parties, ordinary Bangladeshis–the very people who flooded the streets last July–were sidelined.

Commissions conducted perfunctory tours, opened offices, and even launched online feedback portals, but the imprint of public opinion on their recommendations is faint at best. The proposals that emerged read less like a blueprint for popular sovereignty and more like bargaining chips between elites.

A credible process would have started with citizens, not politicians–through nationwide surveys, expert consultations, and then negotiations with parties from a position of strength.

Instead, the government has ceded leverage, reduced to pleading with factions still unwilling to accept key reforms.

Fifth, the political class itself remains unreconstructed. Yes, parties sat together, issued joint statements, and fended off propaganda. But beneath the surface, nothing has changed.

Violence, extortion, and muscle power continue to define politics. The interim government never forced the parties to confront their own complicity in authoritarianism, let alone to align themselves with the ideals of the July uprising.

Reform cannot be genuine if the vehicles of politics themselves remain unaltered.

Sixth, justice has been reduced to half-measures. The trials of Awami League leaders and collaborators move at a snail’s pace. The most discredited ICT tribunal verdicts remain undisturbed.

A handful of prosecutions for fascist-era crimes have been initiated, but without sweeping judicial reform or nationwide tribunals, justice risks degenerating into political theater.

Already, clashes at Dhaka University suggest how easily accountability can collapse into partisan vendetta. The danger is not just delay, but the erosion of legitimacy itself.

These failures are real, and criticism is deserved. Yet all is not lost. The July uprising still offers a reservoir of legitimacy, if the interim government has the courage to draw from it.

That means abandoning token gestures and embracing self-criticism. It means listening not to elites, but to citizens. It means moving from scattered commissions to clear, sequenced, enforceable reforms.

Above all, it means remembering the blood that was shed in the streets of Dhaka, Chittagong, and beyond, and building a state worthy of that sacrifice.

The dream of a new Bangladesh has not yet died. But it will, unless those entrusted with the revolution act as if it was theirs to defend.

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Md Talha is a political analyst and co-founder of Citizen Initiative. He can be reached at [email protected]