July 7, 2025
DHAKA – As the calendar wheels into July once more, we approach the first anniversary of the great civic insurrection that unseated what was, by any measure, one of the most enduring authoritarian regimes in South Asia’s history. The events of that month, its tremors, its torch-lit vigils, its bloodied pavements, constituted more than just an upheaval. They were the birth pangs of a people’s longing to breathe freely, to be governed not by fear, but by consent. Yet, as we mark this sacred milestone, the grand celebrations, what really grips us is a creeping unease, a quiet admission that much remains undone.
There was, for a brief interval last month, the hope of reaching consensus, of returning to democratic nation-building in earnest. Following the meeting in London between Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus and BNP’s Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman—a dialogue heralded as a cornerstone for national reconciliation—the nation dared to believe again. We heard whispers of reason, signs of structured transition, the first contours of institutional sanity. But before the month could pass, and like the monsoon clouds that hover before evaporating into nothingness, the promise of direction has already started to dissipate. We now find ourselves ensnared once more in the ominous choreography of brinkmanship—where actors, seen and unseen, gamble not merely with policy, but with the fate of the republic.
It is the economy—always the economy—that feels the tremors first and most profoundly. Bill Clinton’s infamous admonition in 1992—”It’s the economy, stupid”—remains the only compass in times of political confusion. Yet here, the compass spins wildly. Inflation has surged beyond 10 percent, eroding real wages and eviscerating what little remains of the middle class’s purchasing power. The proposed budget for FY2025-26 projects a deficit of Tk 2.26 trillion, or roughly 3.6 percent of GDP—an official optimism purchased with heroic revenue assumptions. The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) warns that the National Board of Revenue may miss its target by Tk 1.05 trillion, perhaps more if present trends persist. This is not a gap, it is a chasm.
Private investment, both domestic and foreign, has frozen. Investors are rational creatures; they demand not only profit but predictability. No one writes cheques to a state whose stewardship is in limbo. A caretaker administration, however principled, cannot catalyse long-term capital formation. The chambers of commerce know it. So do the garment factory owners, the agribusinessmen, and the fintech pioneers. And so, tragically, do the retrenched workers now seeking overseas contracts to survive.
Current businesses are suffocating. Their margins are under siege from inflationary pressures, disrupted supply chains, and a merciless tax regime scrambling for revenue. Bankruptcy looms large for many, not due to mismanagement, but because the very atmosphere in which they operate is toxified by uncertainty. And when the private sector falters, the consequences spill far beyond commerce; they seep into livelihoods, into families, into the very moral fabric of society.
Into this void of economic and political ambiguity have crept actors whose motivations are far more malign. Certain parties, many of them historically allergic to liberal democracy and obsessed with theocratic absolutism, have seized upon the vacuum. With rhetorical sleight and strategic opportunism, they now advocate for a wholesale restructuring of the electoral system—championing proportional representation (PR) as the sole “just” mechanism.
Let us be clear: the demand for a full PR system was never part of the post-uprising national compact. It did not emerge from the public squares, nor was it inscribed in any manifesto of the July revolution. Rather, it is a recent construct—born not of philosophical conviction but of political pique. These factions, having failed to extract a favourable number of guaranteed parliamentary seats from the BNP-led coalition, have now recast their grievance as principle.
One need not invoke Condorcet’s paradox, Arrow’s impossibility theorem, or the abundant empirical evidence of PR’s tendency to empower fringe groups and paralyse governance to recognise the threat. This is not an academic squabble. It is a naked power play by those who could not secure popular mandates and now wish to engineer institutional loopholes for influence. Worse still, their ideological lodestar is not democratic pluralism, but an ideological orthodoxy that has historically regarded secular governance as an aberration to be corrected.
The fragility of law and order adds another sinister layer to this already precarious situation. Violent crimes—extortion, land grabs, even assassinations—have not abated. In fact, in some regions they have increased. The police, under-resourced and demoralised, struggle to enforce the writ of the state. The moral authority of the interim advisers has waned, not because their intentions were suspect, but because accountability remains an abstraction. Without an elected government, citizens have no mechanism—legal or political—through which to censure, correct, or even question those in authority.
At the heart of this slow unravelling lies a singular failure: the delay in holding the general elections. The conversation in London last month between Prof Yunus and Mr Rahman was not merely symbolic. It was, to many, the nearest thing to a national covenant. A pledge, forged in the crucible of blood and defiance, that the people’s will would be restored through the ballot. That pledge now seems mired with uncertainty. Postponements are whispered. Technical difficulties are conjured. And the danger is profound.
For every month that passes without electoral resolution, the economy haemorrhages, the polity polarises, and those with extreme views gain ground. Time, which once seemed to be on our side, now conspires against us. There is no “ideal” moment to vote. The revolution did not ask for perfection. It asked for legitimacy, for representation, for the return of the republic to its rightful stewards: the people.
If we betray that promise now—through delay, through deception, or through distraction—we do not merely postpone democracy. We imperil it.
The July uprising was a moment of rupture, yes—but also of rare unity. That unity is fraying. Let us not allow the silence of inaction to become louder than the chants of the people who made history only a year ago. Let us not forget what we rose against—and more importantly, what we rose for.
Bobby Hajjaj is the chairman of Nationalist Democratic Movement (NDM) and a faculty member at North South University. He can be reached at bobby.hajjaj@northsouth.edu.
Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.