It Was an Uprising, Not a Revolution, Says Bangladesh's ‘July Declaration'

The Diplomat

2 days ago

On August 5, Chief Advisor of Bangladesh's interim government Muhammad Yunus read out the much-awaited July Declaration in a public program at the South Plaza of the National Parliament. The July Declaration calls for justice for victims, recognition of July martyrs as 'national heroes,' and implementation of reforms to ensure democracy, rule of law, and sustainable development.
It also seeks constitutional recognition of the uprising and envisions a future free from fascism, corruption, and inequality, reflecting the aspirations of a broad-based anti-fascist movement.
Interestingly, the Declaration does not describe the July protests that culminated in the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government on August 5 last year as a 'revolution.' Rather, it frames the events as a mass uprising.
By calling it an uprising, the interim government sidesteps the deeper questions of legitimacy and structural change that a revolution demands.
The Declaration attempts to legitimize the Yunus-led interim government as a constitutionally mandated government. The July Declaration states that the Twelfth National Assembly was dissolved following the July mass uprising and 'an Interim Government was formed constitutionally under the leadership of Dr. Muhammad Yunus on August 8, 2024, under Article 106 of the Constitution and in light of the opinion given by the Supreme Court.'
Yunus was thrust into executive authority following the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The circumstances of Hasina's removal were anything but constitutional. It was a revolutionary act, one that bypassed legal procedures and institutional norms. To then retroactively declare Yunus' government as constitutionally legitimate feels intellectually dishonest. It's a classic case of using constitutional language to mask extra-legal power shifts — a tactic often employed in hybrid regimes to lend a veneer of legality to what is essentially a political maneuver. Only a revolutionary framework can properly legitimize this government.
Another troubling aspect of the Declaration is its crediting of the military for the success of the July movement. The July Declaration states that 'the armed forces gave support to the movement at its final stage,' although there is much evidence to show that the military deployed force to put down the mass protests. In the words of a key coordinator of the movement who spoke to The Diplomat, 'the military had no option but to support us as our numbers were a hundred times bigger than the number of bullets they had.'
The July Declaration blames the Awami League for constitutional distortions, human rights abuses, and economic mismanagement over the past 16 years, and also for Bangladesh's democratic backsliding over the past 54 years. It also blames the military dictatorship of General H. M. Ershad, founder of the Jatia Party. It carefully bypasses the negative roles of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Jamaat-e-Islami, two main parties that participated in the July movement, in the history of Bangladesh.
What the Declaration chooses to leave out is revealing. There is no mention of the 2013 Shapla Square massacre, the 2009 BDR mutiny, or the controversial judicial killings of BNP and Jamaat leaders. These events are not minor footnotes in Bangladesh's contemporary history but defining moments that shaped public trust, institutional integrity, and the trajectory of political dissent. Their absence from the Declaration suggests a deliberate effort to sanitize the historical record, perhaps to avoid implicating powerful actors, including the judiciary.
The National Citizen Party (NCP), which was formed recently by student leaders of the mass protests, has demanded inclusion of several events for 'historical recognition.' These include the Pilkhana Carnage of 2009, the Shapla Square massacre, judicial killings, the anti-VAT movement of 2015, the Quota Reform Movement of 2018, Safe Road Movement of 2018, the murder of Abrar Fahad, an engineering student, by Awami League student wing members for criticizing the government over a water-sharing deal with India, and the Anti-Modi Movement of 2021, when Hefazat-e-Islam protested the Indian prime minister's visit to Bangladesh. It has also questioned the number of martyrs cited in the Declaration and has slammed the interim government for failing to determine the correct number.
Hefazat-e-Islam, a Deobandi Islamist advocacy group, has also criticized the interim government for the omission of the Shapla killings, and accuses it of historical erasure and selective memory. The Jamaat too has criticized it due to the omissions of these historical events. In addition, Jamaat also wants the Declaration to include reference to the Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, which it calls 'the Azadi of 1947.'
Regarding how the Declaration will be incorporated into the Constitution, the NCP wants it to be the Preamble of a 'new Constitution.' The Jamaat also demanded a legal basis for the July Declaration, 'either through an ordinance, a legal framework order, or a referendum.'
The BNP, the largest political party since the Awami League's fall, has not officially responded to the July Declaration. However, a member of its Standing Committee, Salahuddin Ahmed, has welcomed the Declaration. 'We are committed to granting the declarations made in the July Declaration formal recognition at both the state and constitutional levels,' he told journalists.
Without a broad consensus and transparent mechanisms, the July Declaration risks becoming another symbolic gesture — potent in rhetoric but hollow in substance. Bangladesh stands at a crossroads. The challenge now is not just to draft new declarations, but to build a political culture that values truth, accountability, and inclusive dialogue. Only then can documents like the July Declaration move beyond performance and contribute to genuine democratic transformation.