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The July-August mass uprising in 2024 started from a small University-based protest against discriminatory job quotas in Government jobs. However, the pretext of this huge mass participation had been created in the last few years and a combination of factors worked for which people took to the streets. Some of these reasons are ideological, some are rhetorical and some are purely pragmatic considerations. The existing political parties need to critically analyze the psyche behind such discontent and their job is to solve these issues and meet the demand of the people once they get elected. The recent DUCSU election results suggest that the educated middle class is moving towards strategic voting rather than voting in favour of certain ideology or favouritism. Even though most of these voters belong to the Gen Z, it still has a ripple effect nationally and cannot be ignored. Thus, political parties need to come out of their old-fashioned traditional-style politics and re-think, re-create, re-consider and re-organize..

The July mass uprising has to be analyzed critically by the political parties for setting strategies for the next election campaigning and for attracting mass people. First, let’s dive into the core reasons behind people’s discontent against the previous regime. There are several reasons why people revolted- continuous democratic backsliding (repeated rigged elections), extrajudicial killings and torture, suppression of opposition or dissenting voices, growing authoritarian tendencies, corruption, lack of good governance and accountability, growing economic inequality, rising inflation, unemployment, compromising sovereignty and autonomy of the state, mafia-control over each and every institution, money laundering, absence of rule of law and judicial independence, cultural hegemony and foreign aggression, police excesses and fragmentaton of ethical, social and cultural values. All these factors ultimately resulted in a mass uprising. No single political party can claim credit, credit has to be given to the people of Bangladesh. Most of the people and young Gen Zs participated because it started as a social movement and later on translated into a political movement with huge popular support. 

The political parties should carefully analyze these trends through research and statistics to try to understand people’s sentiment, their demands, their aspirations and align their manifesto according to people’s demands. The BNP has proposed 31-points but these are vague as to how they will be implemented, what are the steps, how accountability will be ensured and what is the vision they want to achieve compared to the present context. Moreover, people want to see innovative ideas which are practical. The people want crystal-clear and smart solutions to the above-mentioned problems. Accountability, reform, anti-corruption and meritocracy are required in the internal party structure to think about solutions and actually be able to implement them. Vague promises are no longer sufficient, the manifesto needs to be catchy, visible and accessible- so that people can easily connect to it. There has to be solid action plans in the manifesto that will ensure voter confidence rather than some provisions, in-general pledges without innovation or public appeal, lofty ideas which cannot be connected and visualized easily. Manifesto given by other political parties so far are not promising either. This shows a dull and gloomy picture that the current political parties do not care much about improving their PR in a global standard while the previous fascist regime, even though unpopular, was much more aware about image-building, PR management and innovation, which is very unfortunate. 

Secondly, analysis of the persisting ideology and rhetorics after the July movement is very important for political strategy-making. Due to democratic backsliding and constant oppression on religious sentiments, institutions and moderate muslims, there has been reports of growing far right, islamist or conservative sentiments among majority people. Moreover, the rise of populism and far right activism is a global phenomenon and Bangladesh is no exception. The political parties need to analyze these trends carefully and strategize accordingly. Anti-India sentiments and somewhat inclination towards soft islamism were important elements in the July mass uprising. People revolted against foreign aggression, particularly that of India as the previous regime was seen as an Indian proxy. Therefore, if the political parties want to attract a majority or popular votes, they will have to make clear promises on “national security”,“sovereignty”. People nowadays do not rely on words, they want to see action because people still distrust mainstream political parties due to their past records of corruption, lack of accountability and compromising national security. Ideologically, the majority has shifted towards the right. Therefore, for any big-tent political party, it is safer to promote itself as a  ‘moderate muslim political party’ grounded in nationalism, anti-corruption, sovereignty, youth empowerment and ‘inclusion’. But it is also necessary to promise solid action-plans and some form of actions for gaining voter confidence. Words are very important, so are actions. The anti-India optics will be very much relevant for a long time, at least rhetorically if not practically. 

Thirdly, determining factors that will be crucial in the next general elections. Internal party reforms, actions of political parties, level of meritocracy in the party ranks, PR and media, research cell to catch up to global trends, measurement mechanisms and statistics for political organization and narrative these will be crucial. People will expect solid action plans in the manifesto which will include solid, achievable and believable action-plans on creating jobs, post-LDC strategies, ensuring accountability and good governance, countering corruption, welfare programs which are achievable, new innovative solutions to existing social problems, infrastructure development and an overall plan of economic strategies. The most important factor will be gaining people’s confidence about implementation of reforms and manifesto. The manifesto needs to have elements that would draw people specially young voters and educated middle class or the urban youth. Moreover, the whole manifesto has to be consolidated into a single word that is catchy and people buy. For example- Digital Bangladesh, তারুণ্যেরঅঙ্গীকার, দিনবদলেরঅঙ্গীকার etc. Proper marketing strategies need to be implemented to make these ideas popular among mass people. People of Bangladesh want hope, they have a dream. 

Lastly, less emphasis on tagging politics and overemphasis on foreign power roles. Tagging politics has proved to be irrelevant and therefore parties should avoid ideological battles and rather focus on attracting strategic voters through consolidated action plans, practical and innovative solutions and work for ensuring voter confidence. The foreign power’s involvement (particularly the West) is often overemphasized in popular media while their role was limited. At best, they acted like a catalyst in a chemical reaction. The movement was organic and youth-based. These are the same youths who started the No VAT movement, Safer Road movement and always tried to translate their discontent about governance and human rights issues through social movements because political movements became too high a risk. Overemphasizing foreign power’s roles might be misleading for an objective analysis of the July movement. 

Therefore, it is important to understand the people’s demands and their psychology to make an objective analysis of the July Mass Uprising. The July uprising was purely an organic movement, led by the youth and successfully accomplished by the people of Bangladesh including garment workers, day labourers, rickshaw-pullers, political parties, professionals and the Armed Forces. Even though Hasina had India’s support till the very end as an external backer, she lost all support internally including the Army’s support which ultimately decided her fate. The political parties should reflect on these key social issues and present themselves accordingly so that people get the confidence to vote for them and elect them as their representatives. 

*Julian Rafah is a LL.M. student at the Department of Law, University of Dhaka. He is interested in geopolitics, security and global affairs. 

Disclaimer: Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.