‘No mass uprising in Bangladesh for next 100 years’

Independent Member of Parliament Rumin Farhana has said Bangladesh is unlikely to witness another mass uprising in the next 100 years, arguing that people would think many times before taking to the streets again after their previous experiences.

She made the remarks on Saturday while speaking at a discussion titled “Politics After the Mass Uprising: Crisis, Prospects and the Way Forward” organised by the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) at the Towfazzal Hossain Manik Mia Hall of the National Press Club.

Rumin said people had risked their lives during the 2024 mass uprising with hopes for major change, but later became disillusioned.

“In the last uprising, people sacrificed their lives for a dream. But when they saw that it had become the personal property of a few people, that it had created a new rise of extremism in Bangladesh, and that some people had mysteriously become owners of hundreds of crores of taka from nowhere, ordinary people would naturally think a thousand, a million or even a billion times before joining such a movement again,” she said.

She questioned why the environment of unity seen during the 2024 uprising, where women wearing hijabs and those without hijabs participated together, was not preserved afterwards.

She also raised questions over the vandalism of Liberation War murals and sculptures after the uprising and asked why the events of 1971 and 2024 were being presented as opposing forces.

Rumin alleged that a “dangerous rise of extremism” had taken place in the country after the mass uprising. “If people had known this earlier, how many would have taken to the streets?” she asked.

Referring to major historical events, including the 1947 Partition, the 1971 Liberation War and the 1990 anti-autocratic movement, she said ordinary people had repeatedly sacrificed blood but were later disappointed.