Bangladesh achieved her independence by a historical revolution in 1971. In these 53 years of this country, people have hardly seen any normal, stable and legal way of transforming the power to the next government. Since the beginning of the regime, former prime minister Sheikh Hasina made sure to keep only the pro-liberation war supporters in the government. As a result, qualified people got deprived of their deserved positions. Such people were given the freedom of taking law and order in their hands. Free and fair elections hardly occurred. Other political parties were directly or indirectly strangled. Corruption was widespread; criminal syndicates were everywhere. This regime imposed political, social and religious regulations on the whole country which made the diverse groups realize the urge to be united even if they had nothing in common except hatred against the regime. As a result, the government collapsed even if they were the hardliners of 1971.

In the context of 2024, 56% quota was given to the freedom fighters children and grandchildren (30%), women (10%), district-based quota (10%), ethnic minority (5%), disabled people (1%). The freedom fighter quota was dismissed by a movement in 2018, which had been relegalized by the Supreme Court in 2024. Though the Supreme Court has lowered the quota to 7% because of the protests, students want justice for the innocent lives lost during the movement. The turning point of the movement was the statement of Sheikh Hasina tagging everyone who did not have any family legacy of taking part in the independence movement as a "razakar" or traitor. This made the faultline between the revolutionary and the revisionists clear and obvious.

Thermidor is the name of the 11th month of the French republican calendar. It became historical in academia due to the revolutionary execution of Maximilian Robespierre who led the notorious ‘Reign of Terror’ in France. Robespierre, in his regime, tried to justify the use of terror. In 1794, Robespierre’s speech on the national conventions stated, “If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror. Virtue without terror is fatal; terror without virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice: prompt, severe, inflexible.” In the political realm, thermidorian reaction is used to describe the decline of the sentiment of a revolution that had occurred in that country in the past. Generally, each revolution owns two sides- one is the pro revolutionary group and the other is the revisionists. MATTHEW C. WELLS, a political philosopher, has defined the thermidorian reaction as “closing phase of a revolution wherein hard-liners revolutionaries are increasingly challenged by reformists and/or revisionists.”

In Bangladesh, the Awami League has been seen as the pro-liberation war torchbearers. It has been enjoying almost all of the credits of being the party that made this country independent in 1971. This sentiment of imagining themselves the legal owner of this country can be seen in the repeated statement of the former PM when she said, “My father made this country independent.” This kind of statement sharpened the nation's faultlines - the revolutionary/hardliners and the reformist/revisionists. In these 16 years, the ousted regime virtually made the country appear like a private property of the Bangladesh Awami League. This Us vs Them attitude turned the sentiments of common people against not only the Awami League but what it represented. 

This pent-up anger was what drove the protesters to destroy statues of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the nation's founder. This was not due to the hatred against him leading the liberation war or people regretting the separation from Pakistan; it was due to the forceful imposition by Hasina and her government to make her father be the only hero of the liberation war. Undoubtedly, Sheikh Mujib was one of the greatest minds behind the emergence of Bangladesh but the attempt to make him incomparable to none was injustice to the other leaders who fought for Bangladesh.

The quota movement was a protest against inequality, discrimination and nepotism. Though there was no indication of the fall of the regime in the initial stages, the government's miscalculation in failing to see the massive mobilization of the movement that turned volatile in response to charges of being branded 'razakar" (traitor). Calling the protesters who are not the offspring of freedom fighters as “razakar”  proved to be the final nail in the coffin of Sheikh Hasina. 

There is a saying revolution devours its children. Like the ousted regime who were the self-proclaimed legacy bearers of the revolution of 1971, the July revolution of 2024 could create a similar thermidorian reaction in the future if the torchbearers of this revolution play a similar political game of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’.

(The author is a student of the Department of Political Science, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Views are personal. She can be contacted at nusratj2612@gmail.com)