Written by: SPB on 5 July 2026
Bangladesh has passed through a series of dramatic transformations over the last two years, beginning with the July Uprising of 2024. A 17-year-long autocratic regime led by Sheikh Hasina was overthrown in this uprising, which was primarily led by students organized under the platform “Movement Against Discrimination.”
The movement initially began as a demand to abolish the discriminatory quota system in government jobs. The regime responded with brutal violence, killing 836 people — including 269 students and 512 working people. Women played an extraordinary and decisive role in this uprising, marching in the front lines, organizing at the grassroots, and absorbing state violence alongside their male comrades. Yet almost as soon as the uprising succeeded, women were pushed out of the frame: sidelined from the leadership structures and advisory bodies that took shape afterward, and largely erased from the public narrative of victory, as though their presence had been welcome only for the duration of the struggle itself. This was not incidental — it reflected how quickly patriarchal power reasserts itself and reclaims public space for men the moment the immediate crisis has passed. This repression triggered a mass uprising that ultimately toppled the government. Sheikh Hasina fled to India, seeking shelter under the Modi government, and an interim government was later formed in Bangladesh in 2024, led by Professor Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate known for his work in microcredit and social business.
Dr. Yunus formed an advisory council composed largely of NGO figures. During his tenure, fundamentalist forces were significantly emboldened, and the law-and-order situation grew increasingly unstable. Mob violence became a recurring tool, wielded by various pro-Yunus forces to serve their own political ends. This period saw close to a hundred attacks on Sufi shrines and Baul akhras across the country — police officially logged 44 attacks on 40 shrines, while independent rights monitors placed the real number well above 100 — with devotees assaulted, shrines torched, and in one widely reported case, the exhumed body of a revered Sufi saint desecrated and burned by a mob after Friday prayers. Religious minorities, particularly Hindus, also came under sustained attack: minority rights organizations documented roughly two thousand incidents of violence against minorities within just the first sixteen days after the government’s fall, including attacks on homes, businesses, and dozens of temples. Indigenous communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts were not spared either — in September 2024, settlers burned more than a hundred homes in Khagrachari and Rangamati and killed at least four indigenous people while the CHT Regional Council office was torched with army personnel reportedly looking on, a cycle of violence and land dispossession that recurred again in 2025 following the gang-rape of an indigenous schoolgirl, when security forces opened fire on protesting communities. Alongside this, a wave of misogynistic repression was directed at women: reported cases of gender-based violence climbed sharply through 2025, hardline groups forced the cancellation of women’s football matches and blocked women from public events, while online harassment of women surged, reflecting a broader, organized effort to push women out of public life. Against these forces, our party, SPB, together with other left and progressive political parties, has been carrying out resistance to the best of our ability. The common people of Bangladesh, too, continue their struggle against this extremist, fundamentalist bloc.
Another defining feature of the Yunus government was its eagerness to strike lopsided agreements with the US and Western powers using national resources. For instance, the interim government leased out two seaport terminals — Laldia Char in Chittagong and Pangaon in Keraniganj, Dhaka — to Western companies for 22 and 48 years respectively. It also attempted to hand over the New Mooring Container Terminal (NCT), Chittagong’s main terminal, to DP World, a close ally of the US Navy. That attempt was blocked only through massive protests led by port workers and left-wing political forces.
Just before stepping down following the 13th National Parliamentary Election on 12th February 2026, the Yunus government signed yet another agreement with the United States: the Reciprocal Trade Agreement (RTA). Under this agreement, Bangladesh committed to purchasing 14 Boeing aircraft, along with soybeans, cotton, LNG, and various other American goods, as binding obligations. Bangladesh further pledged not to expand trade with China, Russia, or Vietnam, and agreed to accept punitive tariffs should it act against US interests. This is not a trade agreement in any meaningful sense — it is a contract of subjugation.
With the 2026 national election, the interim regime came to an end, and a newly elected BNP-led government took power. Yet this government has continued walking the same path: rather than annulling the RTA, it has upheld its terms, signing a deal on 30th April to purchase the 14 Boeing aircraft and an MoU on energy cooperation. Mob violence at the hands of fundamentalist forces continues unabated. Amid this, the need for a progressive political alternative grows more urgent by the day. Bangladesh remains caught in the crossfire of rival imperialist powers due to its strategic geopolitical position. In response, SPB, together with 12 other left and democratic parties, has formed the “Platform Against Imperialism and War” to resist these imperialist designs. Our alliance with 9 additional left parties — the “Democratic United Front” — is also working to establish left politics as the genuine politics of the people.
It is worth noting that South Asia witnessed a wave of popular upsurges between 2022 and 2025 — in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal alike. This shared regional moment demands that we seriously study the character of each uprising and calibrate our strategy and activity accordingly.
Call to Action
We propose that left, democratic, and revolutionary parties and organizations across Asia — and especially South Asia — build closer and more durable ties with one another. This should not remain limited to periodic gestures of solidarity but should evolve into sustained, structured cooperation. Concretely, we propose:
• Regular communication and coordination between fraternal parties across Asia, and especially South Asia, through consistent online exchange as well as physical meetings held at least twice a year.
• The deepening of internal, cross-border communication — not only between parties, but between the mass organizations of students, workers, women, and peasants across Asian, and especially South Asian, countries, so that our movements learn from and reinforce one another.
• Working toward joint days of action, where student, worker, women’s, and farmers’ organizations across the region mobilize simultaneously around shared demands — turning isolated national struggles into a visible, unified front against imperialism.
• Using this accumulated regional solidarity and coordination — built first across South Asia and then across the wider continent — as the foundation for building a broader global unity of anti-imperialist forces, one capable of confronting imperialist plunder and war on an international scale.
Through these steps, we can pool our experiences, sharpen our collective strategy, and build a resilient regional and global movement against imperialism and war, and for anti-capitalist socialist revolution.
Long live the unity of ICOR!
Long live Socialism!
Long live Marxism-Leninism!
