In conversation with Salimullah Khan, one of Bangladesh’s most prominent public intellectuals and a professor in the Department of History & Philosophy at North South University.

The powerful waves of the July uprising swept through Bangladesh, igniting hopes for a better future and demanding justice, employment, and dignity for the masses.

Nine-year-old Safkat Samir was a fifth-grade student in an Ibtedayi (primary) madrasa. He was the apple of his parents’ eyes—Sakibur Rahman and Faria Ibnat. They had a thousand dreams centred on him.

It has now been one full year since we lost Shoikot. But to those of us who loved him, it feels like much more than that. It feels as though time has stood still since that day. Every moment has been heavy with grief, every day a reminder of what we lost—not just a beloved brother, son, or friend, but a symbol of courage, conviction, and hope.

Uprisings, revolutions, or independence movements occur when the collective will of the people manifests as an unimaginable, united force.

Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic rule came to an end in the wake of the mass uprising of July–August 2024, which also led to her to flee the country.

It has been a year since Bangladesh freed itself from the murderous clutches of a tyrannical regime that had made corruption the rule of business, extreme arrogance of power the norm, and brutal repression its operational style.