Civil Resistance and Political Change in Bangladesh, 2024: The Perspectives of Student Agency

Abstract

Historically, South Asian student movements have remained a crucial ally of civil resistance aiming at maximal political objectives, regime transformation, for example. This paper attempts to study the Anti-discrimination Student Movement of 2024 as a paradigmatic case of civil resistance in Bangladesh. The movement succeeded in toppling the Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year regime, seen as dictatorial. Discussion and commentaries are abounded centering to the 2024 anti-regime movement. However, we know very little about who were the student group, as long as our conventional wisdom suggests that every significant protest movement in Bangladesh’s history is preoccupied with student involvement. The article intends to answer why students matter in mass-based civilian protest movements; under what conditions a student movement turns into a civilian uprising leading to the regime’s downfall. In so doing, this paper will rely on interview information of some selected student participants in the movement and secondary sources including newspapers, books and articles. The study brings to light a historically informed narrative and a theory-driven understanding of students’ agentic disposition to be the vanguard of political change in South Asia in general and Bangladesh in particular.