Beneath the Ashes, We Rise: A Nation’s Defiance in the Face of Betrayal in Bangladesh

In the bleak and blistering months of July and August 2024, I found myself not merely a witness to events, but a sentinel on the edge of a moral abyss.

It was not through secondhand whispers or filtered news feeds that I came to know of the horror—I breathed it in, acrid and suffocating. I felt the ground quake beneath my feet. I watched, with eyes wide open and heart clenched, as a calculated assault on the soul of Bangladesh unfolded in real time.

Let the record show: this was no sudden burst of civil agitation. It was not born of public fury or democratic dissent. No—it was an insidious campaign of sabotage, a malign choreography scripted in the subterranean chambers of Langley, Virginia, and executed with chilling precision by a consortium of ideological mercenaries: Pakistan’s ISI, Jamaat-e-Islami, its militant youth wing Shibir, the BNP, and men like Muhammad Yunus and Gen Waker—figures who wrap themselves in cloaks of philanthropy and respectability, even as they twist daggers behind the curtain.

These were not revolutionaries seeking reform. They were conspirators engineering collapse. Their mission was singular: the unconstitutional removal of Sheikh Hasina, the most unyielding and visionary steward of Bangladesh’s modern awakening.

As Edmund Burke warned, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” But in this moment, evil did not merely triumph—it danced. And its victims were not just the innocent, but the most vulnerable among us: children from the streets, the slums, and the madrasas. They were not collateral damage. They were converted into currency for chaos—weaponized innocence, manipulated, radicalized, and thrown into the fire not as participants but as offerings. Sacrificed not for freedom, but for the spectacle of destruction.

What we witnessed was not tragedy. It was treason. Treason not just against a government, but against the sacred memory of our liberation, the vision of 1971, and the collective conscience of a people who have endured far too much to be betrayed again.

The date August 5, 2024, shall live in infamy—not because of any victory won by the saboteurs, but because it unmasked the boldness of their plot. And yet, amidst their orchestrated chaos stood one woman, unbroken and resolute: Sheikh Hasina. The builder of the Padma Bridge without foreign loans. The architect of Digital Bangladesh. The torchbearer of secularism and pluralism in a region stalked by extremism. Her defiance has long been their torment; her achievements, their undoing.

And so they plotted to erase her. But they failed. For you cannot eclipse the sun with shadows.

What we witnessed in 2024 was not unprecedented. It was a ghostly resurrection of 1971—the very forces who once colluded with Pakistani brutality now return in refined guises. Where once they wore military uniforms, now they wear diplomatic suits. Where once they wielded rifles, now they wield reputations. But the betrayal remains unchanged. Muhammad Yunus, once lauded abroad, now stands revealed not as a savior of the poor, but as a technocrat of treachery—arming instability with a Nobel smile.

Let there be no confusion: these men are not guided by principle. They are driven by power. They speak of neutrality while dealing in deceit. In their polished hypocrisy, they desecrate the blood-soaked legacy of 1971. They insult Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s dream of a just and sovereign Bangladesh. They spit upon the very soil sanctified by our martyrs.

But let them hear us now—and hear us clearly: the silence they mistake for surrender is merely the gathering storm.

The spirit of 1971 did not perish in the ashes. It smolders still—quiet, patient, inexhaustible. It waits not for vengeance, but for justice. Not for blood, but for reckoning. The soil of Bangladesh is not theirs to auction to foreign interests. It belongs to its people—people who have bled, fought, and died to defend it.

We shall not be ushered quietly into the night of their design.

We shall rise.

We shall resist.

We shall restore.

Not for wrath, but for truth.

Not for retaliation, but for redemption.

Not for politics, but for the soul of Bangladesh.

“Truth crushed to earth shall rise again,” wrote William Cullen Bryant. And rise it shall.

Let the traitors remember: Bangladesh is no longer the fragile state they think they can manipulate. This is a nation reborn from genocide and grief, tempered by history, and galvanized by faith in its future. Sheikh Hasina, for all her faults and human flaws, has carried the torch of progress through storms that would have shattered lesser leaders. Her commitment to secularism, education, infrastructure, and digital innovation has laid a foundation that cannot be undone by the cowardice of conspirators or the complicity of foreign powers.

And let us not forget: this is not a localized betrayal—it is part of a larger, more sinister pattern. Those who once welcomed tanks into Dhaka now shake hands in embassies. Those who once opposed liberation now write columns on democracy. But history, as James Baldwin rightly said, “is not the past—it is the present.” The shadows of our past still move among us, whispering the same language of fear, division, and foreign servitude.

We must not be fooled. We must not be silent.

Bangladesh is not a pawn on someone else’s geopolitical chessboard. Our sovereignty is not a bargaining chip. The blood of our martyrs is not a footnote. It is a warning. A charge. A call to vigilance.

We must hold fast to our truth—not for the sake of pride, but for survival.

We must rise—not with fury, but with clarity.

We must remember—not with nostalgia, but with purpose.

Bangladesh shall not be broken by cowards who deal in darkness. Nor shall it be deceived by wolves cloaked in the garments of peace and progress.

Our truth is older than their propaganda.

Our resolve is stronger than their sabotage.

Let them scheme in the shadows.

We will meet them in the light.

Joy Bangla. Joy Bangabandhu.

Source: Anwar A. Khan

Anwar A. Khan, a freedom fighter in the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh, is a political, current and international affairs analyst based in Dhaka.

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