Above Politics

For the past few days, I haven't been able to stop thinking about a fundamental problem we face in Bangladesh. It feels as though we are trapped in a cycle of divisive politics that shows no sign of ending - a problem that has become acute following the events of 2024.

A note before you read: I am not a lawyer by profession. All the legal information in this piece — including references to memory laws around the world and to existing legal provisions in Bangladesh — has been drawn from information available online. A list of these sources is shared at the end of this piece.

For a nation to move forward, it must possess a bedrock of shared history that remains untouchable by the whims of partisan politics. As I look at our history, I see three distinct, blood-earned milestones that define us and stand as the pillars of the nation's democratic identity - the 1971 Liberation War, the 1990 anti-Ershad movement, and the 2024 anti-discrimination uprising. Yet, the persistent politicization of these events has created a climate of instability. To break this cycle, there should be a non-negotiable legal framework that protects these national milestones from malicious revisionism.

Our Three Foundational Pillars

The 1971 Liberation War is the bedrock of our sovereignty. It was born from a struggle for self-determination against systemic political and economic suppression by Pakistan, and it culminated in a brutal nine-month war marked by the systematic genocide of Bengali civilians and intellectuals. It is the defining triumph of our national identity. I don't think anyone, from any side of our politics, would seriously argue otherwise.

The 1990 anti-Ershad movement is another glorious moment in our history. It acted as the pivotal restoration point for Bangladesh's democratic identity after nine years of military rule. Student groups and major political parties formed a historic, never-before-seen alliance and forced the resignation of the military dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad and ended a prolonged period of autocratic governance. The groundbreaking outcome of the movement was not just the fall of one man — it was a neutral, non-partisan interim government, a credible 1991 election, the dismantling of a centralized presidential system, and the restoration of parliament's legislative supremacy. That is not a small feat. It structurally re-anchored the nation's governance in democratic values, and that is exactly why it belongs in this list.

Then there is 2024. And here I have to slow down, because this one is different from the other two in a way that matters a great deal.

Why 2024 Is Not Like the Other Two

1971 was the birth of the nation. Of course there were tensions in the years right after - a newly independent country is never going to agree on every fact and figure of how it came to be, and ours didn't either. But whatever those disagreements were, 1971 is still owned, today, by every political party in Bangladesh, regardless of their differences. Nobody has an incentive to disown the war that created the country.

1990 is, I would say, the least contested of the three. And the reason is almost mechanical: both the BNP and the Awami League benefited from what happened. Ershad fell, democracy came back, and both major parties got to govern under it. When an outcome serves everyone, nobody has much reason to argue about it later.

2024 does not have that luxury. It ended with the Awami League being ousted in a way this country has never seen before - after years of what many call limitless corruption, and atrocities so severe that they ultimately made Sheikh Hasina flee the country. One side of our politics carries the full weight of that history. The other does not. That is precisely why 2024 is the most politically contested of the three, and precisely why it needs protecting in a way 1971 and 1990 simply do not. By saying this I do not intend to undermine either of the two, especially 1971 for its undisputed status. However, for 2024, there is no natural, cross-party consensus holding its memory in place the way there is for the other two. Someone has to defend the truth of it on purpose - which is exactly why the question of its credibility matters so much, and why I want to spend some time on it here.

The Credibility of the July Uprising

Unlike 1971 and 1990, the July Uprising took place in a time when almost everyone has a cellular phone in their hands. Besides having numerous first-hand witnesses to the atrocities carried out against the students, protestors, and general people in the open streets, there is a significant amount of credible raw footage of the incidents. Most importantly, it has international recognition. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) ran its own independent fact-finding mission into the violence of July and August 2024, and its 2025 report is not gentle reading. It documents the use of disproportionate, often lethal force - weapons described as "meant for war" - against students, journalists, and ordinary civilians. It puts the death toll at roughly 1,400 people.

Beyond the United Nations, several prominent international human rights organizations have investigated, documented, and officially recognized the events of the July-August 2024 uprising in Bangladesh as serious human rights violations and atrocities. These entities provide independent verification that complements the UN's findings.

Amnesty International did its own video and photographic verification and confirmed the unlawful use of lethal and less-lethal weapons against protesters. They have consistently described the government's crackdown as "excessive and brutal," calling for accountability for extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and the unlawful suppression of peaceful assembly.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented the targeting of protesters, journalists, and medical personnel, and described the crackdown as a systematic abuse of state power rather than an ordinary security response.

UNICEF documented the deaths of children as young as twelve and called for a justice system that prioritizes accountability for the violence inflicted upon the youth.

When independent organizations that are not answerable to each other keep arriving at the same picture, that becomes a documented record and not merely a political claim. That, to me, is what elevates the July uprising above the level of a domestic quarrel, and why I believe it deserves the same legal protection we already, instinctively, extend to 1971.

Where We Stand Today

The interim government led by Nobel laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus organized a national election and handed over power to an elected government in February 2026. The country is, in its own halting way, trying to settle - but the divides underneath are still very much there. On one hand we have 1,400 dead and thousands wounded, some of them permanently. On the other, a steady drumbeat of denial, and accusations from some quarters that the whole uprising was "manufactured." I see it every day - the social media arguments, the casual dismissiveness, the tension between people who otherwise have no reason to be enemies. Before we can genuinely move forward as a country, I think these truths need to be settled, not endlessly re-litigated.

What Other Nations Have Done: Memory Laws

The United States, with its strong First Amendment protections, shields even offensive historical revisionism from government censorship. Many other nations, however - particularly those that have emerged from major conflicts, genocides, or revolutions - have opted to codify their history into law instead. They call it "Memory Laws."

A memory law is a legal tool that protects a society's foundational history from revisionism. Germany's Section 130 of the Criminal Code (Volksverhetzung) criminalizes denying or trivializing the Holocaust. Germans don't treat this as censorship of debate - they treat it as a safeguard for their democratic order. France's 1990 Gayssot Act criminalizes denial of crimes against humanity as defined at Nuremberg, and a separate 2001 law formally recognized the Armenian Genocide through parliamentary declaration rather than criminal law. Rwanda's Law No. 59/2018 criminalizes genocide ideology and denial of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi - a country that decided, quite deliberately, that historical truth was a precondition for its own survival as a society. Poland and Ukraine have their own versions, condemning both Nazi and Soviet-era atrocities.

These laws don't all look alike. Some are criminal statutes, some are parliamentary declarations. But underneath all of them is the same idea: for a country that has been through real trauma, protecting settled history isn't about silencing people. It's about protecting the ground everyone else stands on.

Where Bangladesh Actually Stands, Legally

Bangladesh does not have a dedicated law protecting 1971, 1990, or 2024. We draw from a few of the existing sections of the Penal Code to deal with relevant situations. For example, Section 499 of the Penal Code, which addresses defamation in general, has occasionally been applied to distortions of Liberation War history and national heroes. Bangladesh also has digital and cyber security laws, which have been used against people accused of spreading "false" or "malicious" content about the war, the anthem, or the founder of the nation. Finally, there is a constitutional allowance for "reasonable restrictions" on speech in the name of state security, public order, or decency.

Digital and cyber security laws are already heavily criticized for being used by the Awami regime to silence dissent and opposition. They curtailed freedom of speech in the most extreme manner possible and are seen as the worst possible arrangement. A real memory law - one that is narrow, evidence-based, and properly bounded - would actually be a step forward from where we are now, not a new imposition on top of it.

The Risks

Memory laws do not come without any risks. Memory laws are genuinely, seriously contested. Scholars like Nikolay Koposov and organizations like Article 19 have documented, again and again, how such laws can be twisted into tools for silencing legitimate opposition or shutting down honest academic work. A law built to protect historical truth can just as easily be turned into a weapon by whoever happens to be in power. I would be lying if I said that thought doesn't worry me. Especially in the Bangladeshi context, where we have experienced state oppression used to suppress people's voices with the help of cyber security laws, the enactment of memory laws, if in the wrong hands, can be seriously detrimental to democratic values and people's power.

So if we do this, it has to come with real limits, not just good intentions. A few of the guardrails can be:

First: Academic freedom has to be explicitly protected. The law must strictly distinguish between academic research and political defamation. Historical study involves evolving perspective and analysis. It should remain free and protected. Proper research, deep analysis, and academic discussion based on evidence and data should continue to thrive. We should always seek to understand our past better.

Second: Protection should apply only to facts backed by independent, multi-institutional evidence - the kind the UN, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have already produced for 2024, not whatever the ruling party decides to call "settled."

Finally, to prevent such a law from being used as a tool for political vengeance, the enforcement should be handled by a neutral, non-partisan commission or an independent judicial body, rather than being subject to the discretion of the ruling party of the day.

Why This Is Essential for Stability

The three pillars of national identity - 1971, 1990, and 2024 - were not the projects of any single party. They were widespread, popular uprisings. When these events are treated as "up for debate" for political leverage, it undermines the state's legitimacy and leaves the population in a constant state of ideological flux. As long as these eras remain fodder for partisan conflict, the nation will continue to move backward. If one generation is allowed to delegitimize 1971, the next will be encouraged to delegitimize 2024.

Establishing these milestones as non-negotiable principles provides a constitutional or legal baseline. It signals that while governments may change, the foundational history of the people is permanent. Without such protection, the national narrative will forever be in a state of crisis, preventing the country from focusing on future growth.

A nation that cannot agree on its own history is a nation that cannot effectively plan its future. Protecting these turning points through law does not restrict freedom of thought - rather, it protects the collective memory of the people from being hijacked. By framing these events as protected pillars of the state, Bangladesh can move beyond the politics of division and toward a more cohesive national identity.

What do you think should Bangladesh build a Memory Law to protect and honor its history, or should the government be allowed to handle its identity crisis on a day-to-day basis? I'd genuinely like to know what you think.

References

Amnesty International. (2024, July). Bangladesh: Further video and photographic analysis confirm police unlawfully used lethal and less-lethal weapons against protesters. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/07/bangladesh-further-video-and-photographic-analysis-confirm-police-unlawfully-used-lethal-and-less-lethal-weapons-against-protesters/

Barton Hronešová, J., & Hasić, J. (2023). The 2021 memory law in Bosnia and Herzegovina – Reconciliation or polarization? Journal of Genocide Research, 26(4), 399–417. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2023.2205687

Human Rights Watch. (2025, January 27). After the Monsoon Revolution: A Roadmap to Lasting Security Sector Reform in Bangladesh. https://www.hrw.org/report/2025/01/27/after-monsoon-revolution/roadmap-lasting-security-sector-reform-bangladesh

Koposov, N. (2017). Memory Laws, Memory Wars: The Politics of the Past in Europe and Russia. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/memory-laws-memory-wars/FAEB22B10B3C7E630662E6660C780B19

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). (2025, February 12). Fact-Finding Report: Human Rights Violations and Abuses related to the Protests of July and August 2024 in Bangladesh. https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ohchr-fact-finding-report-human-rights-violations-and-abuses-related

Schmidtke, O. (2023). Competing historical narratives: Memory politics, identity, and democracy in Germany and Poland. Social Sciences, 12(7), 391. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12070391

UNICEF Bangladesh. (2025). Statement by Rana Flowers, UNICEF Representative in Bangladesh, in response to the OHCHR Fact-Finding Report. https://www.unicef.org/bangladesh/en/press-releases/statement-rana-flowers-unicef-representative-bangladesh-response-ohchr-fact-finding

Wójcik, A., & Rhein-Fischer, P. (2023). Introduction to the special section 'Memory laws and the rule of law'. European Constitutional Law Review, 19(4), 591–601. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-constitutional-law-review/article/introduction-to-the-special-section-memory-laws-and-the-rule-of-law/CAE64421BF6CE013E8F1FF4F794B373E

A note before you finish: this piece is informed by the global academic discourse on "memory laws" — the practice of legally enshrining certain historical events to safeguard collective identity and prevent revisionist destabilization. I've tried to be upfront about the other side of that debate, documented by scholars like Nikolay Koposov and organizations like Article 19, who warn that these laws must be carefully built or they become tools for political suppression rather than historical truth. I don't think that risk should stop us. I think it should shape exactly how we build this.

Further viewing

• UN report on Bangladesh violence — an overview of the OHCHR fact-finding report on the July 2024 uprising.
• An ironic end for a dictator | Hussain Muhammad Ershad | The Rundown — a historical overview of the 1990 mass uprising.